Message from CEO
Keeping it simple.
Steven ten Napel
CEO
We live in a complex world, where change is a certainty and continuous disruption is the new normal. We are bang in the midst of the 4th Industrial revolution (Industry 4.0) as it is happening, which in terms of scale, scope, and complexity is unlike anything the world has seen before.
Unlike the linear pace of earlier waves of disruption, this change is happening at an exponential pace, driven by digital accelerating technologies such as SMAC, IoT, AI, VR, Robotics, 3-D printing, Drones etc. Fusion of technologies is blurring the lines between physical, digital, and biological spheres, creating a pervasive impact on virtually every aspect of human life, in every industry, and in every country.
Dealing with this unprecedented disruption, and not to lose grip is a struggle for many, including businesses. Simply staying afloat without losing footing is no longer good enough in this hyper-competitive landscape. Businesses must not only survive, but also innovate their way forward, continuously.
Easier said than done.
How does one make sense of all that is happening around us? How do you know what is important and relevant? How do you make the right choices, take the right decisions, execute properly, in such a complex environment?
Imagine that you could see through this complexity, declutter and distil into something simple Imagine the opportunities that would bring. The legendary Steve Jobs said:
One needs to understand the complex, to derive simplicity and move forward. It’s our business to understand the complexity around us, and make it simple for our customers, so that they don’t lose grip, and can continue to move forward. With our unique blend of people, experience, and proven expertise in collaboratively creating sophisticated software products and platforms, we are proud to make this claim:
We help businesses Re:Imagine their possibilities in a complex world.
We now live in one of the most transformational periods in human history, and every facet of our life is undergoing exponential change. Enterprises are struggling to deal with the dual challenges of business model disruption, and technology disruption. Perhaps the impact of this disruption is most acutely felt by the software industry, due to its inherent vulnerability to innovation and technology changes. Thanks to a perfect storm of technology and business model disruption, there is intense pressure on software businesses to modernize their traditional products and services. Multiple forces are driving the demand for modernization of software products, which can be broadly categorized as follows:
- Unprecedented consumerization of IT, and demand from enterprises to embrace their digital journeys, and deliver amazing user experiences
- Demand to support anywhere, any-time, any-device access and availability with the right performance, security, and scalability
- Changing business models demanding a commensurate change in supporting technologies, software and services
- Emergence of new technology and architectural paradigms to support needs of the digital era
Software landscape is dotted with tens of thousands of traditional products, which still run on legacy technology stacks such as Power Builder, Progress, Delphi, FoxPro, COBOL and VB etc. Often, these products have a monolithic and tightly coupled architecture, making them very difficult to maintain and support. Very often it is also the case that these legacy products cannot support the current needs in terms of transaction-speed, event processing, and real-time data handling.
Modernization is not just moving from a legacy technology to a new stack, but it’s also about modernizing applications for the digital era.
- Traditional to Digital-Native: Traditional, standalone applications are becoming obsolete, and are getting rebuilt and replaced with digital-native applications.
- On-premise to SaaS: On-premise installations are being replaced with SaaS and cloud-ready applications using leading-edge services such as MS Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud.
- Monolithic to Microservices: Monolithic architectures and legacy technologies are giving way to micro-services and API-based architectures, and newer technology stacks such as: .Net, Java, Java Script, LAMP and MEAN.
- Products to Platforms: Isolated products are being replaced by a platform of products and services, where configurability, integrations, and functional richness to support multiple business processes, are key product considerations.
coMakeIT’s Technology Modernization services are designed to help you navigate this maze, make the right technology, architecture, deployment choices, and execute the appropriate modernization strategy. Choice of technology modernization strategy will depend upon multiple factors, such as:
- current software stack and application architecture
- target architecture and technology frameworks
- hosting environment
- resource availability
- time frame and cost
After making a thorough assessment of the current status, future needs, and also considering factors such as complexity, risk, and business need, an appropriate modernization strategy must be chosen, and some of the possible options are:
Re-host:
Using this modernization strategy, the underlying core business logic and data are left undisturbed, and the legacy application is re-deployed without any major changes, to a different hardware/software platform. In this option, usually, the middleware, database, OS and hardware are replaced, and this is often viewed as an intermediate step in the modernization roadmap.
Re-factor:
In this option, internally the software is improved, while keeping the external behaviour unchanged. Usually in a refactoring exercise, the focus is on simplifying the code to make it more maintainable, and this usually tends to be a low-risk option.
