Rebalancing Your IT Budget in the Pandemic Recession - ebook Oriana International Learning Center
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ebook
Oriana International
Learning Center
The Case for Prescriptive Low-Code in ‘20/21
Rebalancing Your IT Budget in the
Pandemic Recession
Table of contents
Executive Summary Page 3 Prescriptive Low-Code Page 18
The Power of Blocks Page 19
What is a low-code platform? Page 20
One size does not fit all Page 4
Prescriptive Low-Code in Action Page 21
Potential savings and cutbacks Page 5 Using Prescriptive Low-Code
Page 22
to help rebalance your IT budget
Renegotiation of software
licenses and maintenance Page 6
agreements
About Oriana Page 24
Consolidation of COTS and
SaaS products to eliminate Page 8
redundancy
Postponing or cutting back
Page 10
non-essential projects
Reducing back-office
Page 12
project spending
Supplier risk and performance
Page 14
management
Delay or Re-scope Finance
Page 16
Modernization Projects
www.orianaworld.com 2
Executive Summary
As a result of the pandemic crisis and government-imposed
lockdowns, businesses face the steepest recession since the
1930s. Hopes of a “V-shaped recovery” have dwindled, as in most
countries, attempts to unshutter the economy have sent infection
rates soaring.
As a result, many CIOs need to make deep cuts to their IT budgets.
But, leading global research and advisory firm,
1
Forrester, tells us such rebalancing will depend on what mode your
organization is in—survival, adaptive, or growth.
In this eBook, we look at several savings tactics and propose an
approach to help application development and delivery teams
deliver more with less.
Rather than making swingeing cuts to headcount, we believe it’s
time to equip software development teams with a new approach.
It’s opinionated, prescriptive, but sufficiently flexible to deliver
custom solutions. Moreover, by promoting the reuse of pre-tested
and proven building blocks, this approach will help you get to
market significantly faster with fewer resources compared to
traditional hand-coding.
1 Where To Adjust Tech Budgets In The Pandemic Recession, Forrester Research, Inc., May 2020 www.orianaworld.com 3
One size does not fit all
Different business sectors have felt the economic impact of the
pandemic crisis to varying degrees. And organizations with lagging Growth: For a select range of industries, the crisis has presented
digital maturity are suffering worse still. growth opportunities. Most food retailers, for instance, see
increased basket size, as consumers stay away from restaurants.
Your organization will be in one of three modes, survival, adaptive, Pharmaceutical and medical equipment companies have stronger
or growth. demand for their products, as do cloud infrastructure providers that
help people work from home.
If your business is in mode 1 or 2, IT will inevitably be required to
trim its budget. And even organizations in growth mode may need
to make savings in one area to release funding for growth priorities
elsewhere.
The guidance in this eBook is, therefore, potentially of assistance
even to growth businesses but is most relevant for those that
need to make more significant IT savings.
Adaptive: Organizations in this category are not at risk of
imminent failure. But their traditional business model has been
disrupted. Although revenues may have dropped, demand for their
products or service remains reasonably buoyant. With adaptation,
these kinds of businesses—including certain manufacturers,
professional services, and financial services firms expect to survive.
Survival: It’s not difficult to see who’s suffering the worst.
Businesses in the travel, leisure, hospitality sectors, and discretion-
ary retail have seen massive revenue declines. For these firms, the
continuing recession is an existential threat.
www.orianaworld.com 4Potential savings and cutbacks
As a low-code platform provider, the guidance in this eBook primarily relates to application development, where faster delivery can
make a difference. Those tactics fall under six headings:
Renegotiation of software licenses Consolidation of COTS and SaaS Postponing or cutting back
and maintenance agreements products to eliminate redundancy non-essential projects
Reducing back-office Supplier risk and performance Delay or Re-scope Finance
project spending management Modernization Projects
1
Forrester’s report, “Where To Adjust Tech Budgets In The Pandemic Recession”, provides detailed guidance on IT spending and potential
saving. We encourage readers to access that report for more details.
