Keep ahead of the competition

CXO. Why is having an effective ALM solution in place so important for businesses today?
Ingemar Ljungdahl. With an effective ALM solution enterprises will be able to govern their development processes in a way that will allow them to align their systems to their business needs and objectives. It will allow enterprises to capture, communicate and take action on changes in its environment that will have an impact on their ability to execute and reach their objectives. In business areas with compliance issues it will help enterprises stay within the regulatory framework avoiding the costly impact of non-compliance.

CXO. What are the potential consequences for companies that fail to implement one?
IL. In general for an enterprise to stay competitive and to grow its business it is absolutely vital to have supporting systems that allow them to be responsive to changes in the environment. Since most enterprises have several different stakeholders, it is of vital interest to make sure that all of their input is properly captured, analysed and acted upon. Without a supporting ALM infrastructure it is not possible to have everyone impacted having access to the relevant information at any point in time. The challenges are exacerbated if the business environment is rapidly changing and the systems need to adapt quickly to keep up with the changing needs of the business. And as stated above it is mandatory for enterprises within regulated industries to follow the regulatory frameworks to avoid penalties.

CXO. The profile of SOA has risen dramatically over recent years. What do you think accounts for increasing interest in the approach?
IL. Today’s enterprise is a very advanced organism consisting of myriad systems that support the organisation. In order for business systems to be rapidly adaptive to changing business needs, it’s no longer effective to build monolithic applications but rather to construct applications from loosely coupled services.

Organisations can use SOAs to tie together disparate, heterogeneous, loosely coupled systems. SOA helps to link software "artifacts" in a flexible, logical way so they interact seamlessly to streamline daily business processes. SOA provides the glue or integration technology that supports composite applications or an ‘application’ that uses the resources of other applications to execute its tasks. Composite applications require integration with different processes and data models. They can help organisations reduce IT services costs and improve time to market for new IT initiatives.

CXO. With more and more focus being placed upon compliance and governance, how can software keep companies protected from infringements and litigation?
IL. Compliance can only be achieved if there is a supporting system helping the enterprise to effectively structure the regulatory framework, and then integrate this with the various business systems to make sure that the various transactions or actions are not violating the regulatory specification.

CXO. What have been the biggest recent developments in the marketplace and where do you see the industry going over the next 18 months?
IL. A key trend has been an increasing focus on both improving the communication and automation throughout the development lifecycle, and on better alignment between IT and the needs of the business. There has been increasing attention on the requirements process as requirements form the common goals and objectives for the development team and the contract between IT and the business for what will be delivered. Moving forward, we see that organisations will not only continue to look for ALM solutions to help them increase productivity, improve quality and maintain compliance, but to ensure that IT is delivering maximum value to the business by focusing projects on the requirements that will deliver that value.

Telelogic AB’s CTO Ingemar Ljungdahl has thirty years of experience in international management in the software industry. Ljungdahl has served as CTO of Telelogic since 1998 and president of Telelogic 1991 to 1997. During his time at Telelogic, the company has developed from a Nordic one-product company to a global player in the field of ALM, BPO and MDD with a product suite covering the entire development lifecycle. Before Telelogic, Ljungdahl held various positions at Telia, Volvo and Trelleborg.