Digital Business Platforms (DBPs) are springing up worldwide because of the need for more combined functionality that works seamlessly together for the business professional. While there are still many richly featured/complete business platforms out there that are thriving well, there is also an explosion of specialty digital business platforms that focus on outcomes that are immediately appealing to organizations. This post will try to identify and describe the business-focused digital platforms instead of technical and infrastructural digital platforms. I have found 10 of these categories so far that I have described below. I give some example vendors, but my lists are not exhaustive. Click on the names of the vendors if you wish to link to their web presence.
All-Inclusive
DBPs
These DBPs bring together as close to fully functional digital features that typically business function for core transactions, business process for automation combined with friendly customer/employee experiences, analytics/AI for the added insight, low code data integration (aka Fabric/Mesh) and development and a comprehensive internet of things (IoT) with digital twins. These first started to emerge in 2015 and rapidly grew with the digital transformation emphasis. They bring the advantage of holistic and integrated platforms that need little augmentation. DBPs put the integration of many silo technology stacks in the rearview mirror. The degree of integration quality and the amount will vary by vendor. Please see one of the first posts on DBP with one of the first illustrations to reach the light of day by clicking here.
Example Vendors Include:
Specialty
Digital Business Platforms
Specialty DBPs combine/integrate two or more needed
technology silos for significant benefit to organizations in their digital
transformation journey, even if it is only a portion of that journey. The key
driver for these decisions is often tactical to deliver a sorely needed set of
business outcomes as quickly as possible. They are not necessarily aimed at
becoming an all-inclusive DBP, but they can play a role in creating their own
all-inclusive digital business platform.
1.
Business Application Driven DBPs
These platforms concentrate on a business application or
specific business processes that contribute to horizontal business outcomes,
such as human resource (HR) onboarding or enterprise resource planning (ERP).
Additionally, vertically based suites of processes and applications revolve
around specific industries such as insurance claims, oil and gas platforms
management, mortgage loan processing, or banking systems. The list is
relatively long of vertical applications or services available.
Example Vendors Include:
2.
Sales/Customer Experience Enablement
Platforms
This class of platforms combines customer
relationship management from sales through the servicing of customers. Customer
Experience platforms are usually a collection of tools that help companies
establish their customer interaction experiences and goals. The breadth of
channels through which customers can interact with a company is often so spread
out that it's difficult for just one solution to manage them all. The sales
process is where the interaction starts with the customer, and these platforms
also include sales automation capabilities that speed sales and revenue
pipeline management.
Example Vendors Include:
3.
Business Process/Workflow Platforms
(BPM)BPM software
A BPM
platform provides a framework and tools for managing the tasks and workflow
related to people or systems. Typically, BPM software helps define, automate,
and report processes to help businesses optimize businesses to deliver on
organizational goals. The processes often span an organization's full
operations and are aimed at monitoring the effectiveness of operations. They
manage the full process lifecycle and processes instances.
Example Vendors Include
4.
Hyperautomation Platforms
Hyperautomation is the
application of various combinations of advanced technologies like robotic
process automation (RPA), Artificial Intelligence (AI)/machine learning (ML),
low-code, and Process Mining (PM) to augment workers, accelerate task
completion, and even automate processes in ways that are significantly more
impactful than traditional automation capabilities. An example would smart bots
who collaborate with knowledge workers to complete work.
Example Vendors Include
5.
Collaborative Work Platform
A collaborative platform is a virtual workspace
where resources and tools are aggregated to facilitate communication and
personal interaction, particularly in projects or casework. Often sharing
content is involved even if it is real-time or leveraged in work schedules.
Example Vendors Include
6.
Data Science/Analytic Platform
These platforms rely on transparent data access,
consistent metadata, strong enterprise governance, automated machine
learning, deep learning, and model building, operationalized model management,
and tools that measure and improve its impact on business. You might think of a
data science platform as a factory for creating analytic models. These
platforms are for organizations that are always listening and analyzing for
innovation.
Example Vendors Include
7.
Data Mesh/Fabric Platform
Data
mesh/fabric is an architecture and set of data services that
provide consistent capabilities across a choice of endpoints spanning
on-premises and multiple cloud environments. The Data
Mesh/Fabric simplifies and integrates data management across cloud
and on-premises to accelerate digital transformation. It allows for creating
dynamic data views quickly in real-time to manage to the moment.
Example Vendors Include
8.
Digital Twin Platform
Digital
twin software provides a virtual representation or simulation of a physical
asset and is used to monitor the asset's performance in real-time. These tools
are used to simulate performance, predict potential maintenance needs, and
ultimately optimize the asset for peak performance.
Example Vendors Include
9.
Cybersecurity Platform
Cybersecurity
platforms should be able to prevent, detect, and respond to threats across an
enterprise IT infrastructure (i.e., endpoints, networks, servers, or
cloud-based workloads). In simple terms, a Data Security Platform (DSP) is a
type of data security solution that aims to combine a suite of traditionally
siloed security tools. Most Data Security Platforms will combine functionality
designed to locate and protect data on-premises and in the cloud.
Example Vendors Include
10 Emerging Hybrid Platforms
Emerging Hybrid Platforms combine various siloed
technologies into a more usable combination of functionalities. We are still in
the emergent stage of the specialized and generalized digital business
platforms.
Example Vendors Include
ABBYY Process and Content
Intelligence
Parallel Collaboration and Process
Improvement
VoiceBase Analytics, Sentiment, and Voice
Data
Wizly Corporate Performance
and Data Science
Net; Net
Specialty DBPs started sprouting up around specific outcomes
that organizations wanted early in their digital journeys. Vendors that chased
these outcomes became popular, and some are even growing to all-inclusive DBPs
while delivering impressive and focused benefits along the way. I expect this
convergence for convenience to accelerate and continue before a consolidation
that will likely be economically and advantage driven. Over time some of these
specialty vendors will grow to compete with the all-inclusive DBPs and possibly
collaborate with the all-inclusive DBPs.
Great information. This is important for all business and IT transformation professionals. The capabilities we have to work with in redesigning business operations or rearchitecting IT are changing and this information helps in staying on top of the changes.
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