1 Where To Adjust Tech Budgets In The Pandemic Recession, Forrester Research, Inc., May 2020 www.orianaworld.com 5Renegotiation of software licenses and maintenance agreements
Renegotiation of software licenses
and maintenance agreements
There are several tactics you can take when renegotiating software In this situation, we advocate exploring how quickly you could
license and maintenance agreements. Most SaaS licenses are per rebuild the business-critical capabilities of that SaaS product
user. Make sure you’re not paying for seats you no longer need. using a low-code application development platform.
Are you using all features and modules of the software? Perhaps The goal here would be to build what you genuinely need. Bells and
configuration and roll-out plans have changed, and your organi- whistles can come later. The chances are that your business only
zation will not use aspects of the software until later than initially uses a limited scope of the full functionality provided by packaged
planned? solutions.
Such under-use would certainly be grounds to have a conversation While the generally perceived business sense is not to custom build
with the software vendor. Might they be prepared to stagger the capabilities that you can buy off-the-shelf, this build versus buy
license cost to reflect the features and benefits you will use this paradigm is changing rapidly. The high speed of development made
year versus next year and the year beyond? possible by the Oriana low-code application development platform,
Maintenance agreements for low-risk, stable applications may amongst others, accounts for this change.
have to be suspended if discounts are not offered. However, be
wary of punitive terms should you need to renew such agree-
ments.
Attempting to negotiate changes to software license and mainte- Visit our customer case studies page to learn
nance agreements is much easier if the vendor believes there’s a about companies that decided to build rather
risk of loss. For businesses in survival mode, that risk is easy to than buy applications including HR, CRM, finance,
convey. customer service, and complaints
management.
For businesses in adaptive mode, it may be harder to convince the
vendor to be flexible, which brings us back to the vendor’s fear of Visit our website
loss.
www.orianaworld.com 7Consolidation of COTS and SaaS products to eliminate redundancy
Consolidation of COTS and SaaS
products to eliminate redundancy
COTS and SaaS redundancy is a common phenomenon—where an A proof of concept assignment would be an excellent way to
organization has multiple applications that include partially investigate this option with a low-code vendor.
overlapping capabilities.
Organizations should identify under-used applications and
consolidate where possible. You might be able to transition users
from one product to another, thereby canceling software licenses
and saving precious budget.
One of the most common use cases for low-code application
platforms is the augmentation of COTS and SaaS applications. If
you identify situations where two or more products are used
because one alone is a 70% to 90% fit, consider building the
missing functionality using the integration and rapid application
development capabilities of a low-code platform.
You could score a quick win and be able to terminate such bolt-on Request now
applications more quickly than you thought.
The same argument as before applies. It's worth exploring how
quickly you could achieve such augmentation before negotiating
with your vendors.
www.orianaworld.com 9Postponing or cutting back non-essential projects
Postponing or cutting back
non-essential projects
New projects are in the cross wires for cancelation, scope reduc- A low-code application development platform abstracts
tion, or delay. A business in survival mode is likely to have to cancel complexity so that less highly trained developers can configure
all projects except those critical to survival. For businesses in enterprise-grade applications with little or no coding.
adaptive mode, prioritization will be more nuanced. Projects
associated with immediate adaptation will be prioritized at the Although so-called “citizen development” is only recommended
expense of anything of longer-term value. When weighing the for non-business-critical departmental apps, with a low-code
merits of projects, it would be a good time to explore alternative platform, you could successfully co-opt business analysts,
development methods and delivery models. designers, testers, and business super-users into an extended
development team.
By adopting a low-code application development platform, two
constraints will change: IT still needs to guide. But, a low-code application development
- The amount of professional development effort required project might need just one professional IT developer providing
- The nature of those development resources. oversight and integration support for a team of business
analysts and non-professional developers.
Development Time
In this way, your IT resources can go further. Ensure your
Projects that deliver payback inside the current financial year are highly-skilled software engineers are devoted to challenges
defendable. If by using a low-code application development only they can solve.
approach, you reduce delivery from six months to two months or
less, suddenly projects survive that you would otherwise have
killed.
