Seize growth opportunities in the IT industry

Vertec at the “focus on future” event: Claudio Pietra, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Vertec, and Gabriela Keller, CEO of Ergon Informatik AG, presented strategic initiatives on how to achieve healthy company growth despite limited human resources.

Baseline situation

A high level of catching-up in terms of digitalization in various sectors such as business and public services also means that the IT and software industries have a wealth of opportunities to remedy these deficits.

However, this is countered by the shortage of skilled workers, often complained of by IT companies. So what should be done? Does sustainable business growth automatically require more HR at the same time? “No,” say the two speakers Claudio Pietra and Gabriela Keller. They, for their part, show the opportunities that their companies are using to counteract this discrepancy and still achieve above-average business growth.

Strategic Levers for Growth

The key is to be able to manage fundamental changes in your own company yourself.

At Ergon Informatik, the buzzwords are diversification and empowerment. On the one hand, it focuses on a diversified service portfolio that covers different industries, tech topics and IT services. The broad customer segment created in this way has a positive effect on revenue growth. On the other hand, the software developer focuses on the empowerment of its employees. The diversity in the product portfolio actively contributes to the further development of the workforce. “With personal responsibility, participation and further development, we make our company resilient and adaptable,” emphasizes Gabriela Keller.

Automation at Vertec

What is the situation at Vertec? At Vertec, the keywords are automation and standardization.

Vertec’s aim is to cover customers’ requirements as much as possible with the standard software: “We show our potential customers in a live demonstration how Vertec already meets their requirements in the standard,” explains Claudio Pietra. “Often the feedback is that this already meets most requirements well and no extensive customization is required.”

Vertec thus creates a win-win situation: The customer saves time and money with a lean software implementation, while Vertec manages to keep the service portion low and thus implement more projects. In addition, customers also benefit from the software’s update capability.

Over the last few years, Vertec has done a lot to automate its own processes while at the same time keeping the internal human hours involved in the deployment of services within limits. The daily challenge is that the quality of the customer must not decrease.

For example, the implementation of the Vertec Customer Portal has proven successful and has since been regarded as a milestone in automating their own processes. Customers order On-Premises licenses, Cloud Suite and services independently. As a result, internal resources that become available can be used elsewhere.

The main benefits for customers of “self service” services are obvious: availability is high while their financial costs are reduced.

Conclusion

The ensuing discussion by host Urs Prantl with Gabriela Keller, Claudio Pietra and the audience underlined that employees are the key success factor in the IT industry. The training of future employees also plays a decisive Role and contributes to the growth of numerous companies.