Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2024. Read them in this 16th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
The Power of Innovation: Unlocking a Business Revolution
By Nate Berent-Spillson, VP of Engineering at Launch by NTT DATA
Innovation is the foundation of progress. Those who are able to harness innovation and turn it into a value capturing franchise are those that disrupt and dominate markets. With each passing year the pace of innovation, and the following disruptive change increases, forcing businesses to adopt, adapt, or face extinction. True adoption, not mere surface-level treatment is key. As we usher in 2024, understanding technological investments and transformation is integral to future success. In the following blog post, I share my view on the intersection between innovation and technology and how to make both work concurrently in the years to come.
Transformation comes at the organizational level
Enterprises are always challenged with running their current franchise business while investing in the next franchise that will eventually transform the company and serve as the new revenue generator as the cycle repeats. In the last 40 years we’ve seen that in the form of high technology applied to the business and operations domains. The problem? Leaders mistake implementation with adoption. Implementation becomes a check-the-box activity applied on top of the existing organization and without real change, the very thing that made the innovation disruptive is not captured in real value of revenue or cost savings.
For companies who do understand how to leverage the strategic innovation to create new products, many times it’s monetizing a previously dormant asset to create a new revenue stream. Audubon, for example, created a visually compelling experience allowing users to discover migratory birds in their backyards and follow their travels. The company was sitting on troves of data but didn’t have the right application of technology to turn what was previously just cost, into a new money-making application. That latent innovation was unlocked through engagement with the right partner who could help them realize the value, and productize it into, The Bird Migration Explorer. A product that was able to surface that data into stunning visuals, uncovering different patterns and a sticky user experience. Audubon completely transformed their offerings, further cementing their position and extending their market reach like never before possible.
Tech-debt repayment is crucial
It’s not the debt that hurts, it’s the interest on the debt. Just like in the real world of money, tech debt interest accrues and compounds. Paying off one credit card with another credit card would be considered poor fiscal responsibility, but we think nothing of it when moving from one tech-debt laden platform and move it to the next place. Move it to the wrong place and you may soon find that your tech-debt interest rate has skyrocketed. What was cost-effective to run on a VM instance in the data center, may turn out to be way more expensive running in the cloud. When making a shift on infrastructure platforms, make sure to embrace the native patterns and drive to the lowest price point possible. It’s the same approach the hyper-scalers take for running their own workloads cost-effectively. Also, take the time to re-factor out any non-cloud-native constructs to ensure you don’t end up creating a new set of tech-debt for tomorrow’s engineers and leaders to wrestle with, as that might be you.
Technology that works for the business
Businesses can no longer use technology as simply a support system for their goals, technology is integral to almost all modern products and experiences. In most enterprise companies technology is a cost center, but in tech companies, it’s a profit center. While not all enterprises are expected to become tech companies they can take a page from their playbooks providing products that can be consumed by internal and external product teams. Start with the business problem, and then identify the technology that’s needed to support it, instead of the build and they will come. Companies going beyond the trends and transforming as a whole accomplish meaningful change.
Adapting to change
To survive the transformative wave, companies must embrace change to remain competitive. Outdated technologies hold the enterprise back, hindering their innovation plans, while traditional thinking and strategy only get companies so far. Change must be thought of as necessary, forward-thinking, and adaptable, with this attitude emulated at all levels.
Organizations must redefine their relationship with digital transformation. Businesses need to look at the bigger picture, not one-off instances. Company leaders must pivot from accomplishing transformations to rewiring initiatives that work from the core and align with long-term outcomes. Being transformative is not a choice. Businesses that can rise and meet this challenge will be well-poised for the future, while those who cannot will be left behind.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nate has been enamored with technology and engineering his entire life. His first exposure to programming was BASIC on a Commodore 64 in 1985. In middle school he took a career exploration test that predicted Computer Programming, which turned out to be incredibly accurate.
While studying Chemical Engineering at the University of Tennessee, computing always found a way into his projects. His senior project, Batch Research and Internet Control Station (BRICS), combined his work in process control & automation, computer science, and the internet, creating the back-end components and a web page to remotely monitor and control physical equipment in the lab from a remote web browser. Nate presented the work at the annual American Institute of Chemical Engineers meeting in 1997, placing third.
After an early career in process automation and controls, Nate switched completely to software engineering and development in 2002. Throughout his career, he has been an early adopter of tech advancements, bringing new capabilities to his teams.
Nate joined Nexient (now Launch by NTT DATA) in 2014, leading delivery teams and growing the Microsoft practice. His thought leadership has been featured in blog articles, presentations at CodeMash, and Agile & Beyond. His article “Going Lights Out with DevOps” was picked up as the cover of SD Times. The initial sketches for the “Frictionless Pyramid” took shape in 2022 and inspired Nate to write this book.
