FutureIT Boston: Pipefy leaders share insights for improving IT and LOB collabs to accelerate POC delivery

How can IT leaders help businesses build the right tech stack, foster inter-department collaboration, and speed up workflow deployment?

This was one of the questions posed by Felipe Carvalho, Pipefy’s Chief of Revenue, during a fireside chat at FutureIT Boston 2024. The event, which took place on May 14, brought together IT leaders to discuss emerging technologies, AI, data, and more. 

Pipefy leaders Felipe Carvalho (CRO) and Josh Roth (VP of Revenue) were invited to speak on topics such as IT and LOB collaboration, and methods teams can use to get proof of concepts (POCs) up and running 60% faster. 

CRO Felipe Carvalho took the main stage in his discussion titled How to Power Application Development Success: A Platform Supercharges Collaboration Between Dev Teams and User Departments.

“Are we finding ways for those who aren’t coders to maneuver complex tech stacks?” asked moderator and CIO Contributing Editor Aaron Goldberg. Carvalho answered promptly: “Absolutely.” Pipefy understands the need to empower business teams to create and manage workflows while maintaining IT governance. And the answer lies in low-code and no-code technologies aimed at Business Process Automation (BPA).

“Low-code and no-code technologies enable IT and business departments to collaborate better and achieve more. This happens for a few reasons; one is allowing IT to increase their output in terms of doing things faster or doing things with cheaper resources”, said Felipe Carvalho. “Here is one example: Accenture, a client of ours, said: ‘With Pipefy we have been able to build workflows with little IT resources, freeing our senior developers, so we can get more things done with the current resources we have.’”

Why is collaboration between IT and lines of business so important?

As a result of changing business needs, CIOs and IT leaders now enjoy a deeper, two-way relationship with the business side. They educate senior stakeholders on the value of IT, especially during times of crisis, and take the lead on high-impact initiatives. 

On the flip side, business leaders are also more aware of the need to collaborate closely with IT to achieve faster, more strategic, and less costly results. The enterprise’s innovation and growth runs through IT, and boards and CEOs know it.

These new realities illustrate how traditional boundaries between business and IT are blurring. After all, a sustainable enterprise is only possible when business capabilities are combined to meet changing needs. 

This is especially true among application leaders: The future of applications depends on the collaboration between IT and business units. As business leadership takes a more strategic role in sourcing, procuring, implementing, delivering, and maintaining applications, application leaders must continually seek new approaches. (Source: Gartner)

Challenges faced by IT and business leaders

• Rapidly changing environment on the business side: companies need to get things done faster and faster to keep up with the market, which increases the pressure on IT.

• IT Backlog: resource shortages create strains in keeping up with all business needs, resulting, in a heavy IT backlog and long prioritization line.

• Tech Stack: companies must control tech stack growth to cut maverick spending and to provide a centralized operation with fully connected workflows.

How can technology improve collaboration?

A BPA platform such as Pipefy improves collaboration between IT and LOBs by empowering business teams to create up to 85% of workflows independently, while IT maintains governance. Business teams have autonomy; IT holds the key.

The result is a more effective and productive relationship. IT can focus on strategic deliveries while business teams are spared long wait lines. Pipefy improves FTE productivity by reducing the IT backlog and making more time and bandwidth available for business line deliverables, service requests, and IT strategy. 

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How to deliver POCs more quickly and efficiently

Pipefy also hosted a tabletop discussion on completing proofs of concept (POC) 60% faster. Josh Roth, our VP of revenue, talked about the importance of software that supports simpler process modifications and optimizations while maximizing the speed and efficiency of POC delivery.

To quickly deliver POC, the business should follow a systematic approach that includes thorough planning, efficient resource allocation, and continuous improvement. 

Some of the feedback mentioned on the roundtable were:

• Use a joint success plan that guides you through value realization
• Typically value will start to be realized during the MVP
• Ensure IT has the proper controls and governance to roll out processes most effectively and with IT oversight

“We had a great discussion about getting more from your proof of concepts. Not all IT leaders acknowledge this, and it’s very important for business.” said Roth.

A platform that supercharges collaboration and POC delivery

As we showcased during FutureIT Boston, the right technology can help collaborate between IT and lines of business for optimized POC delivery. But this is only a small part of our software. Pipefy is a secure, AI-powered process automation platform that empowers business teams and implements up to 2X faster than other solutions.

Pipefy’s native connectors to 300+ systems, no-code interface, and artificial intelligence capabilities mean teams can start building optimized workflows right away, free of steep learning curves. Meanwhile, IT no longer has to worry about an ever-increasing backlog or governance issues, and can rest assured security is well taken care of: Pipefy has built-in enterprise-grade security features including SSO, MFA, audit logs, and RBAC.

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