The Needs For System Integration In The Digital Age
Technology is one of the key components of a business's success and management procedure. System integration (SI) is known as the procedure of integrating all the virtual and physical components of an organization’s system. It combines all business processes together, delivering a single place to communicate and interact with internal and external partners.
In recent years, several major businesses have already begun adopting digital transformation initiatives across industries, as well as numerous innovations related to big data and analytics. Because of a major technology shift, corporate CIOs / CMOs / CEOs are more confused about how to take their company on a digital transformation journey.
It is crucial to create a digital business strategy from a long-term overview before starting the digital transformation. But, having a detailed digital roadmap is not enough for enterprises looking to embark on this journey. Enterprises need system integrators to achieve their digital goals.
Every software development outsourcing has a different strategy or solution. An intelligent systems integrator (IS) must be able to help bridge the gap between strategy and execution. These are the main barriers preventing enterprises from starting a digital transformation:
- Some enterprises have outdated platforms and systems, as well as dispersed employee and customer data.
- Security problems with their data during the digital transformation process.
- A lack of a clear understanding of the issues and internal skills to manage them
- Limited budget to execute their digital strategy.
With the help of software development outsourcing, businesses can pull together a strategy/roadmap for their digital transformation journey as well as put together a detailed plan to execute it. Besides, businesses also benefit when they rely on the services of an experienced systems integrator:
- Improve the company's ability to upgrade the performance of current legacy systems.
- Reliable and accurate reporting analysis is available to provide better decision-making.
Most companies want to scale their digital transformation and reorganize their processes and systems without having to drastically change their strategy. Such business and technology shifts are opportunities for many entrepreneurs to start new start-ups.
Digital transformation is too big for one or even a handful of companies to tackle. Therefore, only some of these start-ups can manage the digital transformation independently. That’s why global SIs can play an essential role. But most traditional SIs take time to adapt to these changes. Although smaller SI may be more agile, very few are intended to deliver a complete digital solution for enterprise customers. Here are some of the challenges that most global SIs are facing:
- Recognizing technology changes and customer needs as well as refocusing their internal R&D to recycle their resources.
- Persuading customers that the changes they are suggesting are in their best interests and emphasizing the fact that they are suited to be applied on their digital transformation journey.
- Balance current accounts with technology partners that expand into new markets and recoup their current investments and revenue streams.
Getting ready to not only execute digital strategies but also fund the development of their business’s clients and profit from the savings their clients would experience. It will also give trust to some customers who currently lack funding to embark on a digital journey with their SI partners.
Regardless of the role that global SIs decide to play in the process of digital transformation, they must always be aware of the changes and transform quickly to keep up with them. The best way to do this is to:
- Collaborate with companies that are also growing at a similar rate, which helps them accelerate their own growth.
- Embrace a new partner who might be able to provide differentiation in order to cover niche areas of end-to-end customer solutions.
- Restructure all internal teams and their solutions into a single unit.
- Show long-term vision and develop according to customer needs.
When client relationships develop, they can plan to advance their collaborations and co-invest and co-innovate with chosen partners to deliver unique recommendations to get ahead of the competition.
Global SI needs to conduct an analysis of customer needs and develop strategic partnerships and POCs in order to demonstrate their value to customers during their digital journey. In fact, some customers wonder if SIs have partnerships with some specific product vendors and if that strategic partnership can act as a catalyst in transforming their applications, systems, and procedures.
A number of SI have started to actively invest in startups in order to support and gain an early advantage in their customer offerings. But, the challenge is to determine niche businesses and quickly form crucial partnerships with partners from the new era.
The global SIs must actively embrace this new era of collaboration and make the necessary investments. In order to prove to customers that they have the necessary expertise, they need to build partnerships and develop technologies and POCs. It is preferable for them to consult with their customers and develop a strategy as soon as possible to advance digital transformation rather than to allow the competition to take control.
