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Signals for StrategistsSoftware development beyond ITCan new capabilities help drive digital transformation?

By Ragu Gurumurthy, Peter Gratzke, and David Schatsky

YOU remember how it was years ago: Anytime your team needed a custom software application that couldn’t be picked up at the local office-supply

store, it meant commissioning work from programmers in the IT department. Things have changed—now nearly anyone can develop software.

Indeed, software development, once the realm of highly specialized professionals, is within reach of nearly every department in your company. Thanks to a host of accel-erating technology trends—including cloud computing, open-source software, the API economy, and the emer-gence of low-code platforms—software applications can

be developed at lower cost, in a shorter amount of time and by less skilled people. As a result, development is spreading from IT to the business, from developers to “nontraditional developers,” and from big companies to start-ups that can now punch above their weight. Software development is becoming pervasive.

Enterprises are taking advantage of these new possi-bilities and enabling business-line staff to take appli-cation development into their own hands to develop the apps they need themselves. For companies that embrace this new paradigm and manage the entailing

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risks intelligently, the opportunities to act faster and with more agility are significant. Meanwhile, vendors of monolithic enterprise software face a daunting chal-lenge: What’s the role of one-size-fits-all applications in a world where customers can tailor-make their own apps?

Signals• Google,1 Microsoft,2 Salesforce,3 and Oracle4 have

released low-code platforms that allow users with little or no coding experience to build their own applications

• Analysts forecast >50 percent CAGR for the low-code tool market over the next five years5

• The API economy is projected to be a $2.2 trillion market by 2018,6 and venture funding in API-relat-ed start-ups has more than doubled between 2013 and 20167

• Some 65 percent of companies leverage open-source software to speed application development,8 and VC investment in open-source start-ups is growing ex-ponentially, reaching $7 billion in 2015 alone9

• The US Department of Labor expects a shortfall of 500,000 developers by 202010

Digital transformation is driving enterprise need for speedCompanies in all industries are embracing digital trans-formation. This entails, among other things, applying digital technologies to business processes to achieve greater business performance. At the same time, execu-tives are feeling increasing pressure to deliver digital solutions faster and cheaper. Staying competitive and relevant requires speed.

But of course, it’s always a challenge to bring new solu-tions and capabilities to market quickly, particularly when software is involved. Corporations are constrained by long software development cycles and formal IT engagement procedures. Competing priorities on IT teams can spawn ballooning backlogs that are inim-ical to agility. And staffing proficient software engi-neers can be difficult and expensive, given a persistent shortage of technical talent.11 All the while, the majority of CIOs—70 percent, according to Deloitte’s most recent

global CIO survey—face a mandate to reduce costs while enhancing delivery of solutions that improve business performance.12 To do so, enterprises are increasingly looking beyond traditional software development and purchasing paradigms.

Technologies converge to make software development easier, faster, and cheaper A number of technologies are converging to rewrite the enterprise software-development rulebook. Tech leaders such as Google, Amazon, and Microsoft, along-side a range of well-funded start-ups, are offering a host of products and services that—in combination—enable enterprises to significantly increase their devel-opers’ productivity while opening up the development process beyond IT, to “nontraditional” developers in other functions and business lines. Meanwhile, start-ups are significantly increasing their technical leverage, allowing them to take on large incumbent enterprises by intelligently piecing together third-party resources rather than building everything from scratch. Four tech-nology developments are driving the trend: open-source software, the API economy, cloud computing, and low-code platforms.

Open-source software. Enterprises are increasingly using open-source software to reduce the cost and time required to develop applications. Open-source soft-ware is distributed as source code that any organiza-tion can inspect, modify, and enhance.13 Organizations using open-source software can slash costs compared to commercial alternatives14 as well as development time compared to in-house development. They can also take advantage of the innovation and rapid enhancement that open-source communities encourage.15 Indeed, the use of open-source software has become mainstream in recent years, with open-source alternatives to commercial soft-ware available for most business application categories.16 More than half the organizations surveyed by Gartner had adopted open-source solutions as part of their IT strategy by 2011,17 and by 2012, on average approxi-mately one-third of deployed code was open-source.18 According to a widely cited survey, 65 percent of compa-nies now leverage it to speed application development.19 And investors see a profitable future: VC investment in open-source start-ups is growing exponentially, reaching $7 billion in 2015 alone.20

Signals for Strategists Software development beyond IT

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Application program interfaces. Enterprises are accelerating their use of application programming interfaces (APIs)—that is, code that provides a stan-dard means for two software programs to communi-cate with each other, enabling one application to take advantage of another that is already written and tested.21 Enterprises use APIs as faster, better, cheaper alter-natives to in-house development. Uber, for example, uses APIs to tap into Google Maps, Checkr background checks, Braintree payments, and Twilio texts.22 And companies are becoming more systematic in their use of APIs: Forrester predicts that in the United States alone, companies will spend $660 million on API manage-ment tools and services in 2020, up from $140 million in 2014;23 according to CB Insights, VC investments into start-ups focused on developing/managing APIs exclu-sively or as part of a larger business has tripled in the last three years, to $1.3 billion in 2016.24 Some 67 percent of organizations report using open-standard APIs.25