Types of Developers
Although outsourced development is an option, in the current
economy, a more attractive option is to expand your developer pool
from existing staff.
www.orianaworld.com 11Reducing back-office project spending
Reducing back-office
project spending
Businesses in survival and adaptive mode are likely to reduce
back-office IT project spending significantly. Digitalization is the
priority—implementing solutions that serve customers whose
location, needs, and preferences are changing.
So, long as the back-office processes don’t break down, it’s likely to
be a case of workarounds and make-do.
However, this binary view of front-office versus back-office is
oversimplified. Digital customer service scenarios may mean that
back-office staff also need new tools and processes.
Organizations that adopt low-code application development
should expect to deliver back-office projects around 5x faster.
Not only will they save significant development costs, they will
have more agility when new back-office requirements arise.
In section 4, “Prescriptive Low-Code,” we’ll share details of
prebuilt, fast to adapt building blocks that you can tailor in a matter
of days to address common back-office process improvement
requirements.
www.orianaworld.com 13Supplier risk and performance management
Supplier risk and performance
management
Although supplier management is a back-office function, depend- The specter of “deglobalization” described recently by the Economist,
ing on your industry sector, cutbacks in this area could be short- may mean that finding new—and more local—suppliers could be a
sighted. higher priority for certain businesses in the period ahead.
Service industries are unlikely to face short term threats as a result In section 4, “Prescriptive Low-Code,” we’ll share details of prebuilt,
of supplier performance issues. In the short-term, they are unlikely fast to adapt building blocks that you can tailor in a matter of days to
to justify new projects in this area. address common purchasing and supplier management require-
ments.
But, manufacturers and retail organizations could be severely
affected by supply chain challenges caused by the COVID crisis.
For example, there have been numerous COVID-19 outbreaks at
food processing plants. Resulting shutdowns, even if short term,
severely disrupt food retailers.
Component manufacturers could become weak links in the
manufacturing supply chain, should their production be disrupted
due to social distancing measures or temporary shutdowns.
Businesses that face an existential threat from the disruption of
their just-in-time supply chain would be well advised to prioritize
investment in supplier risk and performance management
programs. As a result, they may be better able to predict and
remediate problems, and where necessary, onboard new
suppliers more quickly and successfully.
www.orianaworld.com 15Delay or Re-scope Finance Modernization Projects
Delay or Re-scope Finance
Modernization Projects
Finance modernization, like most back-office programs, is likely to The inappropriate use of spreadsheets is a significant contributor to
receive less attention while over-stretched IT resources focus on business risk and employee stress. Fragile data is just a keystroke
the digitalization priorities for survival or adaptive. from loss. The manual effort needed to manipulate such systems is
neither fulfilling nor time-efficient.
Most finance projects have a pretty poor reputation for agility. ERP
Implementations often take twelve months, and even version With low-code, you can either augment finance applications so that
upgrades can take six months, presenting two problems in the spreadsheet kludges are not necessary, or you can turn spread-
current economy: sheets into secure and efficient systems.
Payback inside the current financial year is unlikely By managing the data in an appropriate database, you prevent the
risk of data loss. Workflow capabilities add structure and efficiency,
Urgent changes—needed to support new business eliminating many manual steps and emails that typically make
models, digital initiatives, and an increasing proportion spreadsheet workarounds so miserable for employees.
of finance staff working from home—will be hard to
deliver at the pace the business requires. In section 4, “Prescriptive Low-Code,” we’ll share details of prebuilt,
fast to adapt building blocks that you can tailor in a matter of days to
address everyday finance and controlling requirements.
Often such situations are remedied by spreadsheet kludges that
require much manual effort by finance staff. For businesses in
survival mode, without the luxury of spare workforce capacity, such
inefficient work methods are no longer an option.
Read our use cases
This returns our attention to two of the most common use cases
for low-code —spreadsheet killing and augmentation of COTS
and SaaS applications.
www.orianaworld.com 17Prescriptive low-code
All of the savings tactics described above require IT to consider
how they can deliver faster with fewer highly skilled developers.
