Technology Trends: Winning With ACES - SOFTWARE TECHNOLOGY
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SOFTWARE Editor: Christof Ebert
Vector Consulting Services
TECHNOLOGY christof.eber t@vector.com
Technology Trends:
Winning With ACES
Christof Ebert, Anh Kim, and Jeroen van Genuchten
From the Editor
Autonomy, convergence, ecology, and services have been adopted as technol-
ogy objectives by all high-tech industries. Yet, priorities are heavily shifting with
the weakening economic climate. Authors Anh Kim, Jeroen van Genuchten, and I
provide industry insights and the latest software trends distilled from recent survey
results. We have enriched it with recommendations for software and IT technology
and a case study from a bank (see “Case Study: Robotic Process Automation”). I look
forward to hearing from both readers and prospective column authors about this
column and the technologies you want to know more about. — Christof Ebert
WILL THERE BE another thriving of software and IT is being ques- Based on the results, we outlined
twenties, as there was in the previ- tioned due to its growing misuse and concrete recommendations from our
ous century? For more than a decade, abuse, such as in so-called social media own projects.
companies worldwide have been very (which in fact is often not at all so- Technology trends are converging
successful and in continuous growth. cial), and fake news infiltrating poli- across industries.1–3 What used to
Since mid-2019, the global economy tics and society. be a clear-cut differentiation can be
has been darkening. Economy and Amid such global economic and summarized today by the quest for
even society are at a turning point. societal trends, Vector C onsulting autonomous systems, convergence,
Trade barriers and local protection- has been asking industry partners ecology, and services (ACES). Busi-
ism are enforced, the digital divide worldwide to provide their view on ness trends are similar in developed
is fast growing, and the spread of industry challenges. We asked al- economies as well as emerging econ-
infectious diseases such as the coro- most 2,000 decision makers within omies. Ten years ago, only two out
navirus severely hampers global col- the worldwide business-to-business of the 10 most valuable public com-
laboration and supply chains. Simply context about the top three chal- panies by market capitalization were
continuing as before is no longer an lenges that they face. We have also tech companies. Today, almost all are
option. At the same time, the role spoken with leading companies to highly driven by software technology.
identify where the technologies are Failure to recognize future trends and
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MS.2020.2973251
heading and which topics are rele- challenges is like entering the next de-
Date of current version: 16 April 2020 vant in the short term and midterm. cade with all of our senses closed.
6 IEEE SOFTWARE | PUBLISHED BY THE IEEE COMPUTER SOCIETY 0740-7459/20©2020IEEE
SOFTWARE TECHNOLOGY
The Magic Triangle of Cost, good people start looking for alterna- with an agile approach, that is, “time
Quality, and Innovation tives, which further reduces innova- boxing” and “expense boxing,” with
Participants in our survey observe tion and competences. Rework and restrictive portfolio management to
three significant changes. Cost and delays mean more cost, which drives avoid wasting scarce resources in fire-
efficiency have emerged as the single, more cost pressure. It is a downward- fighting. Let us look at recommenda-
most relevant short-term challenge, in- moving cycle that many companies tions for these themes that we have
dicating the need to succeed in a fast-
changing world with unclear business
drivers. At the same time, quality is
growing compared to last year’s sur-
vey as a short- and midterm target. With a sole focus on cost
Obviously, the threats of product li- pressure and cost reduction
ability and global visibility of insuffi-
cient quality have reached technology
programs, innovation and
companies. The time has gone when quality suffers.
software could mature with the early
adopters at a bleeding edge. What is
delivered must be mature. Innovation
obviously matters for all companies
Putting cost first is a recipe for currently feel. Red-ocean scenarios will identified in our projects and in nu-
failure. A simple example is cancel- inevitably grow if companies focus too merous interviews with industry ex-
ing training of engineers to save on much on cost. In fact, we have seen perts over the past months.
cost. As a result, engineers are demo- several once-strong players drown-
tivated and lack the necessary energy ing in cost savings programs that were Reduce Accidents,
and know-how to master a crisis. A started last year and are now unable Control Essence
vicious circle will start. to recuperate along with the necessary Cost can be reduced by an agile ap-
Figure 1 shows this negative pat- software innovation. Once-big players proach to the “Reduce Accidents,
tern which we currently see growing. such as ThyssenKrupp now need to sell Control Essence (RACE)” concept.
