Harness the power of disruption or become obsolete

CA Technologies' CEO Mike Gregoire opened CA World ’15 by focusing on the changing timescales of innovation in the business landscape, and called on companies to harness software as a basic organising principle of their businesses to stay relevant in a fast changing world.

  • Thursday, 19th November 2015 Posted 9 years ago in by Phil Alsop
Gregoire said it is imperative that companies use software to correctly identify and leverage waves of innovation before they pass by. The “application economy” demands that businesses are agile, use application programming interfaces (APIs) and implement DevOps and invest significantly in security. People who can catch the wave of innovation and channel the power of disruption to deliver the fastest solutions in our new digital world will prosper. Those who rest easy will no longer be in business.
 
“Fifteen years elapsed between the introduction of the personal computer in 1978 and the first Internet browser in 1993. From the Internet browser to Facebook took only about 9 years. And this rate of ‘innovation compression’ is getting faster. The first true smartphones came out in the mid-2000s. It took only five years for the sharing economy to appear. You have to catch the wave when it hits – or risk being left behind. The window of opportunity to surf the wave is getting shorter. History books are filled with tales of big companies that were once stalwarts… but misjudged the rate of innovation compression.  Today innovation is incredibly democratic – and fast. And it radiates at an exponential pace,” he said.
 
Software as an Organizing Principle
 
Gregoire asked the audience: “How do you take the power, the connectivity, the innovation available and turn it into better products and services?” His answer? Software.
 
“Not software simply as a technology product. Instead, software as a basic organizing principle for your business. Software with the ability to become a lever to innovate and grow. Software allows scale, reduces friction, adds speed. Software creates completely new business models,” he said.
 
The Power of Agile
 
As a key piece of digital transformation, CA Technologies is betting big on agile development, Gregoire said. “We see Agile as being central to success. Not just for developers but for all businesses that need to succeed in today’s Application Economy. It is central to digital transformation.”
 
CA’s Renewed Focus and Strategic Approach
 
Gregoire detailed CA’s renewed focus on delivering leading products, led by the strategic hiring of Otto Berkes as Chief Technology Officer from HBO and Ayman Sayed as Chief Product Officer from Cisco.
 
He said, “Today, analysts rate our offerings as leaders in many of the categories in which we compete. We’ve increased our investment on Research & Development. At the same time, we have acquired the best technologies to augment our existing portfolio solutions. I’m incredibly proud of our progress, but we are not satisfied. We are committed to raising our game. There is no finish line in customer service.”
 
At the conference, CA unveiled new products and enhancements across its portfolio spanning DevOps, Agile Management, Security and Mainframe. These announcements reflect CA’s commitment to delivering solutions that help customers operate with agility and accelerate their pace of transformation.