Thanks to the interview with Avaya we introduced the concept of “as-a-service” technology endowment, as news comes from Asia that Vega Global, a systems integrator active especially in the corporate sector, will introduce as-a-service options for its customers. These include pay-per-use (i.e., you pay only when you use it, an “on-call rental” model of a service) and risk and revenue sharing.
In the featured article, by our colleagues at AV Magazine, Vega Global CEO Steve Medeiros recounts the reasons that lead to this model: customer demand increasingly for a turnkey service rather than the acquisition of an asset to be chosen, managed, and maintained, greater flexibility even in the ever-faster pace of technological change, and, last but not least, greater sharing between supplier and customer of business risk and investment.
Certainly a model that many system integrators can put to use, and perhaps are already implementing, in Europe as well, even in application areas as diverse as the retail sector, which needs constant adjustments and renewals of the technology proposition.
AV as-a-service?
Certainly this news makes us reflect on some aspects: on the one hand, the generalized tendency, even in everyday life, to abandon the model linked to the possession of objects, endowments, means, etc., in the face of various advantages: lower operating costs that are spread over the period of “rental” of the service, lower costs – including administrative costs – linked to inventory and tangible fixed assets, and greater advantages in terms also of contractual strength, since the supplier becomes for the most part responsible for the efficiency of the facility and guarantor of its maintenance, upgrades, etc., vis-à-vis the customer. The as-a-service model favors maintaining state-of-the-art facilities, which can be renewed and subject to continuous upgrades by the supplier right within the service, and as a natural evolution of more up-to-date and reliable products and modes of operation, on a large scale and across multiple customers. It is also probably a good antidote to the infamous “shortages” that continue to plague the technology market because once it is verified that a product is not available on the terms needed it can be replaced on a large scale and in structural terms.
On the other hand, however, there may be some objections to these business models from those who prefer, by choice or by company policy, not to rely completely on external suppliers, and to have the ability to decide and act directly on facilities, equipment, and services, controlling the whole chain. A model chosen especially for business critical services or otherwise in situations that are sensitive in terms of data handled, security, or unavoidability of the service.
Fortunately, Systems Integration is by definition a flexible market.