With a sole focus on cost pressure and valuable assets just to survive. Accidental complexity must be re-
cost reduction programs, innovation Mastering this magic triangle means duced. This means less waste, rework,
and quality suffers. At the same time, maintaining a strong balance of energy interface frictions, “not invented
70
Long-Term Challenges (%)
60 Quality Cost and
Efficiency Vicious Circle:
50 Innovative Products
Competences > Cost Pressure
Digital Transformation > Lack of Competences
40 and Knowledge
> Less Innovation and Quality
Flexibility
30
20 Complexity Distributed
Development
10
Others
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Short-Term Challenges (%)
FIGURE 1. The vicious circle driven by cost pressure at the expense of competence and quality.
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SOFTWARE TECHNOLOGY
CASE STUDY: ROBOTIC PROCESS AUTOMATION
Autonomy, convergence, ecology, and services (ACES) is care of the calculations and repetitive work, so the human
a major driver across industries.S1,S2 Let us look into the employee can focus on the more interesting stuff.
finance world at the example of ING. Just like other com- The current trend is to make the robots smarter. The present
panies, ING wants to increase speed and accuracy of their robots remain unintelligent virtual employees who dutifully fol-
processes, enhance customer experience, and reduce low rule-based scripts. The existing RPA robots only work with
costs. In business processes, system limitations are hard to bite-sized chunks with structured, digital input. With a piece of
overcome and stretch across many applications in the orga- paper or a PDF they cannot do much. The new generation ro-
nization. ING is investing in global core banking platforms; bots can translate unstructured data into structured chunks for
however, these complex transition programs take years to further digital processing. The in-build self-learning algorithm
accomplish. In the meantime, you can deliver digital solu- dissects annual reports, salary slips, invoices, and statements
tions with robots, leaving your legacy software and busi- and then retrieves the required data points and feeds them to
ness processes largely untouched. the regular robot in a structured file. This will make much more
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) mimics human of the existing processes suitable for robotization.
administrative actions (Figure S1).S3 The software robot Another trend is workforce intelligence software and
receives a digital form or email and processes the request automated process discovery. Robots analyze and learn by
according to a script. It reads the incoming data, opens looking over the shoulder of the employee who is working
screens, and enters the data just like a human being does. on the desktop until they can take over the job without fur-
Some of ING’s robots work fully unattended 24/7, managed ther instructions and with a robot script. ING is experiment-
by a superrobot. In The Netherlands, for example, 2 million ing with this procedure in combination with process mining,
customer requests are processed every year by 100 robots thus assisting the business analyst and process expert in
with no human intervention and supervised by a superro- identifying improvement opportunities.
bot responsible for workload management. Robotic digital Robotics also follows the ACES logic in their agile setup.
assistants work together with a human employee and take The robotics squads are called Agile Bus-Dev-Ops teams.
Private Cloud As-Is IT Landscape
Structured,
Digital Input
Front End
Control Room Back End
Output
FIGURE S1. A case study of RPA at ING.
(Continued on next page)
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SOFTWARE TECHNOLOGY
CASE STUDY: ROBOTIC PROCESS AUTOMATION (CONT.)
All expertise is concentrated in one team who are respon- more. We hope employees can be trained to become busi-
sible for the RPA solutions end to end. Silos are gone as ness translators, supervising the algorithms and telling
well as the need for steering committees and yearly budget them what data to use and how to interpret it. This robot
rounds. Robots are disrupting organizations because they model also applies to the software engineer and the soft-
provide fast and easy solutions. Outside of the organiza- ware: the end-user will be more able to build its own soft-
tion, ING is looking for opportunities to provide software ware using prebuilt blocks. However, software engineers
to customers alongside traditional banking products: the will create the building blocks in the years to come, and for
self-build RoboPlatform software solution is provided to the complicated scripts we will need human intelligence in
business customers to help them improve their administra- the foreseeable future.
tive processes.
Will robots eventually take over our jobs? No doubt, References
some jobs will be replaced by robots. Also, some new tasks S1. C. Ebert and A. Dubey, “Convergence of enterprise IT and em-
are assigned to robots from the start. At the same time, bedded systems,” IEEE Softw., vol. 36, no. 3, pp. 92–97, May
humans will be needed to build and control the robots. We 2019. doi: 10.1109/MS.2019.2896508.
believe that the combination of human beings and robots is S2. C. Ebert and C. H. C. Duarte, “Digital transformation,” IEEE
the strongest model. The employee can focus on customer- Softw., vol. 35, no. 4, pp. 16–21, July/Aug. 2018. doi: 10.1109/
oriented activities while the robot does the mundane work. MS.2018.2801537.
