ClearPoint recently held an end-of-year panel discussion, with several leaders sharing their reflections on trends and learnings from the past year, alongside opportunities and considerations heading into 2024.
The panel, featuring GM Microsoft Engineering Malen Hurbuns, Senior Account Executive Marie Tamplin, GM Professional Services Craig McDonald, Chief Client Officer Lesley Walmsley, GM Software Engineering Dave Shepherd, and GM Platform Engineering Jaco Saunderson, highlighted several themes that have seen recent growth – with the increasing adoption of AI and LLMs, and a shift in ways of working prevailing across the industry.
This year has seen significant changes in the way organisations are operating, as they increasingly take on the responsibility of in-house design and development – a shift away from the upturn in digitisation initiatives that occurred in the preceding years.
That shift, alongside the trend towards smaller workforces, means that businesses need to maximise efficiencies.
“A lot of clients, and I'm sure a lot of people in the room, have all heard the saying that ‘we've got to do more with less’,” says Craig McDonald, GM Professional Services. “This has been a big focus right since the start of this year.”
While budgets and human capacity are constrained, and in some cases cut, the applications and infrastructure that were originally implemented are still running and require ongoing maintenance, modernisation and compliance.
As a result, organisations are increasingly seeking out digital advisory services to ensure that their infrastructure, digital initiatives, and ways of working are aligned and continue to drive positive outcomes and sustainable growth.
“There’s a need for businesses to review what they currently have, looking at the budget they have and asking, ‘in addition to moving forward, how can we keep all of this running and keep it compliant?’” says Dave Shepherd, GM Software Engineering.
However, human capability still plays a key role as teams and organisations look to find efficiencies and optimise tools, processes and platforms.
When asked what one piece of business-critical tech is for 2024, GM Microsoft Engineering Malen Hurbuns responded, “I’m going to say AI, but you can’t do any optimisation or any engineering without people.”
“AI is here and it’s a new wave, but investing in people remains the number one priority – it’s key.”
AI was mentioned throughout the panel, with emphasis on its rapid industry-wide adoption and the optimisation it has enabled.
The maturity in teams’ utilisation of these tools is particularly evident in the Software Engineering space, with engineers themselves early adopters of the technology, employing new techniques in areas such as prompt engineering.
However, organisations may want to take a problem-oriented approach to larger implementations of AI technology - employing it to specific use cases, as adopting these technologies does not come without considerations or challenges.
“What problem are we trying to solve? Can AI help us solve that problem? Do we have people around to make sure we solve it in the right way? And is that the highest priority?” asks Lesley Walmsley, Chief Client Officer.
In other words, organisations should be asking themselves, ‘are we working on the right thing, working on it in the right way, and have we got the right people involved?’
The design factor will remain crucial to successful implementation, understanding the long-term vision and direction businesses are looking to take and understanding how that will impact user or customer experience.
ClearPoint’s senior digital advisors can help ensure you are on the right track with your digital initiatives and ways of working, including DevOps and DevSecOps reviews to drive agile maturity and increased value.
Listen to further insights in the video above, or connect with our team to continue the conversation.