Adaptive Integrated Systems
“Adaptive Integration: The Key Concept”
Before I set out on the path of helping companies improve their competitiveness, I ran an IT firm that, in its later years, specialized in developing cost, production, and planning systems. One might ask: why was there work for a small company in such highly complex areas? Why were businesses searching for solutions when they already had complex, expensive systems supposedly designed to solve those very problems?
A quarter of a century ago, excuses and explanations could be found. Yet today, the reality is unchanged: systems remain complex, costly, and ill-suited to the real needs of the business.
Companies have increasingly specific needs that evolve at ever-accelerating speed. They therefore require systems that can adapt—that do not demand months of reconfiguration every time one part changes.
Time and again, we encountered systems that, while comprehensive and sophisticated, had originally been developed for a single company willing to invest in a bespoke solution. Later, almost invariably, that same system was commercialized for use in other firms within the sector, in an attempt to capitalize on the original investment.
When information technology was itself a source of differentiation, such a practice could be tolerated. In today’s environment, however, it is no longer acceptable.
In my profession, I constantly face systems that have either become obsolete—because their evolution is prohibitively expensive, not only financially but also organizationally—or systems that, despite being of recent design, require extraordinary adaptation to address real management needs. Such situations should not still exist in the 21st century.
It is profoundly discouraging to observe how this continues to hold back companies’ capacity to develop.
Competitive Advantage
The greatest need of companies today is to build competitive advantages that are genuinely valued by their customers. This implies that the management model—not the technology—must be at the center of the development structure. Technology should serve management, not drive it.
When managerial criteria are the driving force, the information system must be designed to integrate, swiftly and efficiently, both the data already present within the system and the data found outside it. Moreover, it must be capable of working with adaptive algorithms that transform today’s decisions into tomorrow’s practical actions.
We should design precisely what is required for business success, and we should do so in modular form. This way, the evolution of one component—or the incorporation of new functionalities—will not necessitate updating the entire system, which, in any dynamic organization, is bound to be complex.
It is also important to recognize that the development of competitive advantage today depends not only on data—vast in both quantity and diversity—but also on intangible factors such as creativity and emotional intelligence.
The diagram below illustrates the key elements that should be integrated into a vector product engineering system. If we take a moment to analyze it, we will realize that each of the modules it comprises can (and should) evolve constantly—the more it can, the better—in order to make a meaningful contribution to the creation of appreciated added value, which can be named substantiveness.
