Developments in cloud computing, software as a service and big data have dramatically reduced the time it takes startups to commercialise ideas, creating new opportunities and making every company evolve into a technology company.
“Precloud, the length of time it took a company to create a product and commercialise it would be 15 months to two years, that’s a lot less now,” says Joanne Hannaford, managing director of enterprise platforms at Goldman Sachs. “It’s allowed smaller companies to startup very quickly.”
Cloud computing means SMEs are no longer limited by the size of their data centre. The Test People analyse fast and complex systems in industries such as gambling, finance and retail.
Managing director and cofounder Gav Winter says access to servers in the cloud was fundamental to the company’s offering. “Ten years ago we would be reliant on people having enough capacity for load testing. You need to have many, many machines to create the load of 40,000 people logging into a bookmakers system on Grand National day,” he says.
Winter argues it’s not just about raw processing power. Advancements in technology have fundamentally changed the playing field for SMEs because it allows them to ramp up infrastructure that has the reliability of larger players within days, reducing the time it takes to launch a company to a couple of weeks.
“No longer is Dave the fledgling technology entrepreneur with servers in his basement having to run home from the pub when his server goes down unexpectedly.”
The cloud means companies can work with big data. SMEs aren’t collecting data on this scale, but are able to take advantage if information released into the public domain by companies and public sector institutions like transport networks and NHS, through trials of its care.data programme.
FatAttitude’s London Bus Checker app, for instance, taps into Transport for London’s database, which includes everything from bicycles to river buses, to provide realtime updates on arrival times and locations, and advice for the capital’s travellers.
Embracing cloud computing and the development of platform technology, which supports the development of future products and research, means the lines between different companies’ offerings are becoming blurred.
“Those traditional boundaries of what makes a technology company are breaking down; every company is now a technology company. Technology is moving into areas that have historically been very separate,” says Hannaford.
For example, online retailer Amazon’s use of technology means it’s difficult to label it as a traditional book seller. It is quite likely that their main competitors for streaming media use Amazon Web Services to meet their infrastructure requirements.
Amazon Web Services to deliver its content even though the retail giant has its own competing offering. Traditionally bricks-and-mortar retailers are using big data to set store layouts, taking advantage of indepth knowledge about local demographics and consumer behaviour, and selling purchasing information to insurance companies.
The opportunity to gain efficiency and differentiate their offering by developing testing platforms means The Test People’s ratio of testers to technologists is 50:50, compared to an industry standard of 90:10, according to Winter.
Embracing the opportunities offered by platform development and cloud computing isn’t just limited to technology start-ups. However, entrepreneurs who aren’t from this background can be unnerved by these ideas.
Hannaford says the strongest argument to think about these possibilities is for retailers, adding: “The other thing with this technology, from a business perspective, is that it’s not difficult for companies to use. You don’t have to be a programmer to leverage the cloud. You can be a novice. The point is these advances are aimed at everyone.”
Hannaford graduated with a bachelor in computer science and started working as a system administrator at Merrill Lynch. She says she was fortunate to work in a technology area that had women in senior positions from the outset.
However, Hannaford is taking part in several initiatives to encourage young women to go into engineering and IT to help address issues of gender balance that exist in these industries in spite of the increasing importance of information technology in business.
The smartphone and tablet revolutions mean young people are engrossed in technology from a young age. However, this hasn’t led to an increase in interest in the profession from female students.
There are two main routes to increasing female engagement, according to Hannaford: creating networks between women in the industry to provide role models and information sharing; and working with young people to tell them about the opportunities the industry has to offer and all the different aspects of technology careers, rather than just focusing on engineering.
Girls in IT targets girls aged 11 to 13 in schools, aiming to help young women that are choosing their career options and educate them about the different disciplines on offer.
“What we find is that many of the girls haven’t contemplated technology as a career, which is very interesting considering the access that that generation has to technology,” says Hannaford, who works with the organisation. “It’s been helpful in getting them to think through all aspects of technology careers, not just engineering, but things like project management and analysis.”
Content on this page is paid for and produced to a brief agreed with Goldman Sachs sponsor of the Entrepreneur Stories hub.
