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HOW ENTERPRISES CAN AVOID TECH DEBT WHILE PIONEERING PROGRESS Dinesh Varadharajan, Chief Product Officer (CPO) at Kissflow says technical debt can become an obstacle to the very transformation that was originally envisaged
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n recent decades, the GCC has emerged as a trailblazer. Far from being content with just following the trend, countries in the region have aspired to set it – whether that be the UAE in being the first country in the world to appoint a Minister for Artificial Intelligence, or Saudi Arabia’s US$40billion push to lead the ongoing AI revolution. Private enterprises throughout the region also move rapidly to mitigate risks or take advantage of opportunities. Speed is everything, so many pioneering projects inevitably involve technology. And when an organisation gathers its stakeholders to discuss digital transformation, the roadmap becomes littered with deadlines. This is understandable. No business wants to be stuck in due diligence while its competitors are onboarding new customers. Nonetheless, quick fixes and fast-spun code can lead to a cycle of heavy maintenance burdens and spiralling costs – or as it has come to be known, technical debt. This debt is inevitable when replacement of legacy systems becomes an urgent priority. For example, pre-2023, a GCC business may have been exploring AI use cases with a view to digitalising a core workflow. Then, when ChatGPT started grabbing everyone’s imagination, the business’s technical and business leaders may have felt a greater sense of urgency about adopting AI. They may have had concerns about more agile players entering their industry or an existing competitor, powered by generative AI, bringing new offerings to the marketplace.
Complex interdependencies
But in moving away from legacy systems and processes, it is critical that project leaders pay due attention to their complex interdependencies with other assets. If an organisation puts speed before quality, its short-term approach may lead to suboptimal
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CXO DX / APRIL 2024
Dinesh Varadharajan Chief Product Officer, Kissflow