Re-architect:
In this option also known as re-engineering, fundamental changes are made to the code; parts of the existing system or application may be reused, while other parts are added, or substantially modified to create a more robust and easier to maintain application. This typically calls for major redesign of the application architecture, tends to be more expensive and riskier than re-factoring, and could involve methods such as porting and migration.
Cloud transformation strategies
The complexity of transforming traditional software into cloud-ready applications will vary a great deal based upon factors such as the current software stack and application architecture, target architecture and technology stack, choice of deployment models, resource availability, time, and cost. Based on these factors, one must choose the appropriate cloud transformation strategy, which could vary from low-complexity options such as re-hosting or re-factoring to high-complexity options such as re-architecting and replacing.
Replace:
If one can afford, this is perhaps the easiest option to implement and legacy software is replaced with off-the shelf commercially available products, if they serve the business needs.
Develop a new digital-native application:
This is perhaps the most radical, high-risk, and expensive modernization option. If the effort involved and complexity in transforming the legacy application is far more than what is entailed in building a new digital-native application, and when the potential rewards outweigh the costs and risks, then this could be the preferred modernization option.
News you can use
Eurozone unemployment lowest since 2009 as GDP growth remains robust
Eurozone economies are firing on all cylinders, and growth is back up to levels not seen since 2011, and unemployment in the Eurozone has hit its lowest level since January 2009.
Australian economy has been recession-free for 25 years
Will Australia’s ‘miracle economy’ keep on winning? If there was a podium for economic success, this is a country that would be bending forward to accept the award. More than 25 years of uninterrupted growth is a remarkable achievement.
India Jumps Doing Business Rankings with Sustained Reform Focus
India for the first time moved into the top 100 in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business global rankings on the back of sustained business reforms over the past several years. This was announced by the World Bank Group’s latest Doing Business 2018: Reforming to Create Jobs report. The report also recognizes India as one of the top 10 improvers in this year’s assessment, having implemented reforms in 8 out of 10 Doing Business indicators.
Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2017 to be held in Hyderabad, November 28-30
United States and India will co-host the 2017 Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES), which will be held between November 28-30 in Hyderabad, India. The theme of the summit will be Women First, Prosperity for All, highlighting the critical role women play in fostering global growth and prosperity. Ivanka Trump, Advisor to the President, will lead the U.S. delegation.
GST a tectonic shift, takes India closer to 8% plus growth, says World Bank
“Today India is at the brink of a possibility of moving into 8 percent plus growth rate. Why? Because India has made a very bold step in integrating internally its nation into one market. So the shift into Goods and Services Tax (GST) is a tectonic shift,” World Bank Country Head in India Junaid Ahmad said at an industry event.
Analyst Corner
Gartner: Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2018
“Gartner’s top 10 strategic technology trends for 2018 tie into the Intelligent Digital Mesh. The intelligent digital mesh is a foundation for future digital business and ecosystems,” said David Cearley, VP and Gartner Fellow. “IT leaders must factor these technology trends into their innovation strategies or risk losing ground to those that do.”
McKinsey: A roadmap for a digital transformation
No insurance company has yet completed a digital transformation – one that fully harnesses the power of digital technology to rethink every aspect of the organization. But a number of carriers are making remarkable progress, indicating the direction others should take.
Accenture: Modernization in the digital era, IT at an inflection point
To compete against digital disrupters, existing IT must be brought up to speed. Time for a fresh approach.
coMakeIT Blog Digest
co-Innovation can help software businesses overcome growth challenges
Software-driven businesses are using co-Innovation strategies to overcome acute skill shortages, and drive growth.
ISVs must make the leap from software products to digital platforms
Software-driven businesses must make the leap from building traditional software products to becoming complete digital platform vendors.
Cloud is no longer disruptive, it is the new normal
In the digital era, every software product will be delivered only as a service, and cloud will no longer be considered as disruptive, but will become the new normal.
Is Automation going to replace thinking humans?
Automation will lead to reinvention and innovation, but not extinction, and human effort and thinking traits such as innovation and creativity will become even more valuable.
Big-bang IT projects are dead
Project-driven, transformational ICT initiatives are doomed to fail. An incremental, evolutionary, collaborative, product-driven approach will deliver rapid innovation, and help avoid the pitfalls of cost overruns and catastrophic ICT project failures.
Customer Buzz
Chevin Fleet Solutions is Derbyshire Business of the Year
We are thrilled to share that, Chevin Fleet Solutions is recognized by the East Midlands Chamber as the Derbyshire Business of the Year. Chevin is a leading provider of enterprise fleet management solutions, serving customers across 120 nations, and its flagship product FleetWave is used to manage more than a million vehicles. Chevin is growing at a furious pace, increased its revenues by more than 50% in 2016, and is fast expanding its international footprint across Europe, Middle East, North America, and Australia.
