Data Migration International

Data Migration International (DMI) achieved the best result in the company's history in the first quarter of 2020 and continued the double-digit growth of 2019 in terms of revenue and number of employees. While customers' priority is currently on cost reductions, the project plans for digitization and automation remain valid.

The DMI offering, which is designed for radical simplification, makes a decisive contribution to both short-term and long-term plans. Interest in the JiVS IMP information management platform is correspondingly high - from customers and partners in Europe and the USA. The signs continue to point to double-digit growth, expansion of the partner network and closer cooperation with SAP.

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 to save costs in the short term and to support current business initiatives such as mergers & acquisitions or carve-outs much more flexibly than before.

Rather, this 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/4 Hana or business processes and models based on Big Data that rely on the highest data quality," explains Thomas Failer, founder and Group CEO of Data Migration International.

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 does not lose its value. The human body, its size and mass are not subject to the same changes as audience tastes in series and films; even cutting patterns from the 1950s therefore continue to be part of the valuable intellectual property of a textile company.

Machines and plants, on the other hand, have a life cycle of several decades, so not only construction plans but also maintenance reports over this period provide 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.

Well-filled pipeline and positive outlook

The value-added potential inherent in historical company information explains the further increase in interest in JiVS IMP. For example, the increased marketing activities 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 higher than ever. 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, but also authors of management books have taken notice of us and are collaborating and publishing with us.", analyzes Thomas Failer.

"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 perspective. Although this reduces the amount of revenue per order, it will give our business an additional boost. So the outlook is positive, so 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 has hundreds of participants. This results in a well-filled pipeline of potential buyers. The projects planned by these are aimed at decommissioning legacy systems as well as business scenarios such as mergers & acquisitions, but also increasingly at optimizing data quality. Thomas Failer comments:

"This trend was emerging before Corona due to strong market movements and turbulence in industries such as automotive, but intensified again during the crisis."

In no case, however, do the interested parties want these rather short-term initiatives to be 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 the digital transformation more easily and with less effort. "It is true that they are postponing some of the corresponding projects until next year," notes Thomas Failer.

"However, the positive experiences customers have had with JiVS IMP as part of their current projects makes them realize very quickly what potential they can achieve with the help of our platform in other application scenarios, right through to digital transformation projects."

Global Move with SAP

To make it easier for existing SAP customers to transform to S/4 Hana and to accelerate the corresponding projects, SAP has launched the SAP S/4 Hana Movement program. The Movement program distinguishes between four main phases in the S/4 Hana transformation, starting with strategy identification, 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 the high degree of automation and simplification potential - especially through the automated separation of operational and historical data. In addition, the benefits that can be achieved with the help of the platform are not a one-off effect, but can be integrated into a continuous optimization cycle.

Internationalization

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, 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 USA and manages global marketing activities from there.

The potential that lies in the end-to-end management of historical data and documents is also being recognized by more and more service providers. DMI is currently holding in-depth discussions with three to four potential partners every week to expand the partner ecosystem.

In total, the Swiss company is currently working with over twenty service providers on customer projects. DMI has already entered into a formal partnership with five of them, including recently with SAP partner Orbis from Saarbrücken in the German-speaking region or with Data Management Partner in South Africa.