Building business infrastructure, not systems

I use the term “Business Infrastructure” a lot. And you may be thinking…wtf does that mean.

Some people call it “systems”. But I call it “infrastructure” because I feel it gives a more precise description of what you’re actually building.

A system is a set of processes, technologies and staff designed to automate the consistent result generated by a set of activities.

Whereas infrastructure is all of that PLUS the intention to scale. Because infrastructure is put in place to allow a business (or in the traditional sense; a society) to scale.

So when you approach the process of developing “infrastructure” you are looking for a way to scale a particular function of your business - not just automation.

Simply put:

• Systems = Automation (with a side-effect of scale)
• Infrastructure = Automation with intentional, measurable, and predictable Scale

Hope this jives.