An agile approach to digital transformation of large enterprises

Jolanta Kozak
An agile approach to digital transformation of large enterprises
5 min.

Digital barriers | Hyperautomation and new era of creating corporate software | Danone, Leroy Merlin, Maspex, Nutricia, Provident –outsourcing of business analysts instead of the programmers? | MVP in three months…

In large companies, the last quarter of the year is usually a time of summarizing, reviewing goal achievement, planning, and striving to manage the remaining annual budget. If digitalization and process optimization are among the organization’s goals, it is worth including hyper-automation initiatives in the project portfolio. It will help to achieve goals quickly (even within a few weeks) and stick to the budget. This agile approach to digital transformation has already been adopted by market leaders, such as Danone, Leroy Merlin, Maspex, Nutricia and Provident.

In every industry, there is a constant race for market share. Every year, the importance of total digitization is increasing, becoming the most important source of competitive advantage. There is no indication that this trend is about to change. According to predictions of Gartner analytics, in the upcoming year, the biggest spending in the IT sector will be on enterprise software. Gartner estimates that the level of spending on enterprise software in 2022 will reach US$669 million, which equates to an increase of 11.77 percent over 2021. According to analysts, “companies will invest in tools that support innovation, provide location-independent capabilities and increase productivity (…)”(Gartner).

Digital barriers

The demand for software is huge, and it’s constantly growing. However, the availability of IT experts is still insufficient, making it difficult and expensive to build a team of specialists. Additionally, the implementation time of most IT projects is very time-consuming. Developing fully functional IT software takes from a few months to a few quarters, but in some cases, it may also take years. Especially complex, tailor-made IT solutions require more time to design, build, test, and implement. This process requires not only a significant financial effort but also enough human resources, making IT projects expensive and risky. This represents a major barrier to the digitization of businesses. It is worth mentioning that just as IT systems are transforming the way companies operate around the world, the process of its creation is constantly evolving, removing the most common digitization blockers. In which direction IT software development is heading?

Hyperautomation and the new era of enterprise software development

Digitization and ever more far-reaching automation, as well as developments in machine learning and AI, mean that more and more tasks can be entrusted to machines. Quick digitization became a priority for many companies, forcing them to reorganize their own processes and extend their existing working model by a remote one. The increased demand for innovative technological solutions has led Gartner to list ‘hyperautomation’ among the most important technology trends for another year in a row. Hyperautomation is the way of using advanced technologies to automate processes, so they will become more efficient than with the use of traditional methods. One of the technologies included in the hyperautomation trend is, among others, low-code and no-code programming, alongside AI and Robotic Process Automation (RPA). Just as RPA is changing the execution of business processes, trends such as low-code and no-code are accelerating the creation of entire IT software. Gartner predicts that by 2024, by combining a variety of hyperautomation and process redefinition tools, organizations will reduce their operating costs by 30% and that “the shift towards hyperautomation will be a key to achieve operational excellence” (Gartner).

The idea of hyperautomation on the field of software development is perfectly represented by the Productive24 platform.

Productive24 is a technology, that combines the best features of no-code and low-code programming, which allows to create advanced, tailor-made, omnichannel IT software to execute even the most complex business processes. Thanks to Productive24, repetitive, time-consuming programming work is replaced by algorithms, resulting in a faster pace of digitization than in the case of traditional IT projects.

Danone, Leroy Merlin, Maspex, Nutricia, Provident – outsourcing analysts instead of programmers?

This new approach to customized, corporate software development is used by organizations such as Danone, Leroy Merlin, Maspex, Nutricia or Provident. They digitize their complex business processes (related to e.g. contract management, project management, marketing processes, budgets, complaints, purchasing and sales processes, HR processes, contacts with suppliers or chains, and many others) using tailor-made applications built on the Productive24 platform. The platform allows to model any workflow based on a diverse, multi-level authorization structure. Thus, these solutions – while maintaining high-security standards – automate business processes carried out in different departments, locations, companies of the group, or directly with contractors. Thanks to the robotization of programming, Productive24 can quickly provide the solutions needed at a given time.

„The implementation of business-class solutions, especially tailor-made ones, is associated (…) with high costs, involving numerous project teams and many risks of failure (…). In projects implemented with the use of Productive24, the risk basically doesn’t exist for us – Dariusz Radzimirski (Business Systems Manager – Topline Sales, DBS IT CEN, DANONE).”

What’s important, Productive24 changes the way of software development and shifts the burden of creating the solution from code development to business analysis – only business analysts (not entire teams) are necessary to build and implement an IT solution. The role of the analyst is to have a good understanding of the customer’s problems necessary to solve and to build, implement, maintain and develop the system itself. What are the measurable benefits of it for large organizations? If, for example, a company is trying to implement a complex, multiplatform IT system mapping the unique business processes of a given department, and chooses traditional software development to achieve this goal, it has to reckon with the fact, that to create such a solution it will probably take several quarters, and involve team of dozens or more specialists (analysts, project managers, scrum masters, UI/UX designers, web, server, iOS, Android and Windows developers, testers, DevOps, architects, release managers…). Meanwhile, at Productive24, such a customized solution will be created just in a few weeks by only a few business analysts.

For large enterprises that have been so far relying on outsourcing companies, Productive24 is a turning point in developing customized IT software. Outsourcing a costly, highly-specialized team of programmers is replaced by outsourcing a few business analysts. This brings numerous benefits such as lower costs of digitization, accelerated project completion time, and minimizing the risk of failure to a bare minimum (or even completely).

Day to day changes

The world is changing very fast. Big will not beat small anymore. It will be the fast beating the slow - Rupert Murdoch

The platform’s architecture guarantees quick change implementation and immediate adaptation to the changing strategy. Applications build in the Productive24 platform allow for almost immediate feature modifications and continuous adaptation to new requirements, which significantly increases business agility. Once the change in system configuration is made by the analyst, it is automatically available to all users of the application, on all devices (via web browser and in native mobile applications).

Custom’s software MVP in 3 (in words: three) months

We highly encourage all organizations with a remaining budget for innovation, digitization, or automation of processes to practically test the Productive24 possibilities platform. Considering the speed at which Productive24 technology allows IT solutions to be created, it is worth spending the last quarter of the year developing a software MVP that can streamline all enterprise processes and increase efficiency.

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