so you want to migrate to the cloud…
Many mature software companies are now in the awkward position of trying to migrate their heavyweight legacy solutions from the desktop into the uncertain domain of the cloud. Fortune 500’s are slow to adapt, preferring to leverage their cash-cow back catalog for as long as possible while gently testing the waters with lightweight solutions more aligned with marketing than their core execution layer. The results often paint the erstwhile-giants as out-of-touch and late to the game, delivering simple offerings that fail to successfully integrate with the evolving needs of their user base. The solution is not an easy one, requiring much greater commitment and risk than most CFO’s can stomach. But the cloud is not going away and the alternative to full adoption is to be resigned to a narrowing niche.
A typical mature tech company has a portfolio of desktop products arrayed across discrete business units that operate more-or-less independently from one another. Each product has its own cost center and revenue stream, and generally tries to align its specific strategic objectives with those of the C-suite while still accommodating the unique needs of their market. The business unit execution layer is padded with seasoned engineering professionals who know everything about the product but are often necessarily insulated (and self-insulating) from emerging trends that move more quickly than the corporate controllers care to admit. These point products evolve from being the innovative centers on which the brand was founded to becoming conservative mutual funds that drive & secure the corporate bottom line. As the business becomes more dependent on defending these revenue streams, investment in innovation drops, being replaced by M&A of new technologies and outside resources.
A consequence of this typical lifeline is that adjacent business units typically do not communicate with each other any more than is necessary in order to integrate shared core components and resources. In fact, they are often pitted against one another internally for budget and resources and the ability to actually innovate outside the constraints of risk tolerance imposed by the CFO. This effect is amplified by sloppy M&A that forces existing talent to integrate with incoming teams that are supposedly better able to innovate (M&A, after all, is essentially telling your existing employees that they aren’t good enough at innovation). The result is a mature and sluggish portfolio that functions not as a unified whole but rather, as several competing companies within the larger corporate shell.
Around the start of the ‘Naughties efforts to bundle point products into integrated suites kicked off the conversation about the most critical element necessary to the successful integration of products into coherent services: communication. Bundled suites forced business units to start collaborating with each other in order to build an elemental skeleton of interoperability across their products. Otherwise, they risked being seeing as merely a discounted box of apps. Adobe Systems was, at the time, the flagship model for this process, bundling its production apps into a single Creative Suite offering on top of which they could build interop services.
Procedurally, these efforts are reduced to minimum requirements set by product managers that prioritize development tasks in engineering. New product features must then compete for priority with cross-application integrations. A product with a lot of weight can defend its own features and push back on integrations with weaker adjacent apps in the product portfolio. Most mature companies confront this reality as their cash cows push back on requirements to integrate with weaker performers, new acquisitions, and efforts to address emerging markets. While the market often sees a company as a monolithic whole, internal politics more closely resemble a league of nations.
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