Cloud. Cloud service providers are continuously enriching their offerings and adding capabilities to their platforms. They are “moving up the stack,” adding services such as database management, identity and access management, and machine learning. Enterprises leverage such “platform-as-a-service” (PaaS) offerings to create and deploy applications at reduced cost and increased speed.26 Adoption is growing, with the global PaaS market reaching $4.6 billion in 2016, exhibiting a growth rate of 21 percent.27 Enterprises are shifting to PaaS (and IaaS) fast: The average company plans to allocate 45 percent of its cloud budget to software-as-a-service, 30 percent to infrastructure-as-a-service, and 19 percent to PaaS.28

Low-code development. Enterprises are increasingly taking advantage of low-code platforms to develop and deploy apps without putting pressure on their already-overburdened IT departments. Low-code platforms build on the model-driven development approach: Users interact with graphical models and configure pre-built application components to create functional applica-tions. This allows business users to construct complex applications without having to be proficient coders. Model-driven development allows smaller teams to deliver software faster. Analysts forecast a 55 percent CAGR for the low-code platform market over the next five years, reaching a market size of over $15 billion by 2020.29

Testing the limits of perva-sive software developmentFor all its benefits, turning everyone into software devel-opers is not a panacea for slow application development cycles or software budget overruns. Democratizing soft-ware development introduces new risks: APIs are depre-cated (declared obsolete), cloud providers change terms of service, and low-code platforms impose limits on customization and optimization.30 Additionally, with the business lines empowered to develop their own applica-tions, self-developed apps can pop up across an enter-prise like mushrooms—a financial-services company says it runs more than 1,000 discrete applications on its low-code platform; a travel-services firm runs 2,300 apps.31 This proliferation of apps can cause governance issues and introduces novel risks that IT organizations need to manage. All of this means that the role of tradi-tional IT is not diminishing but transforming. Enabling secure and productive environments for pervasive soft-ware development may mark the difference between successful development efforts and “shadow IT.”32

Implications for tech strategistsBusiness leaders should consider adopting and distrib-uting pervasive software development tools to help drive digital transformation. As software development becomes cheaper, companies will be able to digitize more business processes with less effort. Companies will also be able to formulate digital responses to market opportunities at greater speed. Business line and func-tion leaders will need to get comfortable overseeing app development in their ranks.

Talent leaders must expand what it means to be “tech fluent.” Employees of the future will not only be literate users of technology—increasingly, they will be shapers and even developers of it as well. This means that companies, after offering resources and training, should expect talent in non-IT groups to cultivate their own development activities and build skills to contribute to application development.

Software vendors will face growing expectations for customization. As software development spreads throughout companies, software vendors will face increasing pressure to allow for significant customization of their own platforms. Companies such as Salesforce

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and Oracle are already providing tools to build apps on top of their products. This trend will grow in significance as they continue to open their products—with APIs, for example, further embracing platform strategies. By the same token, start-ups will see opportunities to challenge and disrupt incumbents.

These trends are about more than IT—they have impli-cations for operations and for strategy as well. At a time when digital transformation has become a stra-tegic priority for many organizations, mastering perva-sive software development could mean the difference between being a leader and being disrupted.

AUTHORS

Ragu Gurumurthy is chief innovation officer at Deloitte LLP, guiding overall innovation efforts across all Deloitte’s business units. He advises clients in the technology and telecommunications sectors on a wide range of topics, including innovation, growth, and new business models.

Peter Gratzke is a senior consultant at Deloitte LLP. He tracks and analyzes emerging technology and business trends, focusing on the growing impact of cognitive technologies, for Deloitte’s leaders and its clients.

David Schatsky is a managing director at Deloitte LLP. He tracks and analyzes emerging technology and business trends, including the growing impact of cognitive technologies, for the firm’s leaders and its clients.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors would like to acknowledge the contributions of John Ream of Deloitte LLP and Sourabh Bumb and Navya Kumar of Deloitte Services India Pvt. Ltd.

ENDNOTES

1. Frederic Lardinois, “Google launches App Maker,” TechCrunch, November 30, 3016, http://tcrn.ch/2fM1sC8.

2. Frederic Lardinois, “Microsoft launches PowerApps, makes building business apps easier,” TechCrunch, November 30, 2015, http://tcrn.ch/1QPqgcc.

3. Simon Bisson, “The future of apps: How Salesforce is using low code development,” ZDNet, June 27, 2016, http://zd.net/28YfuQ8.

4. Paul Krill, “Oracle Visual Code brings cloud-based app dev to business users,” InfoWorld, September 21, 2016, www.infoworld.com/article/3122837/application-development/oracle-visual-code-brings-cloud-based-app-dev-to-business-users.html.

5. Forrester, Vendor landscape: The fractured, fertile terrain of low-code application platforms, January 15, 2016, www.forrester.com/go?objectid=RES122549.

