What is the true cost of technical debt? Pritesh Pattni What’s the true cost of technical debt?  Technical debt comes in a variety of guises, and occurs for many different reasons. However your tech debt is accrued, it has a future cost for your business – both in terms of the operational impact on your business, and the cost of getting your tech into a better position.  We’ve talked in other articles about the seven main types of technical debt. The reasons that software developers can create technical debt will vary – and they will be different for each type of debt. These include:  Prioritising speed over accuracy – sometimes, this is done in the knowledge that technical debt will occur. Developers and project leaders decide that it’s more important to release software quickly than to make sure it’s perfect. In some cases, there is a plan to manage software updates and releases to deal with that debt, but in others, teams simply take the hit without having a plan to improve quality.  Lack of clear communication or collaboration – this often happens when more than one organisation is working on the software. For example, part of the development work may have been outsourced, but without the details of requirements, testing or outcomes fully explained. But it can also happen internally, particularly with larger teams, and this can have serious consequences for customers and users.  Pressure to go to market – this can be particularly prevalent in traditional hand-coding projects, which often take longer because they require more people and use slower processes. Software is a highly competitive market, and success can be entirely down to getting your product to market ahead of the competition. But in the rush to get to market, project managers or senior leaders in the organisation may put developers under pressure to cut corners, reduce testing or remove features. The product gets to market first, but doesn’t have the quality it needs to achieve a market-leading position.  Learning ‘on the job’ – this can happen when developers are working with a new system, language or database. There is often a significant learning curve, and so things may be missed, or incorrectly coded. This will result in technical debt, but it also improves the capabilities of the development team and they will build the knowledge they need to improve the software in the future.  For organisations, getting into technical debt also happens for a variety of reasons. When you combine these with the software development technical debt issues, you can see that one can compound the other. Organisational technical debt can occur where:  Fast solutions, not best solutions – as organisations grow, they need more technology. Often, this technology is critical to the next stage of growth, so there isn’t the time to evaluate the options properly. This leads to solutions being implemented that solve the immediate problem, but are not scalable or adaptable.  Cost-cutting – any technology vendor will tell you that many organisations place the cost of a solution at the top of the priority list. So businesses will often end up with a solution that was cost-effective at the time of purchase, but becomes increasingly inefficient and ineffective as time goes on. That initial saving often turns into a long-term cost.  Legacy systems from business change – when organisations merge, or a smaller organisation is acquired, it can lead to issues with legacy systems. Although this is often taken into consideration operationally, businesses may not assess the full cost of the technical debt caused by opting for one system over another.  The true cost of technical debt will vary from company to company. But we’ve highlighted this example from a McKinsey report on technical debt because it illustrates just how quickly it can build, and the strategic cost it can have.  “A large B2B business faced an agonizing quandary: its leadership team was considering dozens of modernization initiatives that could bring a $2 billion margin expansion opportunity. But 70 percent of them depended on technology that would cost a staggering $400 million—much higher than expected. The reason for such a high price tag? Its tech stack had become massively complex after years of building quick workarounds and one-off solutions to favor speed over good design for the long term.”  What this shows is that organisations shouldn’t wait to assess their technical debt. They should start to look now at what is working and what isn’t, and find a low code development partner that can help them get back in the black.  Why low code? Because it transforms the way that developers work, producing more cost-effective, flexible and scalable applications that work with the organisation, not against it. At ISB Global, we are a proud OutSystems partner. OutSystems is a globally-leading low code platform that delivers secure, efficient and versatile software to meet any challenge. Just get in touch with us today to find out more. Recommended Posts​ The synergy of design, code, and development The synergy of design, code, and development Pritesh Pattni The synergy of design, code, and development Like all disciplines, digital development works best when all the various elements are used… Read More Is your software future-proofed? Is your software future-proofed? Pritesh Pattni Is your software future-proofed? 