With the rise of smarter artificial intelligence algorithms, S3. P. Lewicki, J. Tochowicz, and J. van Genuchten, “Are robots
the portion of work that the robot can do will increase, taking our jobs? A RoboPlatform at a bank,” IEEE Softw., vol. 36,
enabling the human to focus on important things even no. 3, pp. 101–104, Apr. 2019. doi: 10.1109/MS.2019.2897337.
here,” “not in my own backyard,” replace a once-heavy capability matu- not enough on complexity manage-
“wash me, but don’t make me wet,” rity model integration with a heavy ment and processes. We recommend
and ping-pong across functional si- new bureaucratic framework. A ma- allocating requirements and features
los. Control essence means focusing jor lever is complexity control. The to lifecycle cost and optimizing plat-
on value, client, and your customer’s past years have accumulated many form-based reuse.
customer. RACE makes you faster, features in variants and versions Collaboration is key. Lifecycle op-
and more flexible. which must be trimmed down. Engi- timization must connect engineering
Figure 2 shows what RACE means neering and product managers must with other disciplines. It is not enough
from a recent agile transformation evaluate lifecycle costs and produc- to only look to development, because
project. The major message: Do not tivity. Our benchmarks indicate classic development is disappearing.
jump to yet another complex frame- that complexity has grown too fast, Development, operation, and services
work such as Scaled Agile Frame- increasing lifecycle cost and chal- will become one continuous process.
work (SAFe). Rather, it means to lenges of defects, rework, callbacks, Agile development methods such as
tailor agile principles around the and product liability. Heavy gover- Scrum have long penetrated the indus-
specific needs and culture of a com- nance schemes and process frame- try, yet often appear more as a slogan
pany. No two agile projects are the works such as SAFe add toward than a way of life. Many companies
same. Agile also applies to an agile complexity. Task forces have grown want to improve efficiency. However,
transformation, which explains why in the past two years, as too much only a third of them are satisfied with
the frameworks do not work. They focus was placed on features and their previous results. Why? Efficiency
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SOFTWARE TECHNOLOGY
Business Needs Scaling Agile Agile for Critical Systems Actual Results
Focus: Avoid Higher-Level Scope
Time-to-Market Below Virtual Distributed
Effect of Failures
Two Years Design Scope Teams Keep
Commitments
Test-Oriented
Concepts and
Agile
Globally Distributed Implementation Requirements
Engineering Reduced Rework
Engineering Teams of Dependability With Agile RE
High Quality, Specifically Continuous Design for Faster Cycle Time
Requirements
Safety and Security Integration Dependability for Changes From
Weeks to Days
Dependability
Integration of Design Reusable Ensuring Safety
Strategic Tier-1s Platform and Security
Scaling
and Modeling Together
Teamwork
Compliance Integrity With
With Standards Continuous Everything Sustainable
Model Based Modelling
FIGURE 2. An example of Agile scaling in practice.
projects aiming at productivity en- team efficiency with empowerment testing as a safety net, which is ex-
hancement and overhead reduction and thus reduced waste. Take the re- tremely expensive. Test should be the
fail bitterly and prove costly, mainly quirements churn, for example. Most fallback but not major quality driver.
due to undisciplined and inexperi- requirements are incomplete and wrong. Most test cases are unnecessary as
enced change management. Yet they are taken without much re- can be seen when looking at test case
Above all, look for effective collabora- view to begin design. In turn, we face effectiveness. Testers overlay multiple
tion schemes in your globally distrib- change rates far above what is neces- approaches without an overarching
uted engineering teams, supply chains, sary—a major cost driver in almost all test strategy. For instance, we face
and ecosystems. Viral infections such as product development. heavy focus on integration but have
coronavirus or severe acute respiratory The term continuous everything no criteria for test case selection and
syndrome not only show our vulnera- means to flexibly yet thoroughly con- coverage. Unit testing is growing,
bility but also underline the relevance trol deliveries. Churning out an ex- but static analysis, while being much
of global software engineering.4 Agile isting product reliably and well is one more sustainable, is hardly applied.
team work with collaboration plat- thing. However, creating an innova- Agile qualit y methods, such a s
forms, distributed Scrum meetings tive product within a shorter period, test-driven development and test-
while enforcing knowledge manage- under a tremendous amount of com- oriented requirements engineering,
ment and configuration control has petition, with highly sophisticated help to focus testing on where it is re-
ensured that companies such as Bosch, compliance requirements, and at top ally necessary.
