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May - 2015 - issue > CXO INSIGHT

Enterprise software - Winds of change

Ravi Koka
Founder & Partner-Intellect SEEC, A Polaris group Company
Saturday, May 2, 2015
Ravi Koka
Information technology changes constantly like the climate, and successful organizations and software vendors like the human species have learnt to adapt in order to survive and prosper. Currently there are major head winds in IT - Cloud, Mobile, Data and cognitive science that are likely to cause disruptions in several industries. We have seen organizations adapt to earlier transformations like PC's and internet and the one's that got ahead of competition used IT to push their innovation agenda. Walmart is good example of a company that leveraged supply chain automation and intelligence to its advantage. We also saw the rise of companies like Amazon, Google and eBay that democratized commerce and information.


The last four decades could be viewed through the lens of major IT transformations and the type of enterprise software that companies adopted.

1.Mainframe era: 70's - Predominantly custom applications were developed for all aspects of business operations like accounting, inventory and production management, payroll and HRMS. IBM was the major provider of the platform for custom applications.
2.PC and network era: 80's - Access to information on user desktops with graphical user interfaces. Predominantly client server applications built on relational databases and GUI tools like Visual Basic and Power builder. Oracle and SAP emerged as major ERP vendors in addition to IBM and Microsoft who provided the platforms for enterprise application development.
3.Internet era: 90's - Web applications, e-commerce and the birth of the extended enterprise where companies were integrated with their customers, partners and service providers. Custom and packaged applications were built on middleware powered by application server farms and web pages using XML / HTML. Salesforce.com and more recently Workday emerged as SAAS vendors for CRM and HRMS.
4.Digital era: Current - Mobile apps that provide a rich user experience and the human interaction is defined by the smart phone touch paradigm. Enterprise applications are Omni-channel and have to provide a continuous experience across mobile / web and other channels. Cloud SAAS is the software delivery model. Uber is a great example of a company with a business model powered by digital technologies. Several new vendors are emerging and companies like Acquia, Twilio, Apigee and Act-on are experiencing exponential growth.


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