Automation key to managing supply chain needs

German manufacturers are pushing for rapid adoption of service integration and management (SIAM) and IT service management (ITSM) solutions, and they are using SIAM/ITSM tools to manage continuous changes in their supply chains, according to a new report published today by Information Services Group (ISG) (Nasdaq: III), a leading global technology research and advisory firm.

The 2020 ISG Provider Lens™ SIAM/ITSM Report for Germany finds many enterprises in Germany using SIAM/ITSM tools to gain direct access to business warehouse information, enterprise resource planning and business applications to get details about the design, availability and delivery date of products or orders. Manufacturers are using SIAM/ITSM tools to adapt their supplier ecosystems to meet the changing business requirements of customers.

As companies focus on constantly improving customer experience, the number of IT services underpinning their business solutions is increasing, the report says. This raises the requirements of and the demand for SIAM/ITSM services and tools, which allow enterprises to manage many service suppliers and integrate them into a single business-facing IT organization.

While IT organizations in Germany have traditionally kept core infrastructure and application management in-house, a growing need for agility is driving them to managed service providers, the report says. “A labor shortage and the need for deep knowledge about new and complex technologies are forcing IT departments to rethink their approach,” said Andrea Spiegelhoff, partner, ISG DACH.

As a result, the SIAM/ITSM market in Germany is embracing automation and changing quickly, Spiegelhoff added. “The market is going through a fundamental change, moving from labor-intensive implementations to highly automated functions,” she said. “Vendors are investing heavily in these new automation capabilities.”

The new automation tools can help German companies make use of unstructured data and can generate automatic alerts while looking for patterns in the data, the report says.

SIAM/ITSM is helping German companies connect virtual reality and smart factories with company data, and enabling build-to-order manufacturing, the report says. SIAM/ITSM tools also are being used extensively in other industries. For example, these systems are allowing medical patients to send data to clinical systems to inform R&D departments, and customers of home furnishing companies to use smartphones to design the interior of their homes.

SIAM/ITSM also is enabling extended enterprise service management (EESM) systems that operate business technology and secure business process operations beyond a company’s technology environment, the report says.

The market for system integration and managed services for EESM is growing rapidly in Germany, the report adds. German enterprises are turning to managed service providers to operate complex solutions because of a lack of internal company resources.

The 2020 ISG Provider Lens™ SIAM/ITSM Report for Germany evaluates the capabilities of 31 providers across six quadrants: System Integrators for ServiceNow Products, Systems Integrators for BMC Software Products, Business Value Service Management, Service Operation and Delivery, Service Design and Transition, and Sourcing Information Management.

The report names Capgemini as a leader in all six quadrants and HCL and Matema as leaders in five. Tech Mahindra is named as a leader in four quadrants, and ServiceNow is named a leader in three. BMC, Infosys and Matrix42 are named leaders in two quadrants, and Accenture, agineo, Cognizant, Deloitte, Devoteam, DXC Technology, GuideVision, IBM and T-Systems are all named leaders in one.