Unabhängiges Magazin für Wirtschaft und Bildung

29. März 2024

Search form

Search form

The increasing networking of the digital and physical world

The increasing networking of the digital and physical world© piqs.de/ilagam

Some years ago, the image was still dominant that “IT” could be found in the basement of businesses and people talking incomprehensibly with flashing machines take care of the functioning. Nowadays, the image has changed drastically, in particular in industry, massive transformations of the physical world and possible business effects appear.

According to a PwC-Study reaching across industries, an efficiency increase of about 4 and cost reductions during manufacture of about 3 percent are anticipated per year. In essence, this new industrial revolution is a networking in the production process as well as the organisation for the entire value chain via the life cycle of products.

Automated control and maintenance processes
Experts now recommend to plan corresponding “Industry 4.0 solutions“ in an integrated manner, and thereby to also include subjects such as data management, automated control and maintenance processes as well as mobile assistance systems. Because such projects concern the core areas of businesses, not only IT department alone, but an integrated approach with overall responsibility at board level is required.
This development also demands new challenges of IT service providers. "For us, this means that we need not only to understand the technology but also the business of our customers” Jochen Borenich, management board of Kapsch BusinessCom, defines for example the additional role.

Consolidation and higher efficiency
In the new digital age with services such as cloud, the classic outsourcing also experiences a change of trend. Businesses see themselves at crossroads given the rapid digitalisation, their IT departments can often no longer keep pace.
Outsourcing such as cloud stand for consolidation and higher efficiency, but also for innovation in business models. However, stumbling blocks can thereby be long-term commitments to providers, for example with new requirements or circumstances such as change in location or strategy.
T-Systems now leave classic outsourcing and go toward modern cloud services. A model for the new "non-outsourcing" is the disruptive model of T-Mobile USA, where the mobile operator, among others, questioned numerous agreement conditions, entered upgrade restrictions or even took over costs for the provider change.

Individual billing models
For businesses, with this "non-outsourcing", SAP subjects or transformations on existent platforms are now in focus. Flexibility with individual billing models has thereby special importance, and based on a performance-based contract binding, one can cancel at any time has thereby a special can be terminated at any time if not satisfied, even after transformation.
"We rely on highly standardised, dynamic platforms and transform the IT systems of the customer directly into the cloud logic", explains Dirk Lukaschik of T-Systems Austria.

Links

red/czaak – translation by economy, Economy Ausgabe Webartikel, 13.09.2016