Fit and technologies¶
You order a pizza in an app. The app works perfectly: you pay, you get a confirmation. Twenty minutes later the restaurant calls you because the order never reached the kitchen. The app was digital. The kitchen was a printer that had run out of paper.
Digitalising one area does not help if the next area cannot receive what it sends. And choosing a technology because it is fashionable, instead of because an area needs it, can be very expensive. Between 2011 and 2018 the supermarket chain Lidl tried to replace its inventory system with SAP. According to the business press, it stopped the project in July 2018 after about 500 million euros: Lidl valued its stock at purchase prices, the standard software at retail prices, and instead of changing the process, the software was bent to fit it.
What you will learn
- Describe how a digitalised area fits with the others using an interface table
- Spot the frictions where a digital area meets one that still works on paper
- Tell present needs from future ones, and back a future need with a real figure
- Build an area × technology matrix that starts from needs and reuses D2, D3 and D4
- Avoid the trap of choosing the technology first and then looking for somewhere to put it
The roads between neighbourhoods¶
In the city-builder, you can renovate a neighbourhood beautifully. If the road that leaves it is still a dirt track, the traffic jams right at the border.
An interface is the point where two areas hand something to each other: data, a document, a product, an order.
A friction is an interface that wastes time or causes errors: someone retypes data, a format does not match, the same customer exists twice with different addresses.
For each digitalised area, ask four questions: what does it receive, from whom, in what format, and what does it hand to whom?
| From | To | What they exchange | Friction |
|---|---|---|---|
| Orders (digital: B2B portal) | Bakery floor (not digital) | Quantities per product and day | The floor manager prints the list and copies it onto the night-shift whiteboard |
| Orders (digital) | Administration (ERP) | Delivered orders to invoice | A manual export every week: errors and late invoices |
| Ovens (digital: IoT meters) | Maintenance (not digital) | Alerts about abnormal consumption | The alert goes by email to a person who is not on shift |
Typical frictions: retyping data by hand, incompatible formats, duplicated data that contradict each other, and depending on a single person who "knows how it is done".
Careful: \"we digitalise the area and that's it\"
Digitalising an isolated area only moves the problem to its border. Every friction you find must have an answer in your plan: digitalise the other side too, connect the two systems, or accept it and say why.
Today and tomorrow¶
A present need hurts today. A future need will appear in one to three years, because of the company's goals or because the sector is moving.
| Present (hurts today) | Future (1–3 years) |
|---|---|
| Orders by phone get lost or misunderstood | Serve the new hotels of the season without hiring more office staff |
| Nobody knows how much each oven consumes | Large customers will ask suppliers for emissions data |
| Temperature logs on paper | Health inspections may ask for digital records and traceability |
A future need must be backed by something outside your head. The INE (Spain's national statistics institute) surveys every year how companies use technology. Its press release of 22 October 2026 says that 33.6% of Spanish companies with 10 or more employees used artificial intelligence in the first quarter of 2026, and 39.4% paid for cloud services. If your company's sector is moving there, keeping up is a future need.
A choice that solves today but breaks tomorrow must be justified or changed. This is where scalability and pay-per-use, from D3, come in.
From need to technology¶
In the city-builder, the tech tree shows what you have unlocked. You have unlocked a lot this year: the enabling technologies of D2, the cloud of D3 and the AI of D4. Now you pick from that menu.
An area × technology matrix lists, for each priority area, the need, the technology that answers it, the goal it serves and the chapter of the dossier it comes from.
The rule is one line: from need to technology, never the other way round.
| Area | Need | Technology | Goal | Comes from |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Orders | Receive orders in writing, without errors | B2B ordering portal as a service (SaaS), connected to the ERP | Online orders | D2, D3 |
| Ovens | Know the consumption of each oven and shift | IoT energy meters and a dashboard | Energy | D2, D3 |
| Orders | Predict how much bread the hotels will need | Demand forecasting model on the order history | Waste | D4 |
| Quality | Reliable temperature records | Sensors in the cold rooms with alarms (edge at the bakery) | Waste | D2, D3 |
Name the type of solution ("a B2B portal as a service"). If you name a specific product, say why that one.
Discarding is a decision too
Your D2 probably covered technologies that do not fit any goal: a bakery hardly needs blockchain or augmented reality. Write one discarded technology and the reason. It shows that you chose, instead of copying a catalogue.
