Mission critical application infrastructures are complex, often defined by different technologies, multiple layers and processes, some open source, some proprietary. Consequently each layer of the technology demands very specific skills and people.
Schuberg Philis takes full responsibility for the integrity and availability of our customers’ application infrastructure. End-to-end, from the networks and systems to the databases and applications, regardless of the role partners assume. That’s how we can guarantee 100% functional availability for customers’ mission critical applications. This also creates complex interrelations between the customer, Schuberg Philis, and a wide variety of trusted partners. And this is where Schuberg Philis adds value through experience.
We bring together multiple, best of breed, suppliers to deliver a seamless integrated service. Our service model guarantees transparency and governance with only one objective: to keep customer applications up and running, 24 hours a day, 365 days per year.
The success of application infrastructure management depends upon how teams work together – requiring close collaboration and cooperation with everyone involved, in a relationship where customers and service providers:
- Share knowledge and information;
- Collaborate, co-create and trust;
- Integrate processes;
- Create maximum business context.
Selective and multi-sourcing
More and more companies are looking beyond traditional views of outsourcing and adopting a more disciplined approach – called multi-sourcing - to achieve business growth and agility. Gartner describes multi-sourcing as an innovative discipline that takes organisations beyond ‘quick-fix’ cost cutting to enable capability building, global expansion, increased agility and profitability, and competitive advantage.
At Schuberg Philis we also believe the benefits of a multi-sourcing strategy are compelling:
- Access to specialist expertise: using best-of-breed, specialist providers in niche areas with the ability to execute with a focus on quality and customer needs;
- New mind-set and frameworks: for communicating, interacting with, and overseeing service relationships both inside and outside the organisation;
- Using multiple providers can create healthy competition; lower the risk of delivery failures, escalating fees and inflexible services.
The greatest challenge in multi-sourcing remains the issue of ensuring co-operation between providers, so that no post-contract service gaps appear. With multi-sourcing – for the right reasons and with clear objectives – to best-of-breed providers, customers can benefit from clear arrangements, business focus and an integrated service that has been explicitly agreed with all specialist providers.
Relationships based on trust and the ability to cooperate are going to be key differentiators for service providers in coming years. To deliver high-quality services using complex collaborative teams it is essential to emphasize the importance of trust-based personal relationships and to invest in these relationships building collaborative partnerships with customers, (application) partners and other service providers.
