Data Migration International: the success story continues

Accelerated digitization and automation point the way out of the current crisis. After all, they rightly promise cost savings, higher productivity, new products and services better tailored to customer needs - the basis for stable growth in the future. Companies are well aware of the central role played by the quality of their data - especially the historical data containing intellectual property and knowledge about customer history - and the ease with which it can be accessed. "In addition to operational as well as customer experience data, historical information determines the current as well as future value of companies. Radically simplifying and cheapening the lifecycle management of this information not only helps save costs in the short term and support current business initiatives such as mergers & acquisitions or carve-outs much more flexibly than before. Rather, it creates a solid, technically modern and economically attractive, in short, resilient basis for all major digitization projects. These include, for example, the transformation to SAP S/4HANA or business processes and models based on Big Data, which rely on the highest data quality," explains Thomas Failer, founder and Group CEO of Data Migration International.

Well-filled pipeline and positive outlook

The knowledge of how to build vehicles efficiently and with consistently high quality is older than the design of an electric car and the corresponding control software and is not losing its value. The human body, its size and dimensions are not subject to the same changes as viewer tastes in series and films; even dress patterns from the 1950s therefore continue to be part of the valuable intellectual property of a textile company. Machinery and equipment, on the other hand, have a life cycle of several decades, so not only blueprints but also maintenance reports over this period hold valuable insights. These can provide a great service in the development of future products, even if the software share in them or in their manufacture will be incomparably greater in the future. The value-creation potential inherent in historical company information explains the further increase in interest in JiVS IMP. For example, the increased marketing measures since 2019, including sponsorship in racing, have significantly increased the number of leads. Around half of the 1500 leads counted last year were from large companies, the other half from SMEs. "This is a very pleasing result and, in addition to the sheer quantity, means that the quality of our pipeline of sales opportunities is also as high as it has ever been. The measures have therefore borne fruit and massively increased our profile in the target markets of Switzerland, Germany and the USA. This explains to a large extent the fact that big names such as SAP, KPMG and Deloitte, as well as authors of management books, have taken notice of us and are collaborating and publishing with us," Failer analyzes. "What's more, our subscription model also makes it easier than ever for our customers to opt for our JiVS IMP platform from a business point of view. Although this reduces the amount of revenue per order, it will give our business an additional boost. So the outlook remains positive, and we are sticking to our double-digit growth targets."

Corona and the current situation

Since the lockdown in March, DMI has been focusing on digital formats and regularly organizes webinars in German-speaking countries and in the USA, each of which attracts hundreds of participants. This results in a well-filled pipeline of potential buyers. Most of these planned projects are aimed at decommissioning legacy systems and business scenarios such as mergers & acquisitions, but also increasingly at optimizing data quality. Says Failer: "This trend was already emerging before Corona due to strong market movements and turbulence in sectors such as the automotive industry, but intensified once again during the crisis." In no case, however, do interested parties want these more short-term initiatives to come at the expense of their long-term strategic digitization projects; on the contrary, in everything they are currently planning and doing, they are simultaneously looking for new ways to master digital transformation more easily and with less effort. "Admittedly, they are postponing the corresponding projects to the coming year in some cases," Failer notes. "But the positive experiences that customers are having with JiVS IMP as part of their current projects are making them realize very quickly what potential they can also achieve with the help of our platform in other application scenarios, right through to digital transformation projects."

Global Move with SAP

In order to facilitate the transformation to SAP S/4HANA for existing SAP customers and to accelerate the corresponding projects, SAP has launched the SAP S/4HANA Movement program. The Movement program differentiates between four main phases in the transformation, starting with the identification of the strategy, through the concrete design of the project and the selection of the appropriate technologies, approaches and solutions, to the continuous optimization of the new environment and the processes based on it. JiVS IMP supports all phases of the Movement program, in particular due to its high degree of automation and simplification potential - through the automated separation of operational from historical data. Moreover, the benefits that can be achieved with the help of the platform do not remain a one-off effect, but can be integrated into a continuous optimization cycle.

In addition to innovations at the product level, DMI's new corporate structure, introduced last year and geared towards internationalization, supports global cooperation with SAP. In 2019, for example, not only was the international group of companies established, but also the first foreign subsidiary, Data Migration International Americas LLC, based in Dallas, which employs a powerful local sales team. In addition, the management team was expanded to include proven industry experts and new roles such as Chief Operating Officer (COO) or Chief Marketing Officer (CMO); the latter is based in the U.S. and manages global marketing activities from there. "Even though the current situation has impressively demonstrated the strength of virtual and distributed working and will determine everyday life even more than before, as a Swiss company we are expressly committed to Kreuzlingen as our headquarters and central development location," Failer emphasizes.

Data Migration International's growing partner ecosystem

More and more service providers are also recognizing the potential that lies in the end-to-end management of historical data and documents. DMI is currently holding in-depth discussions with three to four potential partners every week. In total, the Swiss company is currently working with more than twenty service providers on customer projects. DMI has already entered into a formal partnership with five of them, including most recently in the German-speaking region with SAP partner Orbis from Saarbrücken or in South Africa with the Data Management Partner Pty Ltd. Internationalization and increased cooperation with SAP have also aroused the interest of large, globally active consulting companies and system integrators in JiVS IMP. These include in particular KPMG and Deloitte, at whose events for customers and interested parties DMI is increasingly appearing and presenting the technical and business advantages of its platform for information management.

JiVS IMP: separate, automate, simplify, save

In order for history to become a source of higher value, it is important to separate operational and customer experience data from historical data and to manage the lifecycle of historical information separately on a dedicated Platform to manage. This approach has numerous advantages: Significant cost savings occur even in the short term because the legacy systems can be completely decommissioned after the information has been separated and outsourced. As a result, operating costs can usually be reduced by around 80 percent lower. What's more, no upfront investment is required, as JiVS IMP can be subscribed to as a service, as is customary in the cloud age, which reduces amortization times to a minimum.