In its white paper “IT 2020: Preparing for the future” the experts of A.T. Kearney investigate important trends in IT and how successful companies will build on IT in 2020. They explain why “digital tools are now ubiquitous in all aspects of commerce, from business processes to services and transaction” and that “information technology is the main engine driving the change”. We couldn’t agree more.
When it comes to sourcing of services in general and to Application Development and Maintenance (ADM) in particular, customers benefit from our SaaS-based tool-suite which radically simplifies global outsourcing. Automation combined with optimized processes offers customers transparency, improved sourcing relationships and more outsourcing value.
A.T. Kearney’s study is based on feedback from more than 150 CIOs for the demand side but did also have a close look at the supply side. The paper provides many valuable insights of which we tried to extract some as seen of relevance by pliXos and in line with the pliXos view. Those are
- Digital is gaining importance; this is not only true for online business but also for other areas, e.g. optimising back end processes; this view fits to the pliXos vision being a digital business model in IT sourcing advisory.
- Demand of IT services will rise; despite the fact that many tasks will be performed with standard software, we at pliXos are convinced that a rising need will be for SW development / ADM.
- Since IT departments need their own (often rare) business savvy IT experts to interact with business and other tasks, especially ADM will be sourced from fitting external partners.
- Time pressure for implementing IT projects will increase, e.g. due to faster time to market. This is in line with our thinking that successful external sourcing requires faster cycles in supplier selection, negotiation and setting up of the project governance. This is one of core areas the pliXos SaaS suite of products aims at.
- IT budgets are and will remain under constant pressure. Thus providing the utmost value at low costs is one of the ever key topics for the CIO. Outsourcing and offshoring becomes the norm, global delivery models and nearshoring (e.g. to Eastern Europe) will heavily increase in importance. All this very much supports our view that an effective usage of global delivery models as well as an industrialised approach building on the right tools and fitting processes is the answer – especially for ADM.
- The skills gap will be wider, so companies need to be able to deal with the lack of skilled IT talent. EMEA and especially Germany and France have a huge qualification deficit in IT. One key answer to this will be – once again - effective usage of global delivery models as well as an industrialised approach building on the right tools and fitting processes.
Figure 6 of the A.T. Kearney report deals with the expected growth of IT outsourcing and offshoring with regards to different domains. The data presented is a stimulus for our vision of an industrialisation in sourcing advisory and governance by digital tools.
Minimising risks is important. According to A.T. Kearney, outsourcing to the very large global suppliers is one way to minimise the risks. pliXos sees this as an option only available to very large customers and a strategy not allowing for a high level of flexibility, optimised costs etc. We are certain (and have proven this to be possible) that keeping risks down by still dealing with smaller providers will be possible by a proper supplier selection (e.g. by the help of the a provider rating based on other customers experiences or pliXos insights, e.g. as part of the free B2B Marketplace) as well as a tight governance plus early warning indicators in the projects (e.g. as offered by the pliXos Outsourcing Director or in form of bespoke solutions from us for dedicated customers). Due to the automation by tools all this experience and process knowledge is available for nearly all steps in the sourcing cycle and without the need for big investments in time or money.
Some examples how the pliXos SaaS tools can help:
- Improve and accelerate the development of your outsourcing strategy.
- Utilize transparency on the global choice of SW service providers.
- Save time and costs by using an optimal process for your individual IT tender.
- Introduce transparency and efficiency into the management of all phases of your complex outsourcing projects.
- Industrialize the governance of your application development projects by an automated KPI Cockpit for agile processes.
- Integrate your existing tools by our open bus.
- Increase the value of your outsourcing projects by an optimised customer – supplier relationship
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