Importance of the IT “Village” – Leveraging a Partner Ecosystem for Success
As the world rapidly digitises and becomes more complex, the challenges of sustainability, climate change and energy transition are too big for any one business to tackle alone. New solutions are constantly appearing and being implemented to improve our ways of working.
Not too long ago, we travelled to deposit paychecks, made purchases in person, and arrived at a physical office location to work each day. Technological advances have created new and innovative solutions, enabling us to do most things from mobile apps and websites right at our fingertips. Today, innovation is everything. The newly tabled Budget 2023 is timely as Malaysia aims to support micro, small, and medium enterprises (SMEs) by allocating RM1 billion from Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) to facilitate their digitalisation through process automation. However, businesses need all the help they can get.
While businesses would ideally source internally to develop modern solutions to meet the changing needs in an increasingly digital world, the phrase “it takes a village,” has never been more relevant. To achieve top-of-the-line service and keep up with the rapid change in the IT industry, collaboration is pivotal. That’s why forward-thinking organisations are increasingly looking to combine forces for innovation and co-creation, especially as the market moves to open, interoperable, digital and simplified systems and business operations. The IT “village” is stronger together.
An overwhelming 96% of companies have already adopted, or are considering, an eco-system approach to business, allowing co-creation with vendors to develop new digital products and services for enhanced sustainability and efficiency. Through an ecosystem method, companies can leverage innovation capacity, which Schneider Electric describes as a combination of skills, capabilities, and resources, to innovate and transform. The wide range of benefits provided by a partner ecosystem includes:
Increased access to diversified talent, education and recruitment tools.
Robert Walters’ Salary Survey found that 60% of Malaysian employers may struggle to retain their top talent, and 95% are concerned about a talent shortage due to high salary and benefits expectations. Stifling talent gaps are limiting innovation capacity and putting pressure on companies to revamp recruitment and retention efforts across industries. With the demand for IT talent and the hurdles businesses need to jump over to find and keep high performers remaining a huge pain point in today’s “War for Talent”, a collaborative ecosystem provides access to additional resources and diversity of thought that increases a company’s ability (and capacity) to innovate.
The ability to anticipate uncertainty and navigate market volatility with widespread knowledge and expertise.
More than half (61%) of partners believe that COVID-19 was a key driver for their customers’ choice to adopt digital solutions and embrace new technology. By partnering with an ecosystem of players, companies across the globe can make themselves more resilient and prepared for the all-electric world. Further, with different partners in the IT “village” specialising in a number of niche areas, the result is a unique, high-impact, dependable solution that derives the highest possible level of value to customers, no matter what is happening in the world.
Enhanced capability to deliver new and emerging technologies.
Through an ecosystem, companies can implement new technology in ways that are too complicated or unmanageable on their own. Working together, organisations can create, deploy, operate, and execute improved information technology solutions. There is exponential value in building a village comprised of partners across the ecosystem that is much greater than the sum of its parts.
Concluding thoughts
For most companies in the IT industry, operating alone simply isn’t feasible or worth the overwhelming cost. To avoid burning out employees by attempting to do it all, companies need to accept that collaborating with external partners can make just as significant of an impact on their business as internal teamwork. Not only does cultivating your own IT “village” ease the burden placed on employees to overwork, it also protects your business from the unknown of the future by forming key relationships with other players to create a wider span of expertise and resources.
Last, but certainly not least, the importance of the ability to formulate, distribute and execute innovative technologies faster and more effectively than before cannot be understated. Customers won’t wait for companies to catch up. So, now is the time to begin or continue in the journey to a comprehensive partner ecosystem to provide your business with the collaborative ecosystem it needs to be successful.
By Adrian Koh, the Head of Secure Power Division Malaysia & Brunei
