Legacy Enterprise Software is not strategic

Despite being involved with some radically different Enterprise Software I have been fortunate enough to be frequently invited to study the wares and future plans of many legacy systems vendors.

So again last week, with some of my EI friends, enjoying the latest and shiniest offer from a major SaaS vendor.

And of course I'll be the first to admit that most of the stuff is very good indeed, albeit rather mature and not exactly what Hugh  was thinking of when he used the term "being fucking amazing is job one!". Being very good seems to suffice for the best ones.

Core enterprise software usually have hard-to-grasp three letter acronyms - ERP, CRM, HCM, PLM, SCM, SRM. Then you have the non-core but oh so important for Enterprises like Office suites, Project management tools, email and much more.

The vendors claim they deliver a lot of value, and customers pays good money. But let's say I'm a sceptic and would question that:

First I would split your daily work at an office into two parts:

1) Add value: Create an ad, design a new car, deliver advice - the stuff that your customer is willing to pay for.

2) Make the (value adding) process possible: Distribute work, report, update, ask for updates, find stuff, search for information, communicate, go to meetings, budgeting, creating layout for your content, capture transaction details (accounting) - without which all other work would grind to a halt.

So what do the Enterprise Software really do? Some examples:

HCM - Human Capital Management: What we were looking at last week were typical HR management activities - a flurry of the usual HR terms like appraisal, vacations, hours and bonus came to my screen courtesy of WebEx. Not my usual line of activities, but with large organisations comes rather important HR organisations so I accept there's a market and value in helping those activities run smoother and take less time. In this particular demo a new UI was the main theme and how the users felt they now could spend less time doing their job. Always good news that for all involved.

CRM - Customer Relations Management: In essence a tool for the sales people to avoid forgetting to call a customer when they said they should. On the other hand it's supporting the managers so they can have an idea of "what's in the pipeline" when they're pestered by their superiors, that on their side is pestered by the board and Wall Street to tell what the future could look like.

Etc.

Office suites and  email: Pretty 'package' my creative input, reports or updates, then distribute same.

Etc. Etc.

Recognise something? See a common denominator?

Of course, all falls squarely into part 2) above, the non-value add. Only supporting the work that allows real value-add work to be done.

As 'Strategy' is about 'what value are we to deliver to what customer and how are we going to be different' one can conclude that (almost) all Legacy Enterprise Software is non-strategic.

It merely supports the old structures and ways that executes strategies and business models today, in exactly the same way using the very same methods we've done for thousands of years.

IT is powerful per se, and I'm sure the moment the minds of business can free themselves from old habits and start challenging unconscious assumptions we shall have IT that can execute the strategies and business models and make the work that supports the real work a thing of the past. 

That's when legacy Enterprise Software will be deprived of it's purpose, not merely become old fashioned or mature, but irrelevant, of no use, history, gone, bye-bye.

P.s. Special message to CIOs: Wouldn't it be nice to be responsible for the execution of the firm's strategy and business model instead of merely supporting the work supporting the work? Make the 'Chief' part of your title meaningful again? 

Comments

[twitter.com/ITSinsider]

Great post, as usual, Sig. This is the song the e20 crowd is singing. Maybe not always in harmony; maybe sometimes out of tune... but the song sheet has become a bit of an anthem for change.

Interested in joining the choir? :-)

[Dennis Byron]

I think you are just having a bad day:

-- PLM is very much involved in designing a new car.
-- Adobe software (you don't seem to have a category) in designing ads
-- Microsoft Project and similar larger software in seeing flows in a way that lets people give advice better
-- Etc. etc.

Name a business process flow in your category one and I'll name what you call "legacy enterprise software" that does it.'

Dennis

[sig]

Susan, but of course I'd like to sing - but am afraid I would insist on a different tune :)

If you read between the lines in most of my post you'd find that I am missing the 'process' in E 2.0 - yes there is process there but not process based IT that would run the process nor perfectly capture the process-data.

Still I think we have the same goal and seeing the same issues with the current state. Just different solutions.

[sig]

Dennis,

Adobe software is indeed very much involved - when people - design a car. It supports the value-add work directly, to that I agree. But only single-task, not running much of a process there.

And nor does Microsoft Project and PLM. They are supportive frameworks for the old processes: A project is still run/executed by acts of management, meetings, budgets, frequent reporting - MS Project does not deliver work orders and all pertinent information to the right person while capturing all that happens. In other word it does not run/execute the process, it does not support the value-add work directly, it support the work that is the framework that runs the processes.

There is no legacy system that can run barely repeatable business flows as is normal in any office (or about 60% of world wide GDP) - that's the point.

That will not appear until the users see the situation as it is (that the ways and methods of executing strategies and business models are way old, youngest part being 515 year old) then challenging their own daily assumptions that "this is how it must be".