The Speed of Change : Accelerate responses to uncertainty with modernized application platform

With digitalization forced into almost all organizations last year, the speed for businesses to manage change has become critical for the organization’s success and survival. Aiming to help Hong Kong enterprises achieve speed to change, application modernization platform provider OutSystems sponsored a webinar last month.

The webinar explored the role of application modernization platform to drive speed in three different perspective: the speed to innovate; the speed to transform; and the speed to advance.

Speed to innovate

It has not been easy, particular for established enterprises in Hong Kong, to speed up innovation. One of the major reasons, according to Marouen Zelleg, Senior Director of OutSystems, is the challenge to implement the innovative ideas.

On top of the competitive market for top young talents, he said established enterprises also have other baggage that weight them down in the execution of their innovation initiatives. With multiple business initiatives that are competing within the organization, IT leaders often compete for resources to implement the digital initiatives.

“Although the ideas come fast, sometimes the implementation, the roll out and getting that idea to the market take a longer time,” said Zelleg.

His observation is also confirmed from a live poll at the webinar. More than half (58%) of the global IT leaders can develop a web application in less than four months, but only a quarter (24%) of the local audience indicated they can do the same (see Chart 1).

Project vision VS Product vision

Zelleg noted application development time is an important factor to drive speed to innovation, but equally important is the speed to deliver the service. This requires a shift of mindset among IT leaders from a “project vision” into “product vision.”

Unlike a “project vision”—where the team would spend three months focused on development then tune into maintenance mode when the project is completed—under a “product vision”, the team will provide product roadmap and continuous enhancement as soon as the first feature was available to the users.

“It’s no longer about completing the project and handover to another team for maintenance," said Zelleg. “This is an on-going partnership between IT and users, it’s a conversation that once it’s started, will probably never stop.”

To support this mindset, enterprises also need a diversified of technology tools to help speed up software development and delivery. Another live poll also indicates local audience focus on only a few tools (cloud, new programming language and containers), as compared to the global IT leaders who tends to adopt a more diversified set of tools, including low-code platform and RPA. (see Chart 2)

“New programming languages and containers are definitely top go-to tools,” he said. “But they would take a lot of resources to build the in-house knowledge and skills.”

For businesses that are often competing for resources, Zelleg suggested IT leaders to invest in an application modernization platform, which provides a mix of technologies that serve initiatives of different priorities.

Speed to transform

Integrating an application modernization platform with a product vision strategy was exactly how The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK) managed to transform its Student Hostel Management System during the pandemic.

Despite a competition of resources with different urgent initiatives due to COVID-19, John Hui, CIO of EdUHK, was able to develop an initial proof-of-concept (POC) of the system in five days with only one developer. Using low-code technology from OutSystems, the POC was built covering the entire process from students’ application for hostel, inventory visibility and control to room allocation and roommate swapping.

The success of the POC allowed Hui’s team to continuously deliver the system using an agile approach, leveraging cloud computing and process automation technologies. This modernized application platform also allows EdUHK to extend the same capability to other upcoming transformation initiatives. Hui attributed the success of a speedy transformation towards the partnership between IT and business.

“No matter what technology we use, communications is key,” said Hui. “A clear communication between the user, IT team and also our SI partners was key to ensure the output aligns with organization’s need and priority.”

Speed to advance

The webinar ends with a demonstration by Matthew Wu, Solution Architect, OutSystems.

He showcased how modernized application platform can be a foundation for enterprises to quickly advanced their software to an omni-channel digital service, supporting web, iOS and Android, as well as to embrace the latest technologies, like adding facial recognition authentication in only about 10 minutes.

“Most organizations have their own roadmap to innovation. But when resources are catered only for specific projects, it’d be very difficult for the IT team to keep up with the ad hoc demands and respond quickly to uncertainty, like COVID-19,” said Zelleg.

“Invested into the right people, process and tool, so you can be ready to speed up change whenever the business required,” he concluded.