Welcome to The Works
“Every company is a software company,” Marc Andreessen famously declared back in 2011. Here’s how true that is today: 70% of the world’s top-performing companies rely on their own software to differentiate themselves from competitors, according to McKinsey, and nearly a third of these overachievers sell software themselves.
That’s not the whole story, though: Software may have eaten the world during the last decade or so of cloud adoption, but many companies are reeling from indigestion. Recent studies show that a lot of expensive business software either isn’t helping people get work done or is sitting idle, lost in a tangle of other cloud systems and software. The explosion in IT to monitor, equip, and secure remote workers during the pandemic is only beginning to be scaled back.
A few eye-openers along those lines:
60% of employees find new software frustrating, Gartner reports, and nearly as many (56%) wish they could go back to the apps they used before. (Ouch.)
IT employees in the U.S. currently use just 27% of the software available to them on the job, according to a Freshworks survey.
They estimate their companies could save 38% of IT spend simply by jettisoning unused or unnecessary software.
Methodology > technology
It’s no surprise that software is such a critical enabler in business today, considering how much of our lives we spend at work and how much we depend on our apps to get through a typical day. But it can’t serve a higher purpose if it doesn’t deliver value for employees or customers—whether it’s because of poor design, complexity, lack of access, cost, or other reasons.
Freshworks has long considered these to be important but solvable problems, and has led with software solutions that are easy to use, deliver great experiences for end users, and show rapid return on investment. We’ve learned a lot in recent years not just about the underlying technologies but the methodology that governs the process and doesn’t skimp on value.
That’s why we’re launching The Works. We report on new strategies and ideas that help business leaders maximize the value of their technology investments, especially new forms of AI. In particular, we seek to understand how business software can realize greater potential and value for millions of end users as well as buyers. The focus of our reporting is not on what software does, but how it is designed, delivered, and used.
The stories in this first edition explore these themes from different angles: Senior Editor Todd Krieger traces the long history of UX design; longtime tech journalist Christopher Null reports on how data visualization tools are arming business teams with new insights; and bestselling author and enterprise AI expert Tom Davenport explains that for companies just getting started in AI, building a scalable internal AI practice is critical to delivering long-term results.
Blog revamp
True to its name, The Works offers a lot of valuable extras for interested readers. It’s the home of Freshworks’ new blog, which you can explore under the “Company” tab. There, you’ll find a mix of stories aligned to the same core themes, but with a focus on how Freshworks—publisher of The Works—embraces those themes in its products, in the experience of its customers, and in its people, culture, and industry research.
We think it’s time for a renaissance in business software, and we’ve designed The Works to be a sounding board for business readers, not a lectern. Feel free to drop us a line and share your feedback, suggestions, or ideas: theworks@freshworks.com.
