Rethinking digital transformation

Modernising backend systems is no longer optional for businesses but an essential step to staying agile and accessible. However, digital transformation tends to come with problems such as exorbitant costs and integration challenges. Inspired by newly installed Chief Technology Officer Chandan Potukuchi, TechnologyOne is changing the game by redefining how businesses transform their tech infrastructure.

Chandan Potukuchi, chief technology officer of TechnologyOne, has been described as a “designer at heart and a fusionist by style”. After leaving his role as a Senior Vice President at SAP you could also call him something of a gambler. 

Last year, SAP posted revenue that exceeded $50 billion. “I think SAP’s coffee budget would now be our annual budget,” Potukuchi said. When TechnologyOne CEO Ed Chung approached Potukuchi, Chung came armed with no frills, just eye-watering growth, a share price that has doubled in the past year and tripled since 2019, and unchecked ambition. 

Eventually, Potukuchi stopped to check the numbers. “When I started looking at TechnologyOne, from both financials and, let’s say, the narrative and what they were doing, I became so curious because I thought this could not be true,” says Potukuchi. Chung has been the CEO since 2017 and has rocketed the fortunes of the 35-year-old company into another stratosphere, to the delight of the company’s founder, Adrian Di Marco. After checking the data, Potukuchi signed on. 

“They had been so persistent with such a passion for innovation, and they’ve been doubling every five years, right? Doing all this with a unique construct, which TechnologyOne calls ‘power of one’, which is absolute ownership and responsibility of the outcomes to the customer.” 

This “power of one” thinking manifests itself in the ERP offering SaaS Plus, which is the all-encompassing enterprise resource system without external interference or a raft of third-party invoices. This counters a damaging ERP practice built into the accepted “cost of doing business” over time of consultancy add-ons layered upon more consultancy add-ons. 

Escaping “creeping” costs

On average, for every dollar spent on SaaS software, implementation costs can range from $10 to $70. This is largely due to systems integrators and large consulting firms, which are incentivised to make projects more complex and extend timelines. 

“That’s what happens,” says Potukuchi.  

“I remember McKinsey & Company did a research paper last year, and the report said that in Australia alone, 70% of all the digital transformations have failed. And even worse, 90% of those that succeed couldn’t justify an ROI.” 

The study, Losing from day one: Why even successful transformations fall short, also states: “The more transformation actions a company takes, the greater its chances for success”.  

Essentially, this preaches resilience, and the best way for a company to persist is to be scrupulous about spend. 

Ed Chung has implored businesses to do this by avoiding “consultant creep”, but Potukuchi puts it slightly differently. “Consultant creep is another way of saying scope creep,” says Potukuchi. 

“What happens is that, from a customer point of view, you look at it as scope. From a consulting firm point of view, there are change requests, and the consultant adds more consulting days.” 

During a drawn-out transformation, this can push a business entity to oblivion. For this reason, Queensland Parliamentary Services, Southern Downs Regional Council and Blackpool Council in the UK have flocked to SaaS Plus and undergone speedier, cheaper digital transformations. 

“When I sit down with those customers, or when I go and now sit with the councils, or with the universities here, which are constantly struggling with shrinking budgets and they do not have hope, helping them drives me,” says Potukuchi. 

“It’s a privilege, and at the same time, it is a responsibility to make sure that technology lands in a way that’s a huge value benefit for them. And through this SaaS Plus process, that would happen.” 

TechnologyOne’s 2030 vision

TechnologyOne CEO Chung says the average TechnologyOne transformation takes 300 days but has set a five-year goal of making that 30 days by 2030. “That is the North Star that would disrupt this whole dimension,” says Potukuchi. 

“This evolution is already underway, and AI would be my central cornerstone of that transformation. The only difference is the way it would be embedded, implemented, and realised, which would make the difference.” 

Making this space more affordable for companies during recession-like cutbacks has long been at the forefront of Potukuchi’s business plans, but he says he is now better placed to action those beliefs. 

“I always had the same thought process, but it was more for me because other companies were too big for me to influence, let’s put it that way,” says Potukuchi. And he isn’t stopping there. 

“Why would a company talk about what they will do five years from now and put themselves up for such rigour and risk? But the reality is something else.

Our company takes a lot of pride in being bold and having ambitious plans, dropping the pin and setting the goal.

Chandan Potokuchi

Cracking the code

Another example of TechnologyOne’s ambition is the company’s omnipresent desire to better its ERP systems, undergoing the radical re-invention of rewriting and perfecting its code multiple times. Potukuchi says other ERP companies he has known have done it twice in 50 years. 

“At TechnologyOne, Adrian Di Marco and this organisation have rewritten their entire ERP code line four times,” says Potukuchi. 

“Now, our big goal is to say ERP in 30 days. So, it’s going to be one more validation of ourselves.  

“We’re putting ourselves under the microscope to see if we can do it. It’s so bold, so ambitious. Can we pull that one off? And if we do, we rewrite history.  

“The other big thing is that SaaS Plus would become mainstream…” says Potukuchi before making a correction. “…Will become mainstream by then.” 

The way Potukuchi sees it, TechnologyOne is an Australian ERP company forging a new business model, with enough customers to validate this by opting for a unified approach over its larger rivals’ costly, consultant-heavy style. By 2030, echoing Chung, he says they’ll be even more. 

“And here’s the kicker: it’ll be impossible for any of these large enterprises to change their model,” says Potukuchi.  

“With TechnologyOne, my job is to put the pieces together.” 

More information visit:  www.technology1.com 

Get informed: What is ERP? 

ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning. An ERP system is sophisticated software implemented to manage everyday operations, ranging from finance, risk management and compliance, procurement, human resources, supply chains and performance management. With an effective ERP, the benefits include a centralised database, real-time reporting, automation, and an overall transparent working environment. Put more simply, ERP is the online bricks-and-mortar of modern business.