Stop Reinventing the Wheel Across Your Enterprise Tech Stack 

Kelly Coutinho

October 02, 2026 • 4 min read

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We’re currently working with a consumer goods company whose board has aligned around a strategic outcome for the supply chain org: improving the inventory-to-service tradeoff. However, translating it into execution means connecting decisions made across demand, supply, manufacturing, inventory, and beyond. 

When we mapped the end-to-end workflow to identify what was required to improve the decisions and handoffs, we came to a striking realization: 55% of the capabilities needed to deliver the board’s ambition couldn’t be neatly assigned to a single functional technology stack.  

We don’t see this as an isolated instance, but rather evidence of a larger reality. While demand planning is tied to demand, that same understanding informs what the business buys, makes, holds, and sells. In the same way, material information connects procurement to production. Capacity shapes planning, manufacturing, and fulfillment. Promotions connect commercial decisions to demand, inventory, and supply. 

In short, the same capabilities underlie different decisions. And when those capabilities can be reused, improving them once has the potential to improve multiple decisions and workflows. That is where reuse starts to compound.  

This is our second principle of modern enterprise technology: competitive advantage comes from capabilities that compound through reuse. 

The Economics Change… 

Enterprises often invest in technology through functional boundaries, unnecessarily duplicating data, definitions, intelligence, and operating logic. A mindset shift is needed as reuse means every improvement – be it to data, semantics, intelligence, or operating logic – has the potential to create value in multiple workflows and decisions.  

The economic advantage cuts both ways. When a capability is reused, the cost of creating it can be spread across more initiatives and work, too. Add richer context and more than one workflow can benefit. Improve the intelligence sitting on top of it and the return isn’t confined to the use case that originally funded it.  

That creates a different way to think about technology economics. Rather than evaluating every use case as an isolated investment, organizations can ask: which underlying capabilities could support multiple use cases, decisions, and workflows over time? 

The reverse is also true. Recreating those capabilities inside individual functions duplicates costs but also fragments value. Definitions diverge, context is rebuilt, and improvements remain trapped within individual workflows. Not everything should be horizontal or centralized, but the opportunity here is to distinguish between what needs to be unique and what becomes more valuable when shared.  

…And So Does the Investment Conversation 

Going back to the consumer goods company example, the most compelling takeaway isn’t the 55% data point, but what happened next. When the organization saw its capabilities end-to-end, technology investment moved from isolated functional conversations to a unified view based on business outcomes. Corporate IT was no longer running an RFP in a vacuum while business functions separately defined their tech needs.  

This has given teams a sharper way to review their existing estate, upcoming renewals, and future investments. Now, their key questions include: 

• Where does the required capability already exist?  
• Where is it being duplicated?  
• Where would strengthening an existing asset benefit multiple workflows? 
• Where is a capability distinctive enough that the enterprise must own and control it?  

Broadly, the question has shifted from “what does this function need?” to “what does the enterprise need to be good at repeatedly?” This distinction becomes increasingly important as AI makes it easier to create new capabilities quickly. Without a clear view of what should be reused, adding more intelligence also adds more fragmentation.  

What Should I Do Now?  

• Look beneath workflows. Take a strategic business outcome and map the decisions required to deliver it. (This is what our PowerThreads work with Zero100 members is all about.) Then identify the data, semantics, intelligence, and operating logic those decisions depend on.  
• Target repetition as an investment signal.  Before recreating a capability inside another function or application, ask whether strengthening the shared capability would create value in more places.  

The goal is to recognize that some of the most strategically important capabilities don’t belong to a single function. They become more valuable each time the enterprise reuses them.