When you hear “business software” or “reporting”, you might think of binders filled with charts, spreadsheets and footnotes. Or maybe conference rooms packed with executives who are tinkering with slide presentations. What’s missing from these images is the potential for creating value for businesses.
That’s changing, thanks to a handful of digital technologies that are combining to transform the future of reporting. Machine learning and cognitive tools will do a lot of the tedious work of collecting data, creating reports, and distributing reports. This allows human workers to do more interesting work.
Usage-based pricing is another way to make it easier for teams to reap the benefits of current data faster and more effectively. By cutting down the cost of accessing data it allows companies to correlate value with spend, enabling them to quickly increase usage and scale their efforts.
To compete in the Age of Connected Work, software companies must rethink the principles that underpin their approach to creating, distributing and sell their products. In the new era, the winners will redefine what it means to be an enterprise that is driven by its products in the most literal sense of the word. They’ll utilize their products to drive the acquisition of customers, retention and growth. This will require a renewed determination to focus on the tactical and to expand their “as-a-service” offerings beyond membership rates. It will also streamlining business operations for success require incorporating PLG principles into how they design, develop, and deliver their products. To stay ahead, businesses must create an integrated technology ecosystem that has the strategy, stewardship, architecture and oversight required to leverage data as an asset.