Why futureproofing is the key to unlocking business stability in times of uncertainty

By Juan Paul Araujo, CEO of ProSolutions Integration

Futureproofing is a key component of software design. It is the way that solutions are envisioned to ensure they deliver long-term value while minimising risk to the organisation. When a business thinks futureproof, it should be thinking about risk differently, and focusing on strategic solutions that help stakeholders feel more confident in how they measure, control and exploit risk.

A futureproof strategy should include a variety of foundational pillars that form the framework of a solution that’s capable of pivoting and adapting alongside market and business. The most important pillars include resilience, reliability, reusability, cost-effective maintenance, and extensible capabilities. To implement the pillars and embed futureproof strategy, the business needs to follow three key steps…

Step 1: Culture and leadership

Futureproof is as much a mentality as it is an investment. It starts with embracing the speed of change and understanding how strategies, customers and skills are all moving parts in the journey towards effective digital transformation. This involves doing more than just nodding at the potential of digital and investing in a few steps towards transformation. It equally involves looking deep into the cracks of a business to find the problems, establish best practice, even unpack the failures. These insights can then be used to build a robust and relevant infrastructure that’s capable of working within your unique business.

Step 2: Plan your investment

 Consider looking at the centralised management of key business information and processes, including all projects, tasks and resources. This makes sense because it puts all the information into one central space that allows for improvements in data, analytics, decision making and visibility. It allows for the organisation to operate from a place of heightened awareness which is key, now more than ever before.

Step 3: Trust a reliable partner

Investing in digital and expanding your futureproof investment isn’t an easy process. It requires foresight, planning, and the right partner. You need to work with a company that understands your requirements and the risks you face, and that can help you refine your processes in ways that are relevant to your specific needs.

It’s easy to be lured into the one size fits all promise, but it rarely does fit all and often square pegs are wedged into clichéd round holes, in a time consuming and sometimes futile effort to make systems work.

ProSolutions has an established track record helping companies refine their processes and futureproof their systems. Recently, we worked with a credit approving application to create a solution that made far better use of the organisation’s legacy data.

From an Excel-based application, we used SQL server capabilities to extract the data and make it more presentable and usable. This also allowed us to prepare the company for its new app, using API’s and Angular, to streamline their systems to improve productivity.

With the solution now using new segregated environments, and the SQL server database, we implemented more accessible code and insights. In short, it gave the company what they never had before, in a format that transformed what they did have into something digitally powerful.

Find out how we can help you to create a futureproof solution for your business and how we can help you reshape legacy platforms so you are better placed to take advantage of the opportunities that lie ahead.