Year 2021: main takeaways and the chapter ahead
December 20, 2021
Constant transformation is the new normal. Get used to it
The first part of the headline is from an old Harvard Business Review article over a decade ago, but never has it seemed more relevant. After an eye-opening year in 2020, this year has seen the organization continue to build on the strategic manifesto written just over a year ago. As we are about to move into the second year of this planned transformation one thing is becoming clearer; it won’t stop there.
“If we move too fast, then we risk that it becomes harder to deliver superior quality. If we move faster than the competition in acquiring new knowledge, then we can also adjust to changes faster – and in the current environment, this is a much-needed competitive advantage.”
– Nicolai Krarup, COO at Global Mediator
As an organization we are increasingly comfortable with the notion that we are now simply managing speed. This is based on the realization that if we move too fast, then we risk that it becomes harder to deliver superior quality. If we move faster than the competition in acquiring new knowledge, then we can also adjust to changes faster – and in the current environment, this is a much-needed competitive advantage. There is simply no time to stand still.
Adjusting to changes faster is a much-needed competitive advantage
Stairway to the cloud
After some years of hard work, we are now in the enjoyable position that all our customers either are on a version of the business application that are on mainstream support by Microsoft, or we are working to get them there.
As a software service and engineering house we do not offer a one-size-fits-all factory model for moving solutions forward, but we do have a strong belief in how solutions should be moved. This includes deleting obsolete functionality, moving some functionality to other applications, and rewriting the remaining functionality for a distributed cloud architecture.
It also means dedicating extensions to specific functionality, ensuring that they are small enough to maintain and that there is a long-term QA strategy in place as changes to the applications are increasingly frequent.
From ERP to business processes
In the past year we have built solid portals in .NET and Power Platform. We have automated existing processes in Power Automate and created dashboard that enable people to better interact with business data. This, all outside the traditional ERP toolkit. Our QA and IT Security teams have doubled in size as we start to expand our focus on performance and vulnerability testing for both our own products as well as our customer projects.
“Growing the business more than 30%, doubling its income and with a large part of the team still working from home – if you think back a few years, it would have seemed impossible. But this is the new reality.”
– Christian Holst-Jensen, CEO at Global Mediator
When you have worked in monolithic ERP for some time, then it is hard to not just dip your hand in the toolbox for the same tool that you have always used. As a community, we still have some work to do here – it simply does not come natural for us yet. But as a team, we are gradually getting better at looking at options outside each business application. And this will only accelerate in the years to come.
Building a plane while flying
All of the changes we have made this year have been made while growing the business more than 30%, doubling its income and with a large part of the team still working from home. It feels surreal that the team is capable of this and if you think back a few years, it would have seemed impossible. But this is the new reality.
Next year we plan to continue to build our plane while flying it. Early next year we will place our first products in AppSource, we will expand our internal digital transformation journey to include our entire marketing process and a new headless website. Meanwhile, we will push deeper into Power Platform, QA and IT security – all while we continue to expand our service to help our Dynamics BC customers to the cloud and AppSource.
Because the organization is increasingly comfortable in this environment of safe, but constant transformation, we will likely have an interesting time doing what we did this year; continue to challenge the way we do things to transform as we push for another year of 30% growth.
The end of the pandemic?
Like everybody else, we read about the end of the pandemic and the questions around whether life will go back to “normal” or not. We simply do not see it that way any longer – the end of the pandemic will allow us to be more social, sure. But we expect that it will also give us new opportunities to retransform our business again. Because, if there is anything we have learnt in the past two years, then it is this; Constant transformation is the new normal!
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