 |
|
| André Christ giving his keynote at Rethink ITEM |
we.CONECT: André, you are one of the founders of an Enterprise Architecture Management Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) tool. Could you please introduce LeanIX and the IT solutions it offers for companies?
André Christ:
LeanIX was founded four years ago when the market for EA tools was stuck in old-fashioned thinking whereas the world around was quickly adopting modern SaaS solutions such as Salesforce. We wanted to change the way how people in companies have access to relevant information about IT for their daily work. LeanIX offers an innovative software-as-a-service solution for Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM). The web-based platform has compelling advantages over traditional approaches, including an intuitive interface, flexible reporting, and open APIs. Today both SMEs and large corporations in Europe, the US, and Australia from an array of industries trust our solution – companies like Axel Springer, Helvetia, RUAG, Merck, and Zalando.
we.CONECT: At the upcoming Rethink! ITEM Europe 2016 the team of LeanIX will be having a workshop with title “Reducing the technology deficit safely and effectively”. Could you please give us more insights into the topic?
André Christ:
While companies grow, merge or use the money to fix problems the underlying IT landscape can get very complex at the same time. It soon becomes increasingly difficult to understand how well technology supports the business capabilities of the company. This problem leads to excessive cost, risk, and eventually loss of revenue and profit.
LeanIX helps decision makers in IT to quickly answer critical questions: Where do we use technologies, which are no longer supported by the vendor? Which processes and user groups are affected in case of an outage? In which areas do we violate internal or external standards?
With LeanIX we demonstrate, how to visualize action areas in the business context in a very intuitive way. We have found out, that actions and priorities of transformation programs often stay on PowerPoint level in the heads of a few decision takers only. But to render such initiatives successful, you need to go beyond. Every employee – not only specialists – needs to have access to the underlying details, dependencies, and roadmaps. Only then the goals become actionable and the progress of the transformation can be properly monitored.
we.CONECT: As a solution provider, you definitely have some great insights to share with us! What are some of the most common IT challenges that your clients face and how do you solve them?
André Christ:
A lot of companies have decided to change their architecture and operations to modern patterns like micro-services, containerization, and continuous deployment. However often it is not clear where to start, what the dependencies are, or who has knowledge about what. Here LeanIX helps to establish the required transparency and identifies experts in the company. This is the foundation for creating a proper roadmap which is communicated via LeanIX.
We all know that information is the fuel for every digital business. With LeanIX we establish a unique platform that delivers real-time information about the enterprise architecture in order to connect business owners, developers, and operations people.
we.CONECT: Along with digital transformation, how do you think that the role of the CIO in the firm changed in the past years and what will the IT sector look like in the coming months?
André Christ:
Strong commoditization of IT has resulted in a situation, where the CIO is no longer the only go-to person for IT topics. Additionally, CMOs have been able to acquire a strong position thanks to IT solutions that are fast to purchase and easy to use. We believe, that there is little room for CIOs who only focus on the meta-level of IT, just governing the process of matching demand and supply. CIOs rather need to get their hands dirty in the following dimensions: 1. deliver flexible and scalable solutions that help the business in a short time to market, 2. establish fast deployment architectures to allow rapid and frequent changes, and 3. ensure smooth and secure operations.
Topics like the Internet of Things, Blockchain, and Sensorification of the Enterprise will accelerate the need for capabilities of the CIO’s organization to deal with vast amounts of data – all in real-time..
we.CONECT: What are your expectations from the presentations and networking sessions at Rethink! ITEM Europe 2016 in London?
André Christ:
It is exciting to see that the agenda of the conference is fully packed with top IT leaders and experts from various industries. I expect to get first-hand insight into real use cases and learn, which challenges companies are facing when implementing modern architectures or realizing state-of-the-art operations processes in IT.
We at LeanIX are openly sharing how we have shifted to a micro-services architecture and how we implemented continuous deployment capabilities using tools like Docker. I’m more than happy to exchange our takeaways and discuss what learnings of our start-up journey can be applied in the enterprise context.
we.CONECT: Thank you for your cooperation and the insights you shared with us!
To find out more about LeanIX, why not request your own FREE DEMO?