In class: sector figure, interfaces and matrix¶
| Step | Do this | You should see |
|---|---|---|
| 1 · alone | Find one external figure about your company's sector that backs a future need: the INE press release on ICT in companies, Ibestat, a sector report or a news item | A figure, its source with date and link, and the goal it connects to |
| 2 · group | In the shared spreadsheet, the interface table: for each priority area, what it exchanges with at least two other areas (one digital, one not), in what format, and the friction | Three or more rows, each with a friction |
| 3 · alone | Fill two rows of the area × technology matrix: area, need, type of technology, goal, chapter it comes from | Two rows that start from a need |
| 4 · group | Add one discarded technology and why | One row with a reason |
Hand in on Classroom (individual class activity): your future-need card and your two matrix rows, with the group's interface table attached. Generative AI is not allowed, even if your plan proposes AI for the company.
For your project¶
This lesson builds section 2 · Fit, needs and technologies of D6 · Transformation plan (criteria d, e and f). The technologies come from your D2, D3 and D4; this section is where you choose among them.
Key takeaways¶
- An interface is where two areas hand something to each other; a friction is an interface that wastes time or causes errors.
- Digitalising one area alone moves the problem to its border. Every friction needs an answer.
- Present needs hurt today; future needs come from the goals and the sector. Back them with a real figure, such as the INE survey.
- The area × technology matrix goes from need to technology, never the other way round, and reuses D2, D3 and D4.
- Bending a process to a tool, or a tool to a process, without checking the fit can cost a fortune: Lidl's SAP project was stopped in 2018 after about 500 million euros.
Quick check¶
1. What is a friction between two areas?
- Any disagreement between two department heads
- An exchange between areas that wastes time or causes errors, such as retyping data
- A security gap in the network between two offices
- The cost of a new technology
A friction sits at an interface: the point where two areas hand data, documents or products to each other. Retyping, mismatched formats and duplicated data are the classic ones.
2. The orders area is now digital, but the bakery floor still works from a printed list. What happens?
- Nothing: the orders area is already digital
- Someone has to copy the data by hand, so there is a bottleneck and a risk of errors at the border
- The bakery floor becomes digital automatically
- The orders portal stops working
Digitalising an isolated area moves the problem to its border. Your plan has to answer that friction.
3. Which of these is a future need, rather than a present one?
- Orders by phone are getting lost
- Nobody knows how much each oven consumes
- Large customers will start asking suppliers for emissions data
- Paper temperature logs are hard to read
The first, second and fourth hurt today. The third will appear in the coming years: it is a future need, and it should be backed by a source.
4. A group writes: \"We will use blockchain. Now let's find an area for it.\" What is wrong?
- Nothing: every enabling technology must appear in the plan
- Blockchain is illegal in the European Union
- They start from the technology instead of the need; the matrix goes from need to technology
- Blockchain can only be used by banks
The rule is from need to technology, never the other way round. A technology without a need is a discarded technology, and saying so is a good justification.
5. Where should the technologies of the matrix come from?
- From the chapters you already wrote: D2 (enabling technologies), D3 (cloud) and D4 (AI)
- From a list generated with an AI chatbot
- From the most popular products of the year
- Only from D5
You unlocked the tech tree during the year: D2, D3 and D4 are the menu. And generative AI is not allowed in assessed work.
6. According to the business press, why did Lidl's SAP project run into trouble?
- SAP refused to sell the software to Lidl
- Lidl's process (stock at purchase prices) did not fit the standard software, and the software was adapted instead of the process
- The servers were stolen
- The project was finished early and under budget
The process and the tool did not fit, and adapting the software made it slower and more expensive until the project was stopped in July 2018. Fit is a decision criterion, not a detail.
7. A hotel chain wants to receive 30% more guests in two years. Which two choices are better justified by that future need?
- A booking and check-in system that scales with demand, paid per use
- A server bought today with exactly today's capacity
- Automating repetitive guest questions so the same staff can serve more people
- Keeping check-in on paper because it works today
A future need justifies choosing now something that scales. A fixed server or paper solve today and break tomorrow.
The areas fit and have their technologies. Every new technology brings new data and new doors to lock. Next: Security, data and integration.