Jan Bosch
During the summer, I reflected on the main differences between software engineering in the 1990s, when I became a professor, and today. The best way to describe what I feel is the key difference is perhaps through an analogy. In the 90s and early 2000s, software engineering was akin to designing and building a jet … Read more
During my vacation, one of the questions I spent time thinking about is why companies function as they do. And why companies that are digitally born operate and “feel” different from traditional ones. Why companies that were different from the beginning tend to fall back into traditional patterns and become like traditional ones. I realized … Read more
This article is the last of four where I explore different dimensions of digital transformation. Earlier, I discussed business models, product upgrades and data exploitation. The fourth dimension is concerned with artificial intelligence. Similar to the other dimensions, our research showed that there’s a clear evolution path that companies go through as they transition from … Read more
Based on our research, we’ve developed a four-dimensional model for the digital transformation in the software-intensive embedded systems industry. In the last two posts, we explored the business model and product upgrade dimensions. This post is concerned with the data exploitation dimension. As shown in the figure, the first step in most companies is focused … Read more
In last week’s post, I mentioned our framework describing the transformation that companies go through when going digital. I also discussed one of its four dimensions – the business model dimension. In this post, the focus is on the product upgrade dimension. As shown in the figure, we’ve identified five steps or phases in the … Read more
Over the last months (actually, more like years), we’ve studied the digital transformation of several companies in the Software Center. Professor Helena Holmström Olsson and I developed a model to illustrate how they actually transition from their legacy business rooted in atoms to a digital business based on bits (see the figure). It has four … Read more
This week, I had an interesting discussion about data with the CEO of one of the startups I work with. The challenge is that many companies are collecting vast amounts of data, storing it and then leaving it as an unused asset. It surprises me that so many companies are maintaining such amazingly large data … Read more
Imagine the following scenario. A (sizable) team at a large company writes customer documents in response to customer requests. They request help from the automation team to reduce their repetitive tasks. The automation team brings in an AI company, which develops an ML model that generates the customer documents automatically and virtually eliminates the need … Read more
Digitalization is fundamentally enabled by three core technologies: software, data and artificial intelligence. The common denominator, which is inherent in a digitalized business, is that automation is at the heart of it. Digital technologies allow for automation to a much more significant extent than traditional technologies. We see this reflected in companies: whereas in traditional … Read more
This week, I had a wonderful conversation with the CEO of a midsized company (around 1,000 employees) to discuss business strategy and the implications on technology strategy in the overall context of digitalization. As the company supports its customers with digital solutions, it’s an example of the part of the economy that’s doing really well … Read more
