Channel Post speaks with Salil Dighe, Founder and CEO at Meta Byte Technologies on how the role of the traditional system integrator is evolving.
Meta Byte defines itself as a “Systems Integrator with a difference”. What differentiates you from the rest and how do you position yourself in the SI space?
Meta Byte Technologies was established 5 years back as a niche player in Business Solutions space with a clear vision to be most relevant to the customer’s business situations and provide relevant solutions to them. Over the years growing along with our customers and vendor partners, we have acquired the best-in-breed solution environments.
The company has moved towards the next stage of its business growth by adding System Integration to its portfolio, where we would be addressing the entire gamut of business requirements.
By bringing experience, technology, proven methodology and frