By Chip Register, CEO of Argano

Companies have prioritized re-inventing customer-facing products, services and experiences in recent years as they’ve raced to meet market demands amid complex and fast-changing technology trends and competitive pressures. Their customers, in turn, have come to expect magical moments – packages delivered within hours, personalized, customized, recommended and on and on.

But the same companies are now realizing that, while they were perfecting their customer experience, they were underinvesting in the core operational processes and technologies necessary to efficiently and effectively deliver them in an increasingly dynamic world.

These intelligent, integrated and agile cloud-based technologies are what make the “moments that matter” actually happen. The need for these technologies is fueling increases in direct digital transformation investments that are expected to total $6.8 trillion globally between 2020 and 2023, a compound annual growth rate of almost 16 percent, according to IDC. It’s also why the digital transformation services market is expected to reach $186 billion by 2024 per another report.  The transition to the cloud is especially driving these investments. Gartner recently forecast that worldwide spending on cloud services would reach almost $400 billion next year, a nearly 50 percent increase compared to 2020. 

Yet many companies are not sufficiently prepared to take advantage of the Digital Renaissance that technology innovation has enabled. Instead, they’re struggling with legacy technological debt (and in some cases also organizational, process and even cultural debt) they need to address fast.

Argano was founded to deliver next generation business and technology services focused on architecting and building the intelligent, cloud-based and frictionless digital operating platforms that make businesses run better. Bringing world-class firms together, we help businesses transform their operations through unique, integrated capabilities in the technologies that underpin a modern foundation.

Our cloud-based architectures are agile, intelligent and scalable. We focus on removing the pain points that companies regularly encounter because of their technological debts – lost sales opportunities, distribution shortfalls, inconsistent financial management, sub-optimal resource planning and high employee turnover.

We are solely focused on a wholistic approach we call MIMMI (modernizing, integrating, migrating and making intelligent) as we design digital operating platforms for our clients. The following questions can help you understand if your company has the foundation you need to attain the opportunities that the Digital Renaissance presents:

Can you support your customers desire to take control of configuring and pricing complex products and services and get the self-help and support they want? To both maximize and optimize revenue, you need to deliver a frictionless customer experience that also creates the kinds of data required to enable downstream business and financial functions as well as learn more about how to re-engage successfully with your customer. 

Can your logistics and supply chains operate with resiliency and flexibility to meet customer needs while effectively managing the speed and constant changes that are part of the new operating reality? Having the right data and supporting technology in place enables visibility, efficiency and the ability to model scenarios as product lifecycles, delivery speeds as well as the desire for personalization and customization continue to grow.

Are you able to support agile planning and consolidation and leverage advanced analytics to make better decisions and improve overall business performance?  Cloud-based Enterprise Performance Management solutions provide both the technical foundation and business processes to ensure you have the necessary data that delivers the right strategic insights that are critical given the level of speed and complexity we all need to manage. 

Do you have the cloud-based enterprise resource planning systems and processes that support data visibility and integrity across core operations and enable leading edge decision making to unlock innovation and drive your business forward? ERP sits at the heart of everything. And it needs to be customized to the way your company works. It always has been, and will increasingly be, the wrong idea to tailor your commercial offerings to what your systems can support. They have a job to do. Make them do it!

Are you leveraging technology effectively to provide the engaging and personalized employee experiences that enhance the value of your most important asset – your people? Never forget that people are central to the Digital Renaissance, both as consumers and employees. And today more than ever your people, like your customers, can vote with their feet. New, personalized (and even gamified!) workforce solutions can enhance employee engagement, productivity and value, creating the ultimate foundation for advancement.

Technology services providers generally are massive all-singing, all-dancing behemoths or small point solutions. Or worse, they are really staffing agencies masquerading as true business partners. And none of them are purpose-built to innovate the next generation of digital operating platforms for the next generation of commercial pioneers.  We believe the market is ready for a partner with the breadth of capability and insights of large, global system integrators, combined with the agility, domain expertise and high-touch interaction of niche specialists and a true focus on this vitally important yet under-invested space in the modern enterprise.

We will be addressing the questions above in the coming months and invite you to join in a dialogue on these critical operating issues.

Our name was inspired by the specialized hoist, the “argano,” invented by Italian architect Filippo Brunelleschi  in the 15th Century needed to complete the construction of the Basilica di Santa Maria de Fiore (“Il Duomo”) in Florence, a project that had been languishing for years. Then, as now, the greatest visions could not be realized without first reimagining the tools and techniques needed.  We are Argano. We craft the foundations of the modern enterprise so our clients can give rise to the possibilities of the Digital Renaissance.

Chip Register is Group Chief Executive Officer of Argano.