Most software companies are about to lose their moat.
Technology is being commoditized at speed. If everyone can build, what exactly are you protecting?
The moat erodes in stages
We are living through a shift where technology is becoming commoditized at speed. The barriers that once protected software companies are eroding. Tools that required large development teams can now be replicated, reconfigured and improved by small, focused teams using AI.
If everyone can build, what exactly are you protecting?
For years the answer was product. Then it became ecosystem. Lately it has been data: even if the software is interchangeable, we still own the customer data. But what happens when data mobility accelerates as well? When moving data from one system to another becomes trivial, what remains defensible?
Our own answer arrived in stages
First, we help businesses close the gap between what they want to achieve and what their current stack actually allows them to do. Most companies are constrained by tools that were never designed around their operating model, so we redesign workflows and reshape the stack to fit the business rather than the other way around.
Then something interesting happens. Once a company is no longer dependent on a specific product, and the stack is designed around its actual processes, subscriptions shrink, complexity drops and ownership increases. The business becomes leaner and more adaptable.
But that is only step two.
Step three is where it gets interesting
When your workflows are redesigned and your data is structured properly, you are no longer just running software. You are running institutional memory. Context. Decision logic. Sales intelligence. Operational patterns.
So let me ask the harder questions. If your top sales manager left tomorrow, how much of their real knowledge would remain inside your systems? If a founder stepped away unexpectedly, how much of their decision context is documented in a usable way? If key operators disappeared for six months, could you maintain continuity?
If your top sales manager left tomorrow, how much of their real knowledge would remain inside your systems?
Very few companies think about continuity at all
Most companies insure physical assets. Some insure cyber risk. Very few give the same attention to whether what the business knows would survive the people who know it.
As agents become more capable and data becomes more mobile, we move toward a world where every key role can have a contextual counterpart inside the system. Not as a replacement for people, but as continuity.
This argument has a sequel, and the rest of it lives on this site.