The next level beyond office applications

Charles Drayson

Oct 20 · 3 min read

It made perfect sense for Microsoft to adopt the ‘Office’ label when they started grouping their applications. Over time, we saw those applications having a similar look-and-feel and increasing connectivity. Office applications are used, err, right across the office. The Finance team uses the same solutions as the Marketing team, and the HR team, and every team. It would be annoying if they didn’t.

Each team might adopt its own templates, styles, macros and customisations to reflect the team’s needs and preferences. Still, they could share their work with other teams without hindrance. Most of the teams have a bias to some applications and probably don’t use the others. That’s fine – they all get value even if they don’t all use all of the solution all of the time. Some users get their work done with the basic features, and some users find value in complex, obscure features, and the real hero is one who builds clever stuff that colleagues can use.

We see Legito like that.

It’s fine if you just want to use it in one department, but our vision is about empowering the whole enterprise with features that work across team boundaries, with the same look-and-feel, integrated, and yet ready to be customised for the needs of each team. Most teams will only use some of the features, but the enterprise needs access to all of them. Legito gets work done within teams, but it exists because most work needs to flow between teams. It’s the next level beyond office applications. 

As organisations expand their use of Legito, we are seeing true enterprise-wide adoption. But, just like Microsoft Office, it’s equally useful for companies with few users. The numbers don’t matter – it’s the ability to span the whole organisation that makes it powerful.

Perhaps the test of an office application is whether an organisation would miss it if it wasn’t there, and where the adoption is self-evident of value.

It made perfect sense for Microsoft to adopt the ‘Office’ label when they started grouping their applications. Over time, we saw those applications having a similar look-and-feel and increasing connectivity. Office applications are used, err, right across the office. The Finance team uses the same solutions as the Marketing team, and the HR team, and every team. It would be annoying if they didn’t.

Each team might adopt its own templates, styles, macros and customisations to reflect the team’s needs and preferences. Still, they could share their work with other teams without hindrance. Most of the teams have a bias to some applications and probably don’t use the others. That’s fine – they all get value even if they don’t all use all of the solution all of the time. Some users get their work done with the basic features, and some users find value in complex, obscure features, and the real hero is one who builds clever stuff that colleagues can use.

We see Legito like that.

It’s fine if you just want to use it in one department, but our vision is about empowering the whole enterprise with features that work across team boundaries, with the same look-and-feel, integrated, and yet ready to be customised for the needs of each team. Most teams will only use some of the features, but the enterprise needs access to all of them. Legito gets work done within teams, but it exists because most work needs to flow between teams. It’s the next level beyond office applications. 

As organisations expand their use of Legito, we are seeing true enterprise-wide adoption. But, just like Microsoft Office, it’s equally useful for companies with few users. The numbers don’t matter – it’s the ability to span the whole organisation that makes it powerful.

No code applications

Analysts and commentators are talking about no code applications and no code platforms. A few years ago, a phrase like ‘no code applications’ would seem ambiguous because it doesn’t describe anything specific. Today, it’s implicit that organisations increasingly want to build their own solutions using commercially available software. Moreover, they want to build those solutions without dependence on developers to create and maintain them. They want the building blocks to create, process, move, manage and share work – and they want them configured by colleagues with a native understanding of the business needs, and they want quick deployments – not IT projects. The users will be the same people who use office applications. Some of those will step up and create clever stuff for their colleagues.

Perhaps the test of an office application is whether an organisation would miss it if it wasn’t there, and where the adoption is self-evident of value.

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