Huawei, and Siemens could continue quality is another story. Cybersecurity has become a key
their global software centers despite Balancing quality and cost implies need that we hear in most of our in
engineers having to stay at home. to relate them to architecture and de- terviews. Convergence, d igitalization,
sign decisions. Often, we face clients and the ever-growing use of over-the-air
Quality First: Consistent who do not have a coherent strategy solutions introduce a new set of chal-
and Continuous regarding how to implement cyber- lenges with respect to information
Quality and cost reduction should be com- security or functional safety end to security, robustness, and usability.
bined. Agile is the key word, connecting end. Too much effort is thrown on The more we share and connect, the
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SOFTWARE TECHNOLOGY
more exposed we are to cyberattacks Agile innovation is pivotal.1, 2 Winning With ACES
which tremendously impact our busi- For long-term success and to be The magic triangle of competitive-
ness models and product liability. In- prepared for disruptions, strategic ness, quality, and innovation from
adequate cybersecurity takes a huge investment in education, coordina- our survey creates challenges that
toll on functions and safety. For ex- tion between universities and private fully demand new solutions in busi-
ample, use risk-based security engi- companies, and policies to attract ness, R&D, and engineering. We
neering to address multiple models globally-mobile entrepreneur and had never seen such a strong push
of operation from normal to attack top tech talents are the must-haves. for efficiency, quality, and compe-
and emergency. Do not copy and Create a culture and mindset of tencies at the same time.
paste prescribed or referenced meth- fearlessness—to embrace new ideas, ACES is the short and shining
ods from standards as it would be new approaches and risk-taking abbreviation of how we perceive
highly inefficient. Standards provide mentality. Why is it so important perspectives in a high-technology,
an overview but are not a method to be fearless? B ecause it d rives competitive environment, such as
directory. Most standards explic-
itly recommend that “alternative
methods” are also allowed—often
this is much more cost-effective. In-
stead, use experienced consulting so-
lutions to benefit from best practices Your future is based on your
across industries. competitiveness, both corporate
Focus on Innovation
and personal.
Innovative products and digital trans-
formation drive the competitive edge
and thus the existence of any busi-
ness or economy. The best examples
of innovation and technology hubs, innovation. It redefines standards automotive, IT, industry, and medi-
such as Singapore, Israel, or Silicon of the future. It allows your talents cal. These four themes are the main
Valley, show that innovation can to learn, grow, and flourish. It at- drivers for innovation, sustainable
only be created and thrive with a tracts the right skills and talents leadership, and—not the least—the
supportive ecosystem and risk-taking for this transformation from man- education and competence growth
mentality.1 Digital transformation ufacture-based innovation to ser- of engineers and management. 2,3
and services innovation can quickly vices innovation. Figure 3 shows how ACES will im-
move upwards with the right orga- Stepwise, extend business models pact business and engineering.
nizational structure, state-of-the-art toward user integration and ecosys- Yet, priorities are heavily shifting
tools, and infrastructure. First, in tems. Move from a classic functional with the weakening economic cli-
terms of organizational structure, split toward integrated businesses. mate. Autonomy, which last year was
it requires radical change in man- Model business processes, function- still a number-one shooting star, has
agement style, hierarchy, and agile ality, and architecture from a sys- started its slowdown along the hype
culture for employees. Second, man- tems perspective, while ensuring cycle. At the same time, ecology has
agement and employees should em- robustness and security. Develop in- gotten up to speed (especially with
brace the use of new software tools novative services for your products the young generation) with its high
to increase productivity and ideation. by linking products with company focus on our future and the sustain-
Finally, digital infrastructure is ad- I T to intelligent services and bu- ability of our earth. Convergence
mittedly the foundation of innova- siness models. Examples include leverages the two forces of com-
tion and transformation. The lagging predictive maintenance, adaptive con- petitiveness and innovation toward
infrastructure in Germany, for ex- figurations, and multisensor fusion a sustainable business perspective
ample, is a direct threat to its future for en hanced f u nctionalit y and for technology c o mp a n i e s . S e r -
competitiveness. user experience. vices are the major driver—not
M AY / J U N E 2 0 2 0 | I E E E S O F T WA R E 11
SOFTWARE TECHNOLOGY
Market Trends Business Impacts Engineering Impacts
Services Are the Real Convergence IT and
Products E/E
Autonomy
Fluid Business Models Service-Oriented
Architectures
Convergence “Smartphone-Like”
Adaptive and Flexible Agile Innovation
Feature Delivery
Continuous Everything
Ecology Lean Valuation
Need for New
Governance and Competences in Service
Liability Focus and Convergence
Services
FIGURE 3. A preparation for the future: using ACES to make digital winners.