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Why You Should Use OutSystems to Extend Your SAP System Chris Williams We often talk to SAP customers, partners, and consultants who are worried that OutSystems competes with SAP. But the exact opposite is the case. OutSystems is a complementary tool that you can leverage to extract more value from your SAP platform with less effort. Table of contents: Built-In Flexibility and Integration SAP and OutSystems in Practice Keeping Data in Sync Every business needs to keep up with changing market conditions and new innovations. You need to stay competitive and focused – particularly in tough economic circumstances. From industrial or governmental regulation to global market forces, there are always pressures on your business to be leaner, stronger, and more efficient. To meet these demands, organizations must be flexible – all while maintaining standards in enterprise governance, financial reporting practices, corporate reporting and auditability for stakeholders. And so you need a reliable system that is working with you, not against you. From our perspective, the combination of SAP S4HANA best practice and OutSystems low-code gives you the best of both worlds. Or as defined by Gartner: SAP S4HANA is a world-class “system of record” and OutSystems allows the development of apps, which reflect the “system of differentiation and innovation”. Built-In Flexibility and Integration Why do we think this? Because both software platforms come with best practices, and can work together to give you a more rounded, agile solution — built for purpose, but ready for change. SAP is the original modern-day ERP. It boasts best practices for financial management, including procure to pay, order to cash and master data governance, to name a few. Years of innovation from SAP across all industries allows projects to focus on implementing best practices for budgeting, accounting processes, managing accounting and corporate reporting. Using the SAP configuration system allows customization, setting different business rules within business processes. This in turn allows businesses to implement best business practices in a short time. Organizations benefit from the experience of other users, and the continual development that’s part of the way SAP delivers its product. So, the obvious question is, if SAP is so great, why do you need OutSystems? Simply put, the OutSystems low-code platform delivers additional, ongoing innovation that helps your organization to become more competitive. It allows businesses to rapidly build and test new ideas and business processes without impacting the backbone of the business model. SAP integration with OutSystems is made easy with SAP’s well-defined integration models, processes and structures in SAP BTP. And OutSystems has the ability to orchestrate new business processes with multiple integrations easily – and often multiple applications – through the OutSystems Service Studio. To provide a user with the right information, right level of security to data, system processes for their job role, and to ensure auditable document flow without having to jump between multiple systems is why SAP and OutSystems compliment each other. SAP and OutSystems in Practice When we were designing our waste and recycling solution, Waste & Recycling One, we wanted a loosely-coupled application integration. Our aim was for bi-directional integration of both master data and transactional data. It made sense to use an industry-leading ERP platform – SAP – for the core finance, order to cash and procure to pay systems of record and compliance. We then leveraged OutSystems to build the unique logistical business scenarios and processes that are relevant to the fast-changing waste and recycling industry. You can read the full case study here → This allowed us to build a system that can manage the sector’s compliance, governance and legislation requirements without affecting the core SAP processes. Keeping Data in Sync In this example, if we add a new business partner, the payment terms attributed are important to SAP and are managed there. The NAICS code is important to OutSystems. So we built bi-directional integration to keep the data in sync. When a new business partner service agreement is created, it starts in OutSystems. The partner data is automatically sent to SAP, so by the time the new contract is ready for billing, all the details are in SAP and up to date with the finance data. The order can then be sent to the cash processes and the contract invoice number goes back into OutSystems. It’s a simple but very effective setup. Keeping the data in sync is easy. SAP records changes to the business objects it processes and submits via BTP. OutSystems web application framework uses its API adapters framework to send and receive data during the business process. Importantly, both SAP and OutSystems have very complementary code management between environments. This makes changes, updates, and bugs easy to manage – something we’ll talk about in a separate blog. Find out more about how we can use OutSystems low-code to work alongside your SAP system and deliver even more efficiencies, streamlining your business for the future. Originally posted here: https://www.outsystems.com/blog/posts/extend-sap-system/ Recommended Posts​ How to choose a low code platform partner How to choose a low code platform partner Pritesh Pattni If you have a technology project or digital transformation programme, you are probably considering a low code solution. Low code offers a range… Read More What is low code technology? And why should you consider it? What is low code technology? And why should you consider it? 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