Keylane acquires Schantz and Bridgevest
Keylane, one of our long-standing customers (our relationship is a decade old!), and a leading provider of software solutions to the European Insurance & Pension industry made two new acquisitions in 2017. In April, Keylane acquired Schantz, a recognized leader in the Danish market providing software solutions to financial institutions. In October, Keylane acquired Bridgevest, a market leader in the Netherlands in the area of digital customer services for the pension sector.
Planon recognised as leader in the Green Quadrant® IWMS
Planon, a global leader in real estate and facility management software, and one of our anchor customers for the past 10 years, is recognized as a “Leader” in the Verdantix 2017 Green Quadrant® Integrated Workplace Management Systems (IWMS). Planon, which currently serves more than 2000 customers across the world, continues to grow at an impressive pace. It recently added California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, in the US and SPIE Deutschland & Zentraleuropa in Germany to its fast growing list of marquee customers.
Completes 100% acquisition of EduArte, the digital learning platform for MBO in the Netherlands
Iddink Group the leading provider of educational services in the Netherlands, completed 100% acquisition of EduArte, a digital learning platform for MBO, which is the senior secondary vocational education and training diploma in the Dutch educational system. Iddink, which acquired majority control in 2015, gained full control of EduArte in September 2017. Iddink serves more than two million students and teachers across Netherlands, and Belgium, and is fast expanding its footprint in Spain.
News about coMakeIT
New customer wins: We are happy to share that in the past six months, there are two new additions to our customer landscape, Vision Planner, and Thermeon. Vision Planner, is a fast-growing provider of financial reporting software, based in Veenendaal, Netherlands. Thermeon, is a UK-based company providing car rental and reservation solutions to car rental companies across the world. Thermeon’s core product CARS+ is the preferred solution for car rental companies and independent operators across forty countries and six continents.
Gurava Induri strengthens management team: Gurava, popularly known as IG has joined coMakeIT’s management team, as EVP solutions engineering. Over the course of his long, distinguished career, IG has a stellar track record of enabling customer success across diverse domains. IG will focus on applying his insights into various domains, product management and solution engineering expertise to help craft leading-edge solutions for coMakeIT’s customers. Prior to coMakeIT, IG held leadership roles and enabled growth of various technology companies such as BaaN (Infor), Cordys (OpenText), Applabs (CSC), and Alliance Global (EPAM).
Expanded facilities: To enable growth of our current customer teams, and also cater to our future growth needs, we have expanded our capacity at My Home Hub (MHH), Hyderabad, India by adding another 150-seater on the 6th floor to our existing infrastructure on the 7th floor. With this expanded facility, excepting Planon, all our customer teams along with the bulk of our shared services team are under a single roof at MHH.
Launch of TaRAnG, a cultural initiative by HR: Given coMakeIT’s unique model of customer-owned teams, it is only natural that employees have more affinity with the customer than with us. But, all of them still share a common bond with coMakeIT. Recognizing this fact, we launched a new initiative TaRAnG (Tap to the Rhythm of Arts and Games), aimed towards cultivating acommon culture that will reflect coMakeIT’s core values and sense of purpose. We also want this initiative to be a forum to enable, host, and share exciting, stimulating, and fun experiences. Some of the activities initiated by TaRAnG are:
Wall-of-Art: Splash the color, sketch a painting, be a Picasso and create a masterpiece is the drive behind wall-of-art, which provided a showcase for our employees to indulge in their passion and show off their creativity. This is a continuous and rolling initiative, and the art works produced are displayed on the office walls prominently. To make it a little exciting, we also promoted a People’s Choice contest, in which all employees will choose a favourite art work through popular vote.
We Care: On the festive occasion of Diwali (festival of lights), a group of people from coMakeIT chose to share the festival cheer with special needs children. They visited Shraddha & Saaburi School for special needs kids in Hyderabad, and spent some quality time with these wonderful children by painting, singing, and dancing with them. It is an eye opener for us to discover the enthusiasm, and talents of these kids who are really special. We placed a wish-tree at the school and once it is filled by the kids, we hope to fulfil them through contributions from our employees.
We also conducted some more fun activities such as Paper costume competition, Singers Unplugged Resonance, in addition to celebrating various festivals such as Ramadan, Ganesh, Dusshera and Diwali. Browse this album to view some amazing photos of various TaRAnGactivities.