Reconsidering: Can Enterprise Self-developed and Self-used Systems Be Sold as Products?
Yesterday, I saw a hot article titled “Don’t Make Products in Projects.” This reminded me of an article I wrote a few years ago with a similar view titled “Guo Zong Talks about Enterprise Service | Can enterprise self-developed systems be sold as software products on the market?”
The so-called “self-developed and self-used” system refers to a software system customized and developed by an enterprise according to its own application needs, designing its own functions and architecture, and using its own software development team or software development outsourcing company resources. Let me share a few more stories:
(1)
How is the process of an enterprise self-developed system? Take an enterprise that has not yet had the intention to commercialize its self-developed and self-used system as an example. Many years ago, an old customer joined a large enterprise group with a high salary and served as the CIO. After taking office, he recruited several capable architects and project managers from international giants and was ready to do something big. He showed an architecture diagram based on a unified technology platform and SOA ideology. At that time, there was no word “middle platform.” A few years later, that platform would be called the “middle platform.”
When I saw him again after some time, he was already extremely busy with all kinds of strange IT projects, ranging from karaoke song selection systems to project risk control systems. All these were demands put forward by business departments. When I asked him if these systems would use the previous platform, he said that he couldn’t build the platform now. Business departments want to use it tomorrow when they put forward demands today. As long as he can quickly meet the demands, he can get good reviews. Building platforms and doing architecture is what software companies do, not what a CIO should do. Later, this CIO had a very successful career development in a large enterprise and was deeply recognized and appreciated by business departments and the big boss.
(2)
The CIO of a medium-sized private manufacturing enterprise with tens of billions of yuan who I served many years ago was preparing to go into business. This CIO had held management positions in well-known foreign enterprises for many years. After coming to a private enterprise, he tried to transplant the management experience of foreign enterprises to the private enterprise through building an enterprise information system and established a set of management ideology that integrates the management experience of multinational companies and private enterprises and implemented it into the management software process.
The CIO asked me to comment on the product he made. I said that this product is neither like an OA nor an ERP, nor a project management system nor a CRM. It doesn’t belong to any well-known product category on the market. Moreover, although this private enterprise is somewhat famous, it hasn’t reached the ideological leadership where everyone comes to learn.
In recent years, the “learn from Huawei” trend has become popular, and many enterprise software products claiming to replicate Huawei’s practices have emerged on the market. For example, in fields such as DSTE, IPD, and LTC. Although Huawei’s management practice ideological leadership is much higher than that of this private enterprise, I still don’t think highly of the productized enterprise management software labeled with the “learn from Huawei practice” label. After all, enterprise management software is not like consumer goods such as mobile phones and cars that can be used immediately.
(3)
Let’s talk about the development fluctuations of the digital technology company affiliated to a large manufacturing group. This enterprise group is the industry leader. The newly appointed chairman proposed a comprehensive construction concept for a new round of information systems. For various reasons, the main route of self-developed systems was chosen, gradually replacing multiple foreign packaged software used in the past. There were thousands of technicians participating in the self-developed system, including both enterprise-owned and outsourced ones. After initial success, it had a great social influence. The self-developed system team was established as a digital technology company to sell solutions to society.
I asked the CIO (who is also the general manager of the digital technology company) whether what is sold externally is a standardized software product or a customized development solution. The CIO asked someone to demonstrate several solutions. After watching them, I gave feedback that regardless of the internal product maturity for now, the business logics among several modules were inconsistent, as if developed by different project teams, and the underlying data models were not connected. The CIO admitted my view and said that they were indeed developed separately. At present, they hope to gradually precipitate products in the process of delivering external projects. I told the CIO that such a complex product needs to be polished for 2 to 3 years before it can be called a “product.” However, currently, their digital technology company is organized in a project delivery way and it is impossible to do projects and make products at the same time.
As expected, in the following years
