Archived CEO Blogs

For a long time, the most effective way for an organization to benefit from the power of IT required committing to a single vendor’s technology ecosystem.

You bought or leased the designated hardware on which you ran the designated software and, perhaps, a compatible service or two. But when you inevitably bumped into the limits of your chosen technology ecosystem, you faced a stark choice:

Either give up on that capability you were hoping to implement in the manner that would serve your business best — or alter the way your business operated in order to “sort of” get at least some of what you needed from the technology ecosystem in which you’d already invested plenty.

Typically, technology customization stayed out of reach and businesses were cornered into the second option, forced to adapt to the technology tools available rather than the other way around. Certainly, the ecosystem vendors didn’t mind, as customer lock-in proved extremely profitable.

These days, two-thirds of all applications rely on open-source components. While open source has many virtues, it also has a key vice: once an open source component is integrated into an application, that app inherits any vulnerabilities it contains.

Further, whenever that application is referenced by other software, the inheritance of the initial vulnerability persists. The 2014 Heartbleed bug occurred in this way, and some version of this issue is likely to keep happening because most vendors don’t list all the third-party components their software relies on.

Ensuring data security can be tough, since attacks and breaches and plain old mistakes have so many sources. Often the real cause of a technology risk is deeply buried. Consider this example :

These days, a successful app saves time and enables quick and easy access to its features. It’s available anywhere and at any time with relevant contextual experiences. It allows your customer to control the interaction and offers both flawless uptime and minimal power use.

And perhaps most critically, a successful app fits both your business and your customers like a glove — something that requires app customization.

As I delineated in my last post , the payoffs can — and should — be substantial. Customized mobile apps in particular lower costs, improve employee productivity, and significantly strengthen your relationship with your customers.

How important are apps to your business?

If your enterprise is like most, the answer is VERY. And the chief reason centers on the rising importance of mobile “presence.” Without such presence, just about every business will soon struggle to compete.

Sometimes, however, not even a good mobile app is enough, because app users — which is to say, your customers — have become demanding. And picky.