System Integrators are monolithic creatures soon to become relics in this fast changing world.

You are not very smart if you’re running a Systems Integrator business or a professional services company. You either need to be super large global player (like Accenture), or a national icon (like Infosys) or you might as well get out of business. With project risks underwritten by large SI firms, the burden to deliver projects on time within budget is onerous. The perennial issue of project and scope creep is always there which erodes any profit margins, actual or imagined. And if you come from the old-school of giving the client superior customer service at any costs; it may really cost you an arm and a leg. Good luck!

Let’s face it – there is always someone who can deliver at a fraction of what it costs you internally. So it makes sense to outsource, right!  Given the time, everybody gets it right anyway. Besides, your client knows someone, a niece or cousin or somebody who can do it within a week for next to nothing. Seriously, I do believe them – there are real people living in India, Vietnam, China, Ukraine or the Philippines who can do it at unbelievable prices. The difference is so vast, you will begin to start asking, what’s our obsession with superior client services or CMMi Level 5 and all that jazz. There is one business maxim – ‘Businesses seek optimal returns’.

If you a marginal player in the industry, you become the price taker. In fact, even the large players are not immune from this problem. It is a matter of time arbitragers equalise any price premiums in the market place. Get out before it’s too late. 

In my next blog, I’ll discuss about where I think we are going to gravitate to in the near future.  i.e. where the money is!