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Blog: Working and thinking from a 'Composable Business' perspective

Last month I had the opportunity to participate in an international conference aimed at CIO's & IT managers organized by research & consulting firm Gartner. Obviously, due to Covid19, the conference was completely virtual.

I was very curious about the experience of attending such a conference virtually instead of being physically present in a room, like I did a couple of years ago. In this blog, I would like to give you an impression of the conference and how the gained inspiration can be translated to the business of Pincvision and ultimately to our customers.

Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo

Given the large amount of presentations and topics, I had scheduled the sessions in my online agenda in advance with a shortlist of focus areas. Topics I particularly followed during the conference were Data & Analytics, Cybersecurity & Risk Management and Innovation & Emerging Technologies. All these subjects are currently topical within Pincvision.

The first day of the conference started with a joint keynote session. But where in the old situation with a few thousand participants in a gigantic hall with large video screens you feel a special 'vibe', in the 'new normal' a pre-recorded video was played while sitting in your own office chair. In this video you were welcomed by 3 senior analysts of Gartner who are sending their future vision digitally to the other side of the screen.

Of course it's all about the message, but still it doesn't generate the same energy as you normally get in a room full of other people. A few things that certainly were advantages was that you could take notes right away, download the presentations and that there was no queue at the coffee machine, ha ha.

Thinking and working from a Composable Business perspective

Of course, the turmoil caused by the pandemic, the changes in society and climate and the impact it has on doing business were emphatically present. The keynote further elaborated on the idea that technology cannot solve all problems, but problems cannot be solved without technology. It is based on the idea that if you as a company are able to think and work from a 'Composable Business' point of view, the resilience and agility of your business will increase. The turmoil can then be converted into opportunities and new possibilities.

3 important building blocks for Composable Business

The vision is that an organization can be built from interchangeable modules. For this, 3 building blocks are important (see image below - source: Gartner, 2020). It requires a different way of thinking about your business processes: 'Composable Thinking'. It requires an architecture in which business components can easily be linked together: 'Composable Business Architecture'. And last but not least, it requires associated technologies that enable processes and business components to be actually converted into working solutions: 'Composable Technologies'. This idea about 'Composable business' was used as a guideline in many sessions.


How to apply the information gathered into Pincvision's IT strategy

The great thing about such a research & consultancy firm like Gartner is that it can tell a great story, but in the end it remains the challenge for me as a CIO to translate this story into an actual IT strategy. An IT strategy that must continue to fit in with the business strategy that has been put in place and therefore regularly align demand with business, HR and sales. The story about combining processes, components and technology fits well with the investments so far in what I described in one of my previous blogs as the Pincvision Digital Business Technology platform.

This idea of composable business goes a step further and we are certainly not that far yet within Pincvision, but the outline is starting to emerge. For example, in process thinking you see that we make a careful switch from projects within a department to the concept of product management. Multidisciplinary teams that independently develop a product from A to Z from the customer's perspective. Also, all new initiatives are looked at the possibility of reusable business components such as the way we connect customers or, for example, establish business rules. And when choosing technology, we increasingly take into account the fact that processes must be easily orchestrated and can easily call on other services, both internally and externally.

Overall, in these 4 days I have attended many presentations, listened to many interesting concepts and technological developments. Some of these were more concrete than other ones, but I've acquired sufficient 'food for thought' for sharpening the IT strategy in the long term and for making the annual plans for 2021.

To what extent is your company already thinking and working from a 'Composable Business' point of view?

Monthly Blog Series 2020 - Written by Pincvision's Board of Directors

Blog #1: Regulatory Technology: the view of our CCO on RegTech
Blog #2: How Pincvision evolved itself into a RegTech Company
Blog #3: From entrepreneurial dream to RegTech company
Blog #4: Pincvision and the impact of COVID-19 crisis
Blog #5: Pincvision's Digital Workplace
Blog #6: Sustainable entrepreneurship - check!
Blog #7: International trade continues also in times of crisis
Blog #8: Digital Dexterity in the Digital Workplace
Blog #9: The Compliance Efficiency Paradox
Blog #10: Pandemic-proof because of engagement with customers
Blog #11: Working and thinking from a 'Composable Business' perspective
Blog #12: Marketing humbug in the Supply Chain

27 Nov 2020 at 3:00 pm
4 min
Published by:
Edwin Kampshoff
CIO (Chief Information Officer)