Unternehmen&Trends - Ausgabe zur HANNOVER MESSE 2019

Uwe Bergmann, CEO of the Cosmo Consult Group, Europe’s leading Microsoft Dynamics partner and a global provider of end-to-end solutions, firmly believes that IT partners must support their customers in two ways: “We have to provide advanced, well-engi- neered IT tools so that our customers can play a leading role in their industry. How- ever, there is also a great need for advice.” For example, analyst firm Gartner forecasts integration work will account for a good 50 percent of IT costs in 2020 because, due to a number of factors such as the digital trans- formation, many more systems will have to be linked up. The post-modern era Gartner believes that post-modern ERP soft- ware pretty much signals the end of tradi- tional ERP systems, which are expensive to buy and often inflexible to operate and lose their update capability when tweaked too much. There will still be traditional on-prem- ise ERP systems at a central level, but with many other connected systems for HR, CRM, marketing and so on. Overall, digitalisation and digital transformation pose an extremely Technology and IT consulting are ever more important By Volker Vorburg The future is digital. That’s inevitable at this stage. How can an IT service provider best support its customers’ development and maximise their success? How can ERP vendors and other software manufacturers, IT service providers and consulting firms prepare? Bilder: © Cosmo Consult/Daniela Glunz COSMO CONSULT Our Offers I Digital Business Consulting Digital Maturity Assessment Vision Innovation A consulting offering from COSMO CONSULT. complex challenge, requiring not only excep- tional IT skills but also a business rethink and reinterpretation. Bergmann states: “Efficiency and produc- tivity are already in our customers’ DNA, but huge potential could still be tapped through digitalisation. This calls for a gen- eral change process. We are doomed to fail in the digital future if we stick with ‘the way things have always been done’. That is why professional external advice on developing an integrated IT strategy significantly helps to safeguard a company’s existence and fu- ture – and the earlier it is sought, the bet- ter.” Ultimately, Office 365 is also more than just Word, Excel and PowerPoint. It is a true business software for which Cosmo Consult offers not only specific industry solutions but also add-ons that further boost the software benefits. With its global experi- ence in the Microsoft Dynamics arena, the Cosmo Consult Group thus considers itself a consultant and partner for companies in all industries on the path towards a digital future. Limited half-life for business software Of course, there can be no big bang ap- proach to digital transformation. Many companies will initially restrict themselves to upgrading their existing IT systems or introducing new digital technology in order to optimise processes first. But a consult- ing firm with the right IT background and technical expertise, like COSMO CONSULT, is also an excellent choice when it comes to, for example, creating modern IT struc- tures and building future-oriented digital platforms in industry, the services sector and e-commerce. International markets are changing, digitalisation and globalisation are increasing the competitive pressure and cooperation is ever more important. And even business software only has a certain half-life, which means it is quickly no longer capable of meeting requirements and can eventually give up the ghost without contin- uous modernisation – taking the company with it in the worst case. Legacy systems generally turn out to be a burden, acting as a brake on innovation and, especially, an obstacle to digital transfor- mation. Bergmann’s fellow board member “We are doomed to fail in the digital future if we stick with ‘the way things have always been done’.” Uwe Bergmann