Enterprise Architecture

Big announcement at Dataworks today — IBM is giving up on Big Insights and partnering with Hortonworks. This seems not unexpected and only mildly interesting until you think deeply about it. Then it hits you: Hortonworks, after digesting Microsoft, is…

How do we model architecture?I’ve just received an invitation to an AEA Webinar with Len Fehskens – The Siren Song of Linear Thinking.  Unfortunately I’m unable to join this event, but it sounds very interesting – to what extent is the practice of enterprise architecture based around simple, linear models? From experience I would say that early generations…

I had an epiphany today about a major reason open source is disrupting enterprise software. This is perhaps one of those things that you have heard so much, you’ve gone numb to it. All the big giants are still alive and kicking, however; so is this really happening? The answer is yes, however the mechanics are not what you think. It is not simply just a cost play. The acquisition – one of the main weapons that big software vendors had to fight disruptors – is losing effectiveness. And that changes everything. Allow me to explain:

In the past, big vendors bought the smaller potential disruptors and got the code and customers. Cash disrupted the disruptor; investors got paid, and customers got the new technology as part of the big vendor’s larger suite. Everyone was happy.

In the open source model, the code is, well…..open source. The value is the people; and you can’t keep most people from leaving, which they will. Cool, talented open source developers don’t generally want to work for big, stoggie software vendors. Furthermore, customers bought into open source to avoid vendor lock in, so buying for the customers is not all that attractive either. This makes Hortonworks and Cloudera, for example, unattractive acquisition targets for the likes of IBM or Oracle. Hmmm…are you starting to see it?

Allow me to bring it all together: Open source is indeed erroding big software’s vendor’s profit; sure they are selling stuff, but open source disrupted sectors are not growing at the rate their stock price needs to keep investors happy. Investors will grow increasingly unhappy, cash will become scarce and big vendors will cut costs to prop up the bottom line and free up cash… for what – acquisitions? That doesn’t work like it used to. It’s is a downward spiral.

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The search for “quick solutions” to fragmented business applications has pushed RPA investment. I’ve taken over 200 hundred inquiries on RPA in the last six months and also attended Blue Prism, Automation Anywhere, NICE, and other vendors conferences and spoken to thier customers. About half the enterprises I have talked with are just starting out either in vendor review or staging early POCs, with the other half in production and looking for the next process to robotize. I’d estimate only about 10% are in any form of large scaled opertations. And most have tackled simple processes that I define as less then 200 human clicks replaced by a Bot that access less then three applicaitons.

But things are moving quickly. RPA tools are relatively cheap. And they work fast. There is no requirements document. You can download free RPA software and develop a Bot in a few days. And who needs a business case when projects can be self-funded from productivity gains? Yet, I’m sensing that early enthusiasm has led to tapping the breaks. Here’s why?

Stakeholders are not properly aligned to the emerging digital workforce. Yes. It might take only a month to build the digital worker. But six times that to get management and other stakeholders on board. In most organizations, the number of people working for a person is a measure of importance. So when you tell them you will replace humans with digital workers they are threatened. Tech management also has a long list of objections and may resist small changes to legacy systems that make Bots work better. Senior technical leadership is often not on board. And thats just for starters.

Some bad processes are getting robotized. RPA plugs gaps in legacy systems and sometimes will delay needed system modernization. Some processes you don’t want to institutionalize by adding robots. If we can improve things first, then do it.

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In the last several months, I’ve given ten talks on Robotic Process Automation (RPA), it’s relationship to AI and future affect on jobs. These were mostly at tech conferences where the audience is a mix of corporate and government technology and business leaders. The industries represented are diverse, as is the process focus and expertise. But participants are similar in important ways. They are excited, if not well informed, about the potential of AI and robotics. The average IQ in the room seems well above the US average of 98 which is is a solid ninth in world rankings. And lastly, they all will benefit either professionally or financially from the progression of robotics.

No shame in making money. I wish I’d made more. But there is more then a hint of nervous discomfort just below the surface that stems from the removal of humans from the workforce. There are many cute references to taking the robot out of the human. This is supposed to mean that we are using humans essentially as robots, and the less we do that, the better off they will be. But the fact is, many workers today are good at the routine, feel productive, and may lack the mental quickness for other tasks. Several firms had given human names to their new digital workers as if calling them Yoda or Jennifer will make them more accepted by the people they are replacing.

RPA Targets The Cubicle Working Class

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