Low-code and specifically prescriptive low-code application
development platforms offer this potential. Let's start with some
definitions.
What is a low-code platform?
Low-code development platforms provide a development Read Now
environment to create application software through graphical user
1
interfaces and configuration instead of traditional hand-coding.
Practically speaking, low-code development should enable various
roles to collaborate with IT to develop software solutions. Thanks
What is Prescriptive Low-Code?
to visual modeling and design, low-code projects should be quick to Prescriptive low-code development platforms combine the benefits
start, requiring minimal upfront investment in setup, training, and of low-code with application components and built-in architecture.2
deployment. Low-code development is faster than hand-coding for
a whole variety of reasons: Application components are self-contained modules that users
Process models can be turned into functioning systems combine to create applications
automatically Built-in architecture underlies all applications, fostering application
integrity, performance, and updates and change.
Closer collaboration between business stakeholders, analysts, and
developers
Reuse of prebuilt components and widgets reduce the time spent Practically speaking, prescriptive low-code platforms combine the
on UI development advantages of rapid, visual development with prebuilt packaged
Deployment/DevOps capabilities built into the platform. applications, or application building blocks. And those building blocks
are architected to fit together well, reducing development and
deployment efforts.
1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-code_development_platform
www.orianaworld.com 18
2 New “Prescriptive” Low-Code Segment Emerging - Forrester Research, Inc., November 2019The Power of Blocks
In the case of the Oriana Platform, prescriptive low-code capabilities The value of blocks is that they further speed-up the pace of application
include “Application Templates ”and Predefined “Building Blocks” as development. Rather than starting on a blank canvas, developers gain a
illustrated in the schematic diagram. head start from a block or a series of interconnected blocks.
OEM / ISV Producs Nevertheless, developers can use the full power of the Oriana Studio to
customize the functionality of the application, including changes to the
Application Templates contents of any blocks.
HCM, Approvals, etc.
Screen Level Block
Pre-Defined or Developed Panel level blocks
Building Blocks Workflow (sub-workflows)
Stored procedures level
NO-CODE
Platform Studio Capabilities
LOW-CODE
Platform Development Capabilities
Platform Level Integrations
Message Queue, Exchange, Webservice Capabilities Image Source: Forrester Research, New “Prescriptive” Low-Code Segment Emerging,
November 12th 2019.
Schematic Diagram: Oriana Prescriptive Low-Code Application
Development Platform Low-code is fast.
Application Blocks are interoperable and open source. They contain
fully working functions, such as workflow handling, task assignment, But reusable components
dashboards, timelines, lists, contact management, rights manage-
ment, and document control. Customers can import blocks into their makes it faster.
own application with just a few clicks, and then customize them. Mark Downey - Business Development Manager at Oriana
www.orianaworld.com 19Building on Blocks
Business Application Templates
What is a low-code platform?
Building bespoke business solutions with Oriana’s low-code
platform is made even faster thanks to business application
templates.
Business application templates are accelerators, built from
reusable blocks that have been assembled and configured
to work together.
You can use and adapt business application templates to accelerate
the delivery of bespoke business solutions.
Our library of business application templates includes:
Tender Management
HR
CRM
Service Management
Project Management
Mobile Workforce Management
More details of these business application
Document Management Check now
templates are available on our website.
Contract Management
Procurement
www.orianaworld.com 20Prescriptive Low-Code in Action
Midsized Insurance Company Transforms HR Processes
Sales Support Application Complaints Management Solution
A multinational utility company used Oriana to build a custom sales A European state-owned bank used Oriana to transform its
support application used by over 1,000 employees. From campaign complaints and requests processes. By connecting 13 back-office
configuration to recording results from home visits, the new systems and automating workflows, the company saves hundreds
system has accelerated the sales process and is now the primary of hours for employees and serves customers more quickly.
system to support campaigns
Learn more Learn more
Customer Service Solution
A government body used Oriana to build a workflow and knowledge
management solution used in their contact center. Now 75
customer service staff resolve calls faster, handling over 1.2 million
calls per year. Work is now easier, resulting in a 70 percent saving
when training new staff.
