Enterprise Asset Management Software (software that helps an enterprise manage its assets) is notoriously a bit rubbish.
For most Enterprise Asset Management Software, the user interface is unlikely to be clear or intuitive, with a need for formal training for anyone who wants to use it.
This is particularly apparent in an age where we walk around with powerful mobile phones in our pockets, with slick user interfaces having had the benefit of 10s of billions of dollars in development effort, and that give access to the near unlimited power of cloud computing.
So what is going on with Enterprise Asset Management Software?
I think* there are a bunch of major challenges with Enterprise Asset Management Software. There are also some solutions to these challenges. (Basically, expect many more posts on this subject).
Limited user base and limited development budget
The addressable market for the iPhone is pretty massive. Approximately 150 million iPhones are sold each year. That’s a lot of users! Given how important the user experience is for a premium smart phone to remain competitive in the market, it’s not surprising that Apple spend 10s of billions of dollars each year on development, all in service of their slogan “it just works”. The whole business is set up to make everything about having an Apple product intuitive, user friendly, stable and generally quite good. Fundamentally, this level of investment is justified by the size of the returns driven by the number of customers willing to pay for that experience.
“It just works”
Contrast this with how a typical infrastructure manager will use Enterprise Asset Management Software. The technology budget will likely be a in the order of millions of pounds, with at most hundreds of users. The software updates will likely be limited to cybersecurity or simply keeping up with server patching. Within an individual Infrastructure Manager there simply is not the money available, or the business case justification, to invest in technology infrastructure to anything beyond the clunky, functional, and the minimum viable. Even pooling together all businesses and organisations that need to look after infrastructure assets you don’t really get anywhere near the funding levels to come close to a slick user experience.
Big Tech to the rescue?
It’s tempting to assume all the giant tech giants (apple, google, Microsoft etc) will pile into this underserved market, challenging the status quo by massively investing into disrupting alternative solutions, undercutting the existing software solutions with a superior product with the long term aim of capturing the markets and returning all that tech speculative investment.
In reality, when compared to the size of consumer technology markets, that long term aim is just not attractive enough for the bigger tech giants to pay significant attention to infrastructure managers.
What the big tech giants will do, is to offer platforms with commodified applications that can be created by much smaller developers or directly by clients themselves. This is exactly what’s happening with Microsoft Power BI. Microsoft aren’t solving for infrastructure managers, they’re solving for anyone who wants to put data into context and display information, which is a pretty broad user base! The same way that most businesses adopted Microsoft word as a software application that sits on windows, most businesses will adopt PowerBI as an application through Microsoft 365.
What does this mean?
In the immediate term I expect the space will continue to be dominated by subsidiaries/subdivisions of general corporate software providers like IBM has IBM Maximo. For most operational Infrastructure Managers, the risk and cost of changing Enterprise Asset Management Software is unlikely to be worth it for the potential benefits in the current market. And for most big tech companies Enterprise Asset Management Software does not present a big enough market to be interesting to disrupt.
That said, Infrastructure Managers will continue to adopt commodified applications (like Power BI) that sit on the big tech platforms. As commodified applications become more widespread, we might see diminishing value in the big Enterprise Asset Management Software solutions.
We will also continue to see the rise of smaller specialist technology companies (so called “small tech”) who link commodified applications into new configurations to create new software packages, often branded with their own front end user interface.
It is an open question whether any of these “small tech” solutions are sustainable based on software alone. The whole risk with delivering a commodified service is really high competition. The platform massively reduces barrier to entry: That puts huge commercial pressure on small tech companies reliant on platforms (someone else could do your work but cheaper or better), and it means there’s a constant risk of Infrastructure Managers in-housing that capability.
The flip side to this, and the really exciting thing about the rise of commodified applications, is that the competition should lead to better outcomes. Where the traditional Enterprise Asset Management Software companies had very little incentive to do better, they’re at serious risk of disruption by these small tech solutions.
So what’s the answer, to the problem(s) with Enterprise Asset Management Software?
In the short term…
Existing Enterprise Asset Management Software are likely to be around for a good while yet, complete with all the challenges discussed above (and more!). So, the answer is trying to use them as competently as possible. I’m quite obviously biased, but I do think consultants like me can offer a lot of value to Infrastructure Managers by:
Helping to define information requirements and select the best Enterprise Asset Management Software to meet those requirements
Helping to map how data flows (or should flow) through organisations so that the data can be put into context to create information that supports the functioning of the infrastructure manager
The practical delivery of Enterprise Asset Management Software – both project management as well as the design, configuration, and tailoring of the software.
Understanding Use Cases, required competencies, then building and rolling out training that supports the identified users.
Helping to combine Enterprise Asset Management Software with other systems (like those commodified applications), to support the functioning of the infrastructure manager
Being able to map and explain how the Enterprise Asset Management Software (and other software solutions and applications) on which the Infrastructure Manager is dependant, both to help provide assurance that it’s all working as it should within the Infrastructure Managers Management System, but also to identify opportunities for efficiencies and improvements, or to flag risks or concerns to be mitigated.
In the medium term…
The “small tech” solutions will continue to challenge the status quo. This will lead to better outcomes for infrastructure managers as packaged solutions get better and better, and this will also pressure incumbent Enterprise Asset Management Software providers to get better. We should ALL be happy about this, given that we all rely on the Infrastructure Managed by Infrastructure Managers! Better Enterprise Asset Management Software will support better Asset Management. And better Asset Management leads to reduced cost, increased performance, and reduced risk. That’s things like less expensive trains (or less subsidy from taxpayers). Less raw sewage being dumped into rivers. Less risk of power cuts. Fewer Potholes. And on and on….
The most successful small tech companies will be those who can leverage their unfair advantage in the market. For example:
Where they can apply domain understanding to build better software solutions, able to put themselves in their client’s shoes.
Where they can partner and co-create solutions with Infrastructure Managers, where investment is returned through onward sales of the solution.
Where use of all available asset data can be used to inform the development of the system (rather than the system constraining the asset data).
Where asset data can be used across multiple applications, with information like asset reliability being shared between Infrastructure Managers.
Where they have the competency to be able to understand the extreme complexity around all the various software solutions at all the various levels that exist, and still make this simple enough to be comprehensible and actionable.
There’s more!
I haven’t even scratched the surface with this, so I guess more articles coming soon!
In terms of challenges with Enterprise Asset Management Software we could talk about
cybersecurity considerations – and how cloud / platform based solutions aren’t viable for some clients
the need to support significant safety and reliability standards,
there’s the matter of competence and reliance on domain knowledge,
and there’s a lot more to explore on the fundamental market dynamics (and limitations).
Another area I haven’t yet touched on yet (but is really exciting) is the computer science aspects and what they would mean for Enterprise Asset Management Software. Things like Generative Artificial Intelligence, Heuristic Optimisation, Cycle Generative Adversarial Networks, Graph-Structured Data Modelling.
I’m sure I’ve missed lots more - please do get in touch to let me know!
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*As always, views are my own :)
P.S.
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