In today’s IT landscape, everything revolves around integration, but not all integrations are created equal. Many software vendors proudly advertise plug-and-play connectors for systems like SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, Exact Online, or ArcGIS Pro. Great for the website, but how usable is it really? If your customers then have to figure out how their developers can work with it, the added value is limited.
For example, Exact has its own app store, but the apps are closed source and behind a paywall.
Form a Developer Community with Your Customers
True innovation only emerges when integrations are more than closed solutions sold by you or subcontractors to customers. When you open up your APIs and integrations, provide clear documentation, and create a community where developers can get started themselves, you stimulate open innovation. Customers can then not only integrate easily but also build, extend, and contribute to open source software around your product.
“You create a community around your product. Open the doors for your customers.”
Of course, not all software vendors or their customers are so modern, progressive, or altruistic as to open source their integration code just like that. “You don’t think we’re going to scatter the work of our expensively paid programmers freely on the internet, do you?” sounds from the boardroom. And admittedly: something you pay a lot of money for and then give away for free doesn’t immediately sound like a brilliant business case.
“But what if I tell you that what you share, multiplies itself?” I try carefully. On the other side of the table, someone is trying to suppress a burst of laughter, but I don’t feel deterred.
And tell me, what’s the alternative? That thousands of users of systems like Exact, Fleets Online, Metacom, or SAP each develop the same integrations again? Or that they patiently wait until the software vendors sell them these integrations?
Code Becomes a Commodity
In a time when writing software is becoming increasingly easier and cheaper, it’s precisely the companies that embrace openness and collaboration that win. It’s no longer about who has the best programmers in-house or writes the most beautiful software that can then be sold expensively. Code becomes a commodity. In the short term, it’s not an order-winner, but a qualifier.
It’s about the access you have to the market, the ecosystem you’re part of, and your role in it. The added value you provide as a software vendor lies in your core business.
To fully unlock that value, you open the gates wide and welcome your visitors with open arms. When you then see how your customers transform the alley you made publicly accessible into a digital highway, you think to yourself:
“What you share, multiplies itself.”
Are You Already Working Open Source?
Do you still work with closed integrations, or have you already taken the step towards open collaboration with your customers and developers? Share your vision or experience. I’m curious about how you view the balance between maintaining control and growing through sharing.