Learn more
www.orianaworld.com 21Using Prescriptive Low-Code In section three, we explored six cost-cutting tactics that IT leaders
may have to consider in response to the pandemic recession. And in
section four, we introduced the concepts of prescriptive low-code,
to help rebalance your IT budget reusable blocks, and business application templates. Pulling this
together, here’s an action plan for exploring how prescriptive low-code
could help you rebalance your IT budget.
Renegotiate Software Consolidate COTS and Postpone or Cut Back
License and Maintenance SaaS Products To Non-essential Projects
Agreements Eliminate Redundancy
Make sure you’re not paying for seats you Audit your COTS and SaaS software portfolio Engage with a low-code vendor like Oriana
no longer use. to identify overlaps and low usage areas. to explore how a low-code application
Strengthen your negotiating position by Investigate how a low-code platform like approach could shorten delivery times and
proving your ability to walk away from your Oriana could be used to augment or replace reduce developer resource requirements.
legacy software provider. packaged software. By reducing your time and resource
To do this, engage with a prescriptive A brief, no-obligation proof of concept will constraints, better decisions can be made
low-code vendor like Oriana to do a brief, quickly illustrate potential cost savings. for which projects to retain and prioritize.
no-obligation proof of concept.
At the least, we’ll strengthen your hand
But, perhaps once you see the improved
agility that a platform like Effector gives
you, and the price-point, you’ll adopt a
low-code approach.
www.orianaworld.com 22Using Prescriptive Low-Code
to help rebalance your IT budget
Reduce Back-office Supplier Risk and Delay or Re-scope
Project Spending Performance Management Finance Modernization
Projects
Rather than cut headcount and slash project If you're in an industry with increasing levels If finance modernization has to “go on the
delivery, explore how you can cut delivery time of supply chain risk, this area may need back burner,” be wary of spreadsheet
to reduce costs. more focus. kludges, which are inefficient, fragile, and
Oriana is a specialist low-code vendor focused Businesses that need to monitor supplier drain employee morale.
on back-office solutions. performance and onboard new suppliers Investigate how a prescriptive low-code
Our reusable blocks and business application may benefit from project management, platform like Oriana could be used to
templates can help you deliver back-office contract, and procurement modules that we augment the financial systems that you
applications faster. provide as pre-configured business have, and turn spreadsheet kludges into
By adopting a prescriptive low-code application application templates. efficient, robust systems that will boost
development platform you may be able to You can quickly customize these templates productivity.
rapidly replace selected legacy back-office to your specific requirements.
applications to reduce back-office software
costs.
www.orianaworld.com 23In the case of Oriana, that built-in architecture includes a powerful
BPMN2 compatible workflow engine. This makes it easy and extreme-
ly fast for business analysts and developers to build process automa-
tion and digitalization solutions collaboratively.
Our process strengths account for our specialty focus on back-office
solutions, for which we have numerous business application templates
that accelerate time to value for our clients.
The Oriana platform includes “no-code” simplicity in the Oriana Studio
to serve the development needs of business people and process
analysts. Further customization is easy to achieve with open
standards.
The open standards that Oriana employs—BPMN2, SQL and
XML—make Oriana one of the most open and easy to learn platforms
of its kind.
Oriana runs on the Microsoft technology stack—IIS and SQL
Server—and hosting options include public cloud, private cloud, and
on-premise.
Headquartered in Budapest, Hungary, Oriana works with partners
and its nearshore center of excellence to deliver cost-effective
and successful business solutions internationally.
Founded in 2002, Oriana provides business software solutions of all
sizes to enterprise clients. Over our years of experience, we crafted Get in touch
Oriana, now recognized in an emerging software development We’ll love to chat!
category called “Prescriptive Low-Code Application Development
Platforms.” Prescriptive low-code platforms (a term defined by
leading global research and advisory firm, Forrester) combine the
benefits of rapid visual development with application components mark.downey@orianaworld.com
and built-in architecture. attila.biber@orianaworld.com
www.orianaworld.com 24You can also read
