While the cost to run a web application has plummeted over the last decade, the development and infrastructure stack has exploded in complexity.

This means that much of the cost savings in infrastructure have just been passed onto engineering salaries and increased development timelines. Even smaller engineering teams often require significant specialization in devops, infrastructure and front-end engineering.

The number of Software-as-a-Service businesses has exploded over the past decade, with the average 200+ person company adopting over 100 separate SaaS services. As SaaS services become more and more specialized, virtually every aspect of business has become a digital workflow. This has led to an immense flood of digital information, leading many tech pundits to refer to data as “the new oil”.

Teams and individuals have become increasingly productive and effective with the plethora of tools that are now deployed across most modern teams (e.g. productivity apps, communication apps, workflow management, analytics tools). However, because of the three macro trends listed, the drive to work smarter and better will not stop with this initial wave of tools.

Millennials grew up native to mobile, social networking, ubiquitous internet, eCommerce. As they grow older, their use of the services they used in their college years and twenties wanes as they become less “time rich” with new life priorities. However, their preference and expectations for convenience, connectivity and access are deeply ingrained.