The process of developing innovative solutions and bringing them to market is not what it used to be. While in-house, component-based engineering was once the standard for product development organizations, today’s modern workloads and increasingly connected system deployments have rendered this approach suboptimal. A growing body of research supports this notion. It illustrates that product developers who instead choose to outsource key aspects of their development, testing, and management both improve their abilities to keep pace with evolving customer demands and out-perform their competitors.
VDC Research, a leading technology research firm that has covered product development technology since 1994, recently released an insightful report focused on this topic. Their paper, exclusively licensed for distribution by partners of Intel and Dell Technologies, provides details on how tier-one and their integration partners that offer commercial hardware systems are helping innovative product developers reduce costs, accelerate time to market, and drive innovation in their solutions. A summary of the report’s key findings is outlined below.
Integrated Platform Hardware Saves Time and Money
VDC’s report is quick to highlight that the percentage of product developers planning to use fully-integrated and tested systems is expected to double in the next three years, even as many are initially hesitant due to perceived cost premiums upfront. These objections are not difficult to overcome once a thorough cost-benefit analysis is completed. In doing so, it becomes clear just how much time and money organizations can save by working with the right integration partner.
VDC’s research provides evidence that the average total development costs for projects sourcing component-level technology are more than three times that of projects where system and server platforms are sourced from integration partners.
Additional research shows that organizations using complete system platforms from integration partners were twice as likely to complete their projects ahead of schedule compared to those relying on component-level technology in-house. Completing a project even just one month ahead of schedule typically means hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings.
The Right Partner Gets Your Product to Market Faster
Innovative technology solutions competing on the global market today are expected to not only perform at optimal levels, but to also come with the assurance of long-term support, availability, and serviceability. Few solution developers have the resources to meet these expectations on their own without losing at least some focus on product innovation. However, many systems integration partners and third-party commercial solution providers have business units specializing in these areas. Utilizing such partners can help organizations avoid distractions that inevitably disrupt innovation and their ability to bring products to market at a sufficiently rapid rate.
VDC’s research indicates that organizations outsourcing at least some of their engineering and development tasks are four times more likely to finish their projects ahead of schedule. The specific benefits of outsourcing that enabled these results included the ability of organizations to address resource bottlenecks and better align internal resources with more strategic layers of the solution stack.
Integrated Solutions Drive More Innovation
To maintain leadership in technical product development, organizations must have the ability to understand customer requirements as they evolve. Devoting internal resources for consistent innovation that meets these demands becomes exceedingly more difficult when relying solely on in-house development and sourcing of component-level hardware.
VDC’s study found that many solution development organizations migrate toward partnerships offering integrated computer system platforms to address this concern specifically. Evidence cited in the report shows that this strategy is decidedly effective.
Specifically, VDC found that users of complete hardware platforms can spend more than a quarter of their development costs on differentiation areas such as analytics and cloud software, which is close to twice the rate reported by companies continuing to spend time integrating component-level technology. When technology companies devote more time to product differentiation, they are better equipped to respond to their customers’ unique needs and create much higher levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty in the process.
UNICOM Engineering and Dell Technologies, Better Together to Bring Your Optimized Solution to Market
Thanks to the research provided by VDC, the value of commercial integrated computing systems and technology platforms is evident. The next question becomes how to select the right system and vendor for your application. VDC concludes that Dell Technologies, along with its close partnership with Intel, is among the few companies to be highlighted in response to this question due to its rare combination of solutions, scale, and expertise.
As a Dell Technologies Titanium OEM partner and Intel Technology Provider, UNICOM Engineering has partnered with both companies for decades. Our team has expert-level knowledge of Dell Technologies’ industry-leading solutions and Intel’s powerful processors, while also being well-equipped to optimize your application by matching it with the right technology from Dell Technologies proven platform portfolio. The cost savings, accelerated time to market, and increased innovation highlighted in VDC’s research are benefits that are sure to follow. If you would like to learn more about how we can help bring your optimized and fully differentiated product to market, visit our website, or contact us today to schedule a consultation.
Read the VDC Research white paper entitled ‘Reduce Cost, Drive Innovation, and Shorten Time to Market with Commercial Hardware Platforms.’