We are reaching the so-called equinoctial moment of technologies applied to the world of business software: the incessant development of the cloud, the Artificial Intelligence tsunami, low cost and no code programming languages, the use of microservices as architectural pieces, cloud platforms of IaaS and PaaS such as AWS are all converging towards the possibility of creating new paradigms for the creation, use, distribution and sale of software in SaaS paradigma.
These technologies are converging to create the possibility of quickly standardizing business processes while also making them flexible and decreasing the total and partial TCO of projects; at the same time they will become the key to enabling the companies that use them to achieve competitive advantages both for cost savings, for the reduction and diversification of resources, for the design and sale of new, more competitive services.
The technological and environmental context can favor the creation of new startup entities based on flexible and fast structures, which can offer services in the form of SaaS software to companies, helping them to integrate them into current systems and progressively replace them or expand their possibilities. The Incumbent actors of this very cash-cow market, where the final customer ofter finance the development phases of the software vendor, is close to the end, and they can find many many problem to adapt their large, expensive and often inefficient technical and commercial structures to the New Software Business World.
There will be a lot of changing topics, in operational, commercial and corporate level. Just for example, it’s probably that in the operation the resources for the projects will change, because the technical figures will be replaced by individuals with cross-skills who will use AI to solve the technical part.
With Artificial Intelligence it will be possible to develop and dimension project plans and related times and costs more precisely, making it possible to create turnkey budget projects that are no longer based on the concept of Time & Material, who was the cash-cow classic “money extractor” from the customer budget. Margins will therefore increase incrementally compared to turnover, which will no longer one of the element for evaluating a company’s performance, becoming secondary.
The software developed from projects and business cases will be more manageable, modifiable, standardizable and maintainable and will become the intellectual property of the companies of the new world, assets on the balance sheet that will give the company solidity also from a credit point of view with a view to short-term financing both with a view to finding long-term investors with whom to develop expansion projects.
The project teams may be composed solely of Project Manager, Functional Consultant (possibly Process Consultant with extensive use of AI), AI-Based Technician capable of maximizing the use of AI to reduce the resources necessary for development and optimize the process).
The companies of the New Business Software World will have to aim to propose innovative scenarios for companies based new technology paradigma like, cloud, blockchain, microservices decentralized, Artificial Intelligence paradigms that give value to company processes and/or allow them to develop or replace outdated scenarios and processes.
Another fundamental element will be to guarantee the halving of costs and project time compared to other traditional companies, guaranteeing reliability in the implementation of the project. (efficiency); the creation of new processes based on new architectures that will integrate if necessary with existing ones that allow the company to create value (effectiveness).
The incumbent player of this so generous market until now that will no be able to adapt to the new paradigma will be destined to become extinct as happened thousands of years ago with the dinosaurs, who dominated the world and thought things would never change.
But Things Change.