The departure of large international IT companies from the Russian market has become for technologically advanced domestic developers both a test and incentive to revise approaches to partnerships.
This is especially true for companies building the foundation of the country’s technological sovereignty. At the technology level, these are: operating systems (Astra, Basalt, etc.), solutions for protection against cyber threats (Garda, Angara, Positive, etc.), integration platforms (Galaxies and Inpolyus, etc.) etc. Indeed, on the one hand, Russian vendors, whose products are already comparable to foreign counterparts, and sometimes surpass them in functionality, were able to bring their best solutions to the market quickly. At the same time, now they are forced to take responsibility for the formation of their own models of multi-vector interaction with partners. This is necessary, first of all, to ensure that the enterprises of the domestic economy need a unified level of quality of the products and solutions being implemented, as well as to support further IT complexes, whose architecture initially has the potential for rapid expansion.
Accordingly, all this requires not adaptation, but the creation of a new system that meets today’s and future customer needs and, at the same time, is able to support business partners – at the level of continuous consulting, operational response, global and targeted training programs, thoughtful certification and so on. Western experience here is still in demand, but within the framework of ever-increasing domestic competition and the departure from monopolization, one has to focus on new methods and methodologies. A player with the most effective approach will begin to set the rules of the game on the market, and therefore, “eat the cake.”
It is clear that creating new things is a “challenge” and thankless task. Not everyone is capable of this. That is why Russian IT companies often try to simply reproduce the familiar “cooperation schemes” to which such giants as Microsoft, Oracle or SAP have accustomed them – with their clear standardization and unification, global service procedures, personnel certification system and strict rules for comprehensive interactions, leading, in aggregate, to even greater confidence in their brand and products. However, domestic developers have neither such opportunities, nor time, nor, often, experience to copy such formats of work.
Professionals know: the fragmentation of processes, the lack of uniform standards and certification rules not just do not lead to results, but, more importantly, reasonably undermine the confidence of partners and customers that it is really worth cooperating with Russian companies. And large customers, of course, are not engaged in automation out of whim: this or that implemented technology serves for them as a tool to increase efficiency and a means of business development. Of course, as always, they want prescribed guarantees, respected throughout the country, team involvement, unified high-quality technical support regardless of region, etc. In fact, it does not matter to them whether the Western or Russian system is being implemented or supported, whether the world leader or Russian supplier will give them all this. The main thing is uninterrupted problem solving. As well as – in our realities – reasonable terms and, of course, maintaining the continuity of key business processes.
It is clear that in such conditions, Russian vendors, in fact, cannot do without highly qualified partners. And it is also obvious that expertise, time and financial resources will have to be invested in all mechanisms of interaction with partners. With all the desire of Russian suppliers, it will not be possible to save on this: technologies will fail, staff will scatter, and customers will be at least unhappy. In fact, there could be two approaches. The first, which we just talked about, and the second, when some large enterprises, creating specialized “daughters” around themselves, declare that they are able to solve all these problems within a single business structure. It doesn’t happen that way. And moreover, in its desire to capture the entire market, the giant, which is also aiming at automation, still considers this business secondary, and the developer, who has proven his case in real projects, perceives the market, the tasks of a particular client, internal and external technologies as a way of self-realization, serious earnings and, which has always been characteristic of the IT market, – self-respect.
I would like to draw your attention once again: a Russian vendor, especially one working in the perimeter of complex technologies, simply cannot do without partners. But we also expect a lot from partners: real business plans, a desire to confirm their qualifications (subject involvement), readiness to be responsible for the result. Moreover, in the event of any failure, the main claims will be made against the vendor.
In such conditions, the vendor all the more needs to organize training through practice. In the end, both he and his partners always do not have enough theoretical knowledge: you need to work with real products in real conditions, test solutions in “pilots,” but necessarily at the level of business tasks, support initiatives that are relevant for the domestic economy, such as lean production, business process management and services with the fragmentation of previously implemented technologies and products; deal with the difficulties of “here and now,” thus, participate in the creation of the architecture of future solutions. Without exaggeration, this not just helps to master this or that technology, but also to understand its pros and cons in details, to understand how it can be used in the medium term. Hence, perhaps, new ideas will arise, including at the market level: how to promote, not exactly my solutions, but solutions of such a class, how to implement, to teach, and how to earn.
And the last, perhaps most important, issue is to build trust. Yes, now Russian vendors need to work hard: both creating solutions and proving their effectiveness and reliability in practice. Yet I will say: this is not just the business of vendors and their partners. This is a joint task of developers, integrators, their customers and the state. What unites us is the opportunity to create, teach and learn, realize our own ambitions, complete powerful projects, earn and develop.
By Dmitry Gryaznov, General Director of Inpolyus