The cure for what ails corporate culture

Fight software bloat

1,200. That’s how many times, on average, an office worker switches between applications in a workday. Also surprisingly, the number of apps run by the average business has grown to 187, a huge jump from 77 in 2015. And some have many, many more. But despite growth in IT over the past seven years, worker productivity has slowed at a slow pace, according to federal data, prompting the question: What good is all this technology?

It is no wonder that companies are clogged with many potentially unnecessary applications. For decades, IT vendors have convinced businesses that any inefficiencies they may have can be solved by using yet another new program.

• The rise of software-as-a-service only exacerbated that problem, as it made it easier for companies to deploy new products, without going through IT gatekeepers.
• Add in the fact that most large corporations have acquired a passel of smaller companies, all with their own unique IT stack, as well as the pivot to remote work, which seems to require a whole new set of apps, and it’s easy to see how the portfolio is quickly disappearing.

Industry experts say, behind the scenes, that most tech portfolios within businesses are pieced together with duct tape. Not all software is snake oil. But many do not achieve success in isolation. Instead, the real value comes when different apps work together. That’s why companies like Oracle have long touted the potential cost savings that arise as a result of consolidating their suites.

• That’s more promise than reality, even for products purchased through the same vendor. This forces companies to seek expensive help from consultants and more software vendors to help integrate those disparate systems.

Those efforts were clearly unsuccessful. Users are still forced to switch between tons of different systems to get their jobs done. Basic tasks still require considerable human intervention. And businesses still can’t get immediate answers to basic questions like “How many employees do I have?”

• CEOs and technology leaders have few options. Once the software is deployed across the enterprise, it’s difficult to junk an app due to, among other factors, employee pushback. Even if the monthly bills add up, the ROI rarely justifies the cost. It’s easier to let things ride.
• And that’s why companies like Oracle and IBM continue to rake in the dough from outdated software. That is slowly changing as new options emerge. But even as those companies pivot to modern technology, many of those legacy systems are still running in the background.
• Part of the problem is also the dynamics of working in a corporation. If a department is given a budget for tech, it will be spent.

There’s a shift afoot in the world of business software that promises a fix. Instead of building software targeted at a specific function, providers are increasingly trying to build tools to manage the entire process. Instead of just procurement, for example, picture software that handles everything from procurement to logistics to payment.

• This is why marketing materials from the likes of Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Microsoft now hyperfocus on the concept of “workflows,” which means integrating widely used systems under one user interface. to try to stop the dreaded tab switching. It’s basically a Band-Aid for the underlying issue of app bloat that comes from the same vendors overselling customers on stuff they probably don’t need.
• There is also considerable investment in programs that can analyze information stored in multiple core systems across an enterprise, a trend that promises to let companies finally use the decades of data they have gathered for competitive advantage.
• And new vendors are building their core systems to plug in external resources more easily. A combination of Asana and Slack, for example, can make it easier for managers to track employee work without annoying app switching.

Software is an industry built on over-promising and under-delivering. But despite some horror stories, it’s clear that businesses that invest in the right technology early on can very quickly overtake rivals.

• As IT permeates the entire enterprise, leaders need to become smarter buyers, a difficult task as vendors continue to push new payment models and “categories” of must-have technology.
• A smart company is no longer one that just burns a bunch of money getting tons of shiny new applications. Increasingly, as programs become more advanced, it takes a very strategic approach to be successful — and with that, dedicated talent to support integrations. Alongside developers, for example, IT might consider hiring user experience experts to streamline work.

Tech leaders like to say we’re just at the beginning of a long journey to digital modernization. In that case, buckle up, because the road is bumpy. And given the software industry’s track record, sometimes customers may have to prepare pieces of it themselves.

A MESSAGE FROM CAPITAL ONE SOFTWARE

Many business leaders aren’t sure where to start when it comes to moving to the cloud. To help organizations adapt to this revolution, Capital One launched Capital One Software, a new enterprise B2B software business focused on providing cloud and data management solutions.

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A MESSAGE FROM CAPITAL ONE SOFTWARE

The flexibility of the cloud helps companies like Capital One unlock access to their data with performance that can be instantly scaled. But this flexibility and scale can also create a unique challenge for organizations and users unaccustomed to cloud optimization.

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