really sexy as we have talked about
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
services for many years. But they are
CHRISTOF EBERT is the managing director of Vector Consulting highly money generating, if done
Services. He is on the IEEE Software editorial board and teaches well—and they are different from be-
at the University of Stuttgart, Germany, and the Sorbonne in Paris. fore since we now have the technol-
Contact him at christof.ebert@vector.com. ogy. It follows the Kano model at its
best because a good service on top
of a mediocre product can be a real
excitement. Provide 24/7 online sup-
ANH KIM is a marketing consultant at Vector Consulting Services, port and you earn a big “wow” if
Stuttgart, Germany. Contact her at anh.kim@vector.com. you deliver.
Your future is based on your com-
petitiveness, both corporate and per-
sonal. It is not those who succeed by
shrinking engineering and IT innova-
tion, but those who navigate well in
JEROEN VAN GENUCHTEN is the lead for robotics within the
the magic triangle of quality, compet-
global center of excellence at Robotic Process Automation of ING
itiveness, and innovation. Thinker,
Bank, The Netherlands. Contact him at jeroen.van.genuchten@ing
politician, and novelist Goethe had the
.com.
right idea: “Knowing is not enough;
we must apply. Willing is not enough;
we must do.” This is the wake-up call
to use innovation and guts to stay com-
petitive during a meager economic
outlook. Business history is littered
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SOFTWARE TECHNOLOGY
with the skeletons of those who neither innovative countries,” Bloomberg, 4. C. Ebert, M. Kuhrmann and
take ownership nor risks. Jan. 21, 2019. [Online]. Available: R.Prikladnicki, “Global software
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/ engineering—Evolution and trends,”
Acknowledgments articles/2019-01-22/germany-nearly in Proc. 11th IEEE Int. Conf. Global
We want to thank all survey partici- -catches-korea-as-innovation-champ Software Engineering. Los Alamitos,
pants for supporting this study and -u-s-rebounds. CA: IEEE Comp. Soc. Press, 2016,
thus ensuring its validity. Specifi- 2. C. Ebert and A. Dubey, “Conver- pp. 105–108.
cally, we appreciate our many clients gence of enterprise IT and embed-
worldwide who allowed us to strive ded systems,” IEEE Softw., vol. 36,
together for continuous improve- no. 3, pp. 92–97, May 2019. doi:
ment and thus boost innovation and 10.1109/MS.2019.2896508.
competitiveness. 3. C. Ebert and C. H. C. Duarte, “Digi-
tal transformation,” IEEE Softw., Access all your IEEE Computer
References vol. 35, no. 4, pp. 16–21, July/Aug. Society subscriptions at
1. M. Jamrisko, L. J. Miller, and W. 2018. doi: 10.1109/MS.2018 computer.org/mysubscriptions
Lu, “These are the world’s most .2801537.
Rejuvenating Binary Executables Visual Privacy Protection Communications Jamming
■ ■
Policing Privacy Dynamic Cloud Certification Security for High-Risk Users
■ ■
Smart TVs Code Obfuscation The Future of Trust
■ ■
IEEE Symposium on
Security and Privacy
January/February 2016 March/April 2016 May/June 2016
Vol. 14, No. 1 Vol. 14, No. 2 Vol. 14, No. 3
IEEE Security & Privacy magazine provides articles
with both a practical and research bent by the top
thinkers in the field.
• stay current on the latest security tools and theories and gain invaluable practical and
research knowledge,
• learn more about the latest techniques and cutting-edge technology, and computer.org/security
• discover case studies, tutorials, columns, and in-depth interviews and podcasts for the
information security industry.
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