6. Doug Flora, “Building for the open API economy,” IBM Bluemix blog, May 10, 2016, www.ibm.com/blogs/bluemix/2016/05/building-for-open-api-economy/.

7. Deloitte analysis based on CB Insights data.

8. Black Duck Software, “The tenth annual Future of Open Source Survey,” www.blackducksoftware.com/2016-future-of-open-source, accessed February 13, 2017.

9. Elizabeth Dwoskin, “Tech firms grapple with how to make open source pay,” Wall Street Journal, March 3, 2016, www.wsj.com/articles/tech-firms-grapple-with-how-to-make-open-source-pay-1457031731.

10. US Department of Labor, “Software developers: Job outlook,” Occupational Outlook Handbook, www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/software-developers.htm#tab-6, accessed February 13, 2017.

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11. Sylvain Kalache, “Tech companies pitching in to battle the talent shortage,” CIO, October 19, 2016, www.cio.com/article/3130691/education/tech-companies-pitching-in-to-battle-the-talent-shortage.html.

12. Khalid Kark, Mark White, Bill Briggs, Anjali Shaikh, Navigating legacy: Charting the course to business value, Deloitte University Press, November 10, 2016, https://dupress.deloitte.com/dup-us-en/topics/leadership/global-cio-survey.html.

13. Red Hat, “Opensource.com,” https://opensource.com/resources/what-open-source, accessed February 13, 2017; Andy Murren, “What is open source software,” Sila Solutions Group, October 4, 2016, http://csrc.nist.gov/scrm/ssca/documents/Fall_2016_Presentations/Tue_AM_1_What_OSS_Is_and_Is_Not_Andy_Murren.pdf.

14. Donald Feinberg and Merv Adrian, “The state of open-source RDBMSs,” Gartner, April 21, 2015, www.gartner.com/doc/3033819/state-opensource-rdbmss-.

15. Bernard Golden, “Why enterprises embrace open source,” CIO, June 1, 2015, www.cio.com/article/2928658/open-source-development/why-enterprises-embrace-open-source.html.

16. SourceForge, “Enterprise-ready open source projects,” https://sourceforge.net/directory/enterprise, accessed Feb-ruary 13, 2017.

17. Laurie F. Wurster, Bob Igou, and Zeynep Babat, “Survey analysis: Overview of preferences and practices in the adoption and usage of open-source software,” January 24, 2011, www.gartner.com/doc/1528219/survey-analysis-overview-preferences-practices.

18. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, “Apple, Microsoft, VMware: Everyone’s building open-source software,” ZDNet, August 29, 2012, www.zdnet.com/article/apple-microsoft-vmware-everyones-building-open-source-software/.

19. Black Duck Software, “The tenth annual Future of Open Source Survey.”

20. Dwoskin, “Tech firms grapple with how to make open source pay.”

21. Margaret Rouse, “Application program interface,” TechTarget, http://searchexchange.techtarget.com/definition/application-program-interface, accessed February 13, 2017.

22. Josh Constine, “Accel bets big on startup-to-startup APIs,” TechCrunch, March 18, 2015, http://tcrn.ch/1x1wJJ1.

23. Michael Yamnitsky, “The API management solutions market will quadruple by 2020 as business goes digital,” For-rester, June 7, 2015, http://blogs.forrester.com/michael_yamnitsky/15-06-07-the_api_management_solutions_mar-ket_will_quadruple_by_2020_as_business_goes_digital.

24. Deloitte analysis based on CB Insights data.

25. Apigee, The state of APIs: 2016 report on impact of APIs on digital business, March 2016, https://pages.apigee.com/rs/351-WXY-166/images/apigee-state-of-APIs-report-2016-03.pdf.

26. Apprenda, JPMorgan Chase & Co.: Next generation enterprise IT, https://apprenda.com/case-studies/jpmorgan-chase/, accessed February 13, 2017.

27. Gartner, “Gartner says worldwide public cloud service market is forecast to reach $204 billion in 2016,” January 25, 2016, www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3188817.

28. IDG, “2016 Cloud Computing Survey: Executive summary,” November 3, 2016, http://core0.staticworld.net/as-sets/2016/11/03/cloud_exec_summ_2016.pdf.

29. Forrester, Vendor landscape: The fractured, fertile terrain of low-code application platforms.

30. Rob Marvin, “Building an app with no coding: Myth or reality?,” PC Magazine, June 30, 2016, www.pcmag.me/a/2504907.

31. John R. Rymer et al., Low-code platforms deliver customer-facing apps fast, but will they scale up?, Forrester, August 11, 2015, www.forrester.com/report/LowCode+Platforms+Deliver+CustomerFacing+Apps+Fast+But+Will+They+Scale+Up/-/E-RES122546#endnote1.

32. Don Clark, “Cisco reports rapid rise of unauthorized cloud usage,” Wall Street Journal, January 13, 2016, www.wsj.com/articles/cisco-reports-rapid-rise-of-unauthorized-cloud-usage-1452690000.

Signals for Strategists Software development beyond IT

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