Afraid of what lies beneath

At SIG, we are privileged to work every day with technology leaders in Telecom, Energy, Government, Financial Services and Logistics. I am personally thrilled at the attention they are paying to the underlying quality of their software systems. They know that they cannot be digital transformation leaders unless they understand where all the vulnerabilities are.

In the broader marketplace though, I note an abundance of press and chatter on exciting trends like digital transformation, cloud migration and blockchain, but little awareness of the material hurdles that stand in the way of making these trends really a success.

As a structuralist, I believe you need to bring things in order first, before you start using that foundation for new extensions. It is all about what lies beneath. That is less scary than it may sound; a strong foundation will provide a framework to build on and make the construction last for decades.

A weak foundation eventually be a material hurdle that is holding you back from implementing exciting new trends. And in time, the weak foundation may start to rot and in that case you certainly need to be scared of what lies beneath.

Technology leaders need not to be afraid of what is happening in the basement. There are plenty of options to shed light on the situation, and to start improving its fundamentals. Digital leaders can be armed with X-ray vision to understand their biggest blocks to digital transformation, as well as the roadmap to replace the weakest parts and to start building strong foundations to support digital transformation initiatives.

Analysts estimate up to 90% of CIO budgets are spent just keeping the lights on. At SIG, we want that percentage to materially decrease so CIOs can resource their teams on innovations.

My colleague Rob van der Leek brilliantly highlights how deep code visibility leads to better code; better code = better business.