Competency centers in IT: why customers create their own digital departments

There are different reasons to begin a digital transformation. Today's market tendencies rely on persistent progress necessary for any business to stay competitive. To achieve this goal business must focus on the actual demands for up-to-date solutions, qualified staff and strive to work beyond expectations.

The approach when deployment of new disruptive technologies shifts from outsources companies to 'do it yourself' should include detailed business plan, distinct description of future IT-department and other expenses. Investments are another essential part of the company's digital transformation, because the actual amount depends on goals and expected results.

I think that part of the technological processes should be performed within the company and only some specific issues should be outsourced. While working on individual product within an organization the expertise enlarges and there is a need to consolidate this experience in creating a separate department. This is how customers become producers. In other words, these companies hire developers for support and then they create their own IT-centers or RPA departments. The most efficient of them implemented in banks, oil and gas sector, search systems, trade networks, as it is important for these kinds of companies to gain expertise and create solutions and distribute budgets within the company.

For those who intend to create an IT-center need to realize what are expected goals, benefits and performance. Having in mind that information technologies are not a key activity for most companies, creating a digital environment will be a challenge and a perfect starting point to build a team and a strong talent pool.

We received an inquiry for business-processes optimization, robot implementation, development of programmatic and methodological complex and other services. As a work with a customer moves ahead, building a specific department for such tasks could make sense for this organization. Further, a customer and consultants double their expertise, and now more resources are available for them. Thus, a large pharmaceutical company with a more than 300 employees required a competency center organization with at least five employees working there. Let me highlight that the 'volume' in the center is necessary to gain expertise. There might be a possibility that one or two specialists have lack of skills or experience, they would make subjective decisions and have no interns. They also can just leave a company for any reason, and to hire a professional is not simple today. So cooperating with IT consultants to draw a strategy is an appropriate option. There is also a need for a detailed roadmap. An important part of it is assigning of a team leader and those who are to gain expertise according to strategy. Each participant should choose a direction for picking up skills and knowledge. This roadmap helped us to build a scalable competency center on board of the pharmaceutical company. Clear understanding of the structure objectives and its performance encourages employees as they can become experts working along with their colleagues. There is a plan on training and/or retraining and other materials for each participant. Medium-sized companies can enroll on courses designed by RPA developers and also sign up for free Academy online-lessons.

1. Manager should explain his team the role of the changes and objectives of growing within the Center. You should have a competition or testing if there are a lot of candidates or a need for skills. You should assign a responsible person from hr-departments and customer service.
2. Have a detailed roadmap, dates of intermediate testing, perks for excellent study and so on.
3. Be interested in a life of a new company's structure; you should motivate workers to achieve strong results and make plans to enlarge the center and creation of talent pool.

Companies with their own IT-centers strengthen their positions on the market. They open new vacancies and orientate on growing of skilled IT-specialists within the organization.

Mostly system integrators support the great deal of complex projects. Their responsibility is to find the right solution when tricky situations and unresolved issues occur and to cover in case of staff replacing. More over they take an important part in experience sharing and competence support.

The attitude of conventional businesses to their IT-departments is often demanding, because of rival nature in the digital sector. As a result, developers gain an expertise and professional skills. That is why competency centers on board of the enterprises are not a threat. It is quite hard to compete with system integrators as the level of their experience and knowledge is high.