Altimeter Group analyst and co-founder R. “Ray” Wang, whom we quote often here, wrote a new post on enterprise technology trends. Most of them will be familiar to regular readers of this blog, but here’s one that I think is worth highlighting: “Innovative Enterprises Push Forward Mostly On Their Own.” Wang writes that most vendors are not innovating and that most enterprises at the Information Week 500 event “did not expect to gain market advantage from their existing and legacy vendors” (emphasis mine).
Wang gives a few examples of companies using IT to innovate without relying on vendors:
Bill Martin, the CIO of Royal Caribbean showed how design thinking coupled with real-time analytics and on-board mobility could improve the cruise experience on the largest ship ever built. Shawn Kleim, Director of Development at WetSeal, provided proof points on mobility and social convergence in driving retail sales and eCommerce in the highly competitive teen apparel market. Dave Bent, Senior VP of eBusiness services and CIO of United Stationers, proved how a company could deliver cloud services to partners and create competitive advantage across a value chain.
Based on this trend, the best products to invest in may be those that allow users to rapidly develop their own software solutions to problems, such as point-and-click app development products.
Do You Rely on Vendor Innovation?
What about your organization? Do you depend on solutions for vendors, or are you actively seeking to create your own solutions? What tools have been most valuable?
And is this really a new development? Hasn’t enterprise innovation always been driven more by employees finding novel uses for technology and not off-the-shelf solutions?
