Are some companies not geared for Agile?
“Software is eating the world” — This is a famous quote from, legendary venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz
This statement has steered the direction of multiple companies from multiple sectors, if your company is not tech enabled or tech driven then your company is bound to be obsolete in a few years time
This has drove companies to develop digital transformation programmes, appoint chief information officers, chief digital officers and now even chief growth officers
Agile is now the buzzword roaming each and every corridor in any and every corporate. From Telco’s to Banks to Hospitals to Manufacturing and Services companies
Agile is thought to be the silver bullet that can cure all including world hunger
Having worked across multiple industries such as Banking, Telecommunications, Energy and having spent millions of hours analyzing listed companies and having a few startups under my belt I can give my own unique view on Agile
Agile software development history doesn’t begin with the Agile Manifesto — its roots go back much earlier. In the early 1990s, as PC computing began to proliferate in the enterprise, software development faced a crisis. At the time, it was widely referred to as “the application development crisis,” or “application delivery lag.” [1]
Basically this meant that a project that would take 2–3 years to develop might be obsolete my the time it reaches market, a quicker and faster solution was needed. A solution that allowed for a project or components of a project to be released continuously
Facebook is a great example of this — At any given point in time, there isn’t just one version of Facebook running, there are probably 10,000
Now this cannot work for all types of companies — Imagine a Kellogg's having 10000 variations of its Kellogg’s corn flakes across the stores
The key with Agility in growth model. Is your company geared for organic or inorganic growth? But before you answer that question here is a brief definition of each
-Organic growth comes from expanding your organization’s output and by engaging in internal activities that increase revenue.
-Inorganic growth comes from mergers, acquisitions, and joint ventures.
Now based on this which type of company would experience a higher benefit from Agile? Organic
Nedbank CEO Mike Brown’s recent comments about their technology investments.
Over the past four years, Nedbank has invested just under R10 billion to completely refresh its IT stack.
He said they are creating a bank which can deliver a digital experience which is on par or better than any of the new banking entrants.
Compare this to the richest of the new entrants, Discovery Bank, which has spent less than half of Nedbank’s technology investment amount to build its full bank. [2]
So Discovery bank spent R5 billion to build its new shiny bank.
Discovery have commented that it could’ve just partnered with one of the banks and spent less but that would not align to their organic growth strategy
Having built Discovery Bank from the ground up Discovery has a higher level of Data and expertise and can easily identify opportunities and build and roll-out quickly (instead of relying on an external partner)
Other companies who-rely on inorganic growth cannot fully leverage the benefits of Agile, they are fully/partially dependent on their partners to launch new products, services or improvements with a key objective on revenue and not customer experience
Inorganic growth companies can hire scrum masters, agile coaches, product owners, developers, testers and the likes but if they are not developing solutions from scratch then they will still face the same challenges
References
[1] — https://techbeacon.com/app-dev-testing/50-shades-agile-software-development-manifesto
