AE Stories

In March society was brutally forced to go into a state of constrained homeworking due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Homeworking became the norm in a matter of days. While we will return to a next normal in the future, remote working will stay and evolve towards flexible working. Flexible or hybrid working is defined with 2 major parameters : time and location independent working.

Can you imagine a life without smartphones, without apps to help you navigate, play your favorite music or, say, buy insurance for your rental car right before you board a plane? It’s strange how we got used to this new way of living so quickly, because we grew up without any of the digital technologies that define it. Eager to follow suit, organizations are enthusiastically working to make their digital aspirations a reality.

Early June, the Money2020 circus landed in Amsterdam. One should take this literally since “circus” was the major theme for this year’s European edition of the Greatest FinTech Show on Earth, as the organizers themselves tend to call this event.

With stellar speakers and panels on 8 different stages for 3 days long and a buzzing expo hall with over 250 start-ups, scale-ups and mature corporates presenting their services, wrapping up the take-aways is a challenge.

Let me share the 5 quotes that resonated the most to me.

Companies are currently in the middle of a major digital transformation. Being able to quickly respond to new customer needs and expectations is crucial. Consequently, project teams are being organised differently. For example, more and more SCRUM teams are being put together to provide software more agilely. However, a question I’ve been asked by customers repeatedly concerns the place that architecture must be given within this story. My opinion is that a minimum of architecture is always necessary. Just enough, just in time. In this blog post, I want to illustrate a technique, based on a previous project, that lets you gain a helicopter view with a minimum amount of enterprise architecture, which is something that is unarguably adding value for a company that is going through a complex transformation.

For utilities, the foundation of the energy marketplace is changing. Increasingly, business models and operational approaches of the past are being stretched to their limits and a tipping point has been reached.

What does this mean for energy providers looking to remain successful in the future?