Can software be a competitive edge ?

 In the Digital Economy, is software a competitive edge ?

Mostly in this digital economy, we believe, it is the hardware and people that make a difference. But Jeff Bezos of amazon holds a different view. He believes that more than the technology, hardware or the people, the ability to make changes into your system and how you can get these changes fast to the customer that can actually differentiate the winner and the loser.

While referring to HBR of Jan ‘21 the article by Jeff Lawson, “In the digital economy, your software is your competitive advantage” (click here), made interesting reading.

“Our business is not what’s in the brown boxes. It’s the software that sends the brown boxes on their way,” he told us. “Our ability to win is based on our ability to arrange magnetic particles on hard drives better than our competition.” - Jeff Bezos, CEO, Amazon.

Most of the companies but software from software developers like TCS, Infosys etc, but the advantage these companies will have if they start developing software themselves can be tremendous.

Building software in-house means programs can be perfectly tailored to the unique needs of your organization. Instead of begging Giant Software Co. for a new feature and then waiting months or even years to get it, you spin up a team of in-house engineers who get code into production in a matter of weeks, or even days.

1. Involve engineers in strategic problem solving and decision-making. Give them a voice in shaping the future of the company, and the freedom and autonomy to be creative.
2. Instead of giving ideas or tasks to developers, assign practical problems to work on ..
3. Develop an atmosphere of accommodating and encouraging failures before success can happen
4. Save time from writing code to execution ie. helping in execution of working production code. Be fast in writing, checking and implementing codes and putting it into work.
5. Keep software developers in close touch with customers to know the customer pulse, that can help them write excellent codes.

What additional steps can great product or process companies do to keep their organisations world class ??