It was perplexing at first, but now that the trend has become widespread it is clear that there is something more than semantics at play as whole sections of the software community reposition their long-established applications, suites and tools as 'platforms'. To date we have seen everything from simple e-signature tools through project management applications to the Microsoft 365 suite being described in this way - which begs the question: why?

As well as causing some confusion and potentially creating new risk for customers, the rebranding may devalue genuine software platforms - that is, those that form the basis for building new, connectable applications and features both now and in the future. So what is it that vendors are trying to sell to customers with these new parameters?

CYNICAL REFRAMING OR CHANGED PROPOSITION?
The simplest interpretation is that software vendors are striving to keep pace with the market, and offer something with perceived longevity as businesses look to be more adaptable and futureproof.

More specifically, vendors are responding to the growing realisation among large enterprises that diverse portfolios of single-purpose applications are an inefficient and restrictive way to deliver business and/or process transformation.

Many digital transformation initiatives today involve integrating and embedding content/document/data management capabilities more seamlessly within business processes - to enable greater flexibility, accelerated workflow, and smart automation. Given the choice of buying a 'tool', a 'solution' or a 'platform' in this context, businesses are instinctively opting for the last of these, believing a platform represents something intrinsically more flexible and all-encompassing for their money.

A MEANS OF REINVENTION
When businesses seek out a 'platform', they are generally looking for something that will give them maximum future options, enabling new creative scope around the way they do business or evolve their market proposition.

An e-signature tool, project management solution, or even the wide-ranging applications that make up Microsoft 365, do not fulfil these criteria. A genuine software platform is something much more foundational. Rather it plays an underpinning role - providing a core framework to support both specific, defined business processes and adaptable tools that can be used, ad hoc, during everyday work.

The right platform should be robust in its ability to manage content and data (the building blocks for just about everything a business does) all in one place. And it should enable the company to harness those assets in new ways over time - via new or improved business processes, analytics, or means of content management and creation - supported by a solid yet flexible foundational layer.

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"When businesses seek out a 'platform', they are generally looking for something that will give them maximum future options, enabling new creative scope around the way they do business or evolve their market proposition. An e-signature tool, project management solution, or even the wide-ranging applications that make up Microsoft 365, do not fulfil these criteria. A genuine software platform is something much more foundational. Rather it plays an underpinning role - providing a core framework to support both specific, defined business processes and adaptable tools that can be used, ad hoc, during everyday work."

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What most companies really need from a platform is the ability to create a collection of solutions which seamlessly support a business process and any ancillary tasks. ClickUp is a good example, in the field of project management. Users can create different areas or workspaces and create project-related lists. They can also connect and create workflows, and view these in their choice of several different ways - as a Gantt chart, as a process flow, or in some other format. All of this allows companies to flex and support the way people prefer to work, whatever they are trying to do.

If a new requirement or opportunity emerges tomorrow, the business can create a new workspace to accommodate that.

WHY THE DISTINCTION MATTERS
It is important that organisations can differentiate between a real and an in-name-only software platform. For one thing, companies recognise now that tackling digital transformation on a department-by-department basis limits the potential; and that optimal results will come from taking an enterprise-wide approach - using a common foundational platform. If each part of a business sets its own parameters situations will emerge where customer-facing teams can't collaborate with the legal department, for example, due to restricted access to their respective systems.

It's this kind of practical barrier that has led to the soaring use of mainstream online facilities like Box, driven by users' need to collaborate more fluidly across boundaries. C-level decision-makers have ended up having to formalise use of these tools simply to take back control of associated information management and safeguarding. If they had taken an enterprise-wide, platform-based approach to transforming data, document and process management to begin with, they wouldn't have found themselves in this cumbersome reverse-engineering scenario.

In regulated markets like life sciences, companies are also looking to transform the way they operate on a broader scale. Up to now, many organisations have come at this by targeting pockets of process improvement activity, such as taking a more unified global approach regulatory information management, or optimising clinical trial management. But their endeavours would be much more impactful and efficient if they were enabled from the same foundational platform. Veeva and a range of other newcomers have delivered a decent degree of innovation here, with capabilities built on top of Salesforce, but companies need to be more ambitious and holistic now, moving away from a piecemeal approach to digital process transformation.

The more that diverse capabilities can be provided via a single foundational platform, the better for business. It is more economical, at a time when budgets are tight; and it enables companies to be more ambitious about the scale and scope of the operational improvements they want to make.

PREPARING FOR NEW ECONOMIC GROWTH
Irrespective of their market, most companies have had to substantially rethink their strategic focus, operating models and business processes over the last year - as the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted just about everything, from customer demand, to supply chains, to the location and make-up of the workplace.

Many observers now are drawing a parallel between the conditions now and those in the early 1920s, when the world was emerging from another global pandemic and economic depression to enter a period of 'roaring' recovery and re-growth. If the same story unfolds over the current decade, companies must have something to build this bright new future on. They will need to establish new means of differentiation, enabled by technology; develop new product lines quickly; and pivot the business promptly as new opportunities emerge.

Putting in place a genuinely foundational software platform, for spinning up new business applications and facilities quickly and efficiently, will give companies the ability to transform themselves in any direction.

More info: www.generiscorp.com