Opinion – Agilebase

Growth at all costs can break your business

By Cliff Calcutt, CEO, Agilebase. For years we’ve been conditioned to believe that if a business isn’t growing spectacularly then it is somehow underachieving. You’ll hear people talk about doubling turnover, opening new sites, recruiting aggressively or expanding into new markets as though faster is always better. Success is often measured by how much a business has grown, not by how well it is actually operating. I’m not convinced that’s the right way to look at it. Of course, every business wants to grow. Without growth it’s difficult to invest, develop people or remain competitive. But growth, on its own,…
Why most start-ups shouldn’t chase venture capital

By Cliff Calcutt, CEO, Agilebase. Spend enough time in business circles and you could be forgiven for thinking there is only one definition of success. Raise investment -> scale quickly -> sell the company -> repeat. Attend startup events, read technology news or browse LinkedIn and you’ll see a steady stream of stories celebrating funding rounds, acquisitions and rapid growth. The message is subtle but persistent: if you’re not pursuing investment, you’re somehow thinking too small. But I have found the reality to be rather different. Most successful businesses will never raise venture capital, and I believe most shouldn’t. That’s…
Trust, technology and the growing importance of data sovereignty

By Oliver Kohll Introduction: In my experience, trust has always been one of the biggest challenges in the IT industry.For decades, organisations have invested enormous sums into digital transformation projects with mixed results. Anyone who has worked in enterprise technology long enough will remember the recurring findings from the Standish Group reports: a strikingly low percentage of IT projects delivered on time, on budget, and with the outcomes businesses originally expected. But I found the root problem was rarely technology alone. More often, it was a trust gap between commercial teams and technical delivery teams. Businesses struggled to articulate their…
Why your back office system could be holding you back – and what to do about it

Walk into any well-run factory, and what do you see? A seamless flow of materials, workers, and machines, each knowing exactly what needs to happen next. Conveyor belts keep products moving, machinery hums in harmony, and data points from the production line feed into dashboards, telling managers exactly how things are performing. Now, imagine if a factory floor were run the way many back-office systems are today. Boxes stacked in random corners, workers shouting across the warehouse to find out what to do next, machines operating on different power sources that occasionally fail to sync up. Productivity would collapse overnight.…
Will AI kill SaaS?

Recently we attended an event in the excellent TechSpark series ‘Bristol and Bath AI x Byte Sized Cyber MashUp’, led by a young entrepreneur who said, in a provocative statement, that AI will soon ‘kill’ SaaS services, as everyone will be able to ask AI to generate working code for their own bespoke application. SaaS stands for Software as a Service, meaning web applications such as Mailchimp, Xero, Google Docs or Agilebase. As with many ‘X vs. Y’ statements, I think the truth is more that ‘X and Y together’ will be the new way of working. We have a…
Better AI?

AI features can be really useful in automating or helping with tasks, if you know how they work and what to watch out for. However, in the professional space of those in or close to the AI industry, some thinking is crystallising around what fundamental improvements would and could look like – currently the development lens has been rather narrow, growing as it has from Silicon Valley’s perceptions of needs and benefits. A study (Forbes link) has just found that ‘on average, users of AI at work had a time savings of [just] 3%’. Here are a few forward thinking…
AI will out-think humans in 14 months’ time, says Anthropic CEO

The story of AI is beginning a new chapter. Is the next AI breakthrough around the corner, asks Agilebase’s CTO Oliver Kohll? In a 13,000-word essay on his blog last week, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei declared that an AI breakthrough is around the corner. According to Amodei, we are 14 months away from the development of “Powerful AI.” He defines that as “smarter than a Nobel Prize winner” in fields like biology and engineering. His essay has caused a stir in the tech world. Unlike other AI boosters such as Open AI’s Sam Altman or Elon Musk, Amodei is seen…
How Agilebase Uses AI

We use it to enhance efficiency and ensure integrity A new report says few people are using “much-hyped” artificial intelligence (AI) products such as ChatGPT. Researchers surveyed 12,000 people in six countries, including the UK. It found two per cent of British respondents use AI tools on a daily basis. Dr Richard Fletcher is the report’s author. He told the BBC there was a “mismatch” between the “hype” around AI and the “public interest” in it. “Large parts of the public are not interested in generative AI. Thirty per cent of people in the UK say they have not heard…
No-Code and AI are turbo-charging digital transform-ation

“It is fab to see AI introduced to this no-code CRM system. I gave it a test run yesterday. I created a new table. From one sentence, I could connect my new table to an existing one in the correct way. It made great suggestions in fields.” Sofia Alvadia (pictured right) is Principal Transport Operations Officer at the West of England Combined Authority, Bristol. She said she enjoys how AI boosts the leading no-code CRM system her organisation uses. When confronted with a blank screen, it can be a challenge to generate and build upon ideas, but through amalgamating AI with a no-code…
“The Post Office scandal is appalling. Another Big IT disaster is around the corner”

An approach that adapts to user needs is the only future for software development, says Agilebase CEO Cliff Calcutt The world’s most expensive bridge is the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge. It cost $20 billion to build. It spans 34 miles, making it the longest sea-crossing bridge and tunnel system in the world. It connects Hong Kong, Macau, and mainland China across the Pearl River Delta. It took nine years to build, from 2009 to 2018. It is an impressive feat of engineering. Imagine you were in charge of this project. Before construction begins, someone tells you the chance of successful completion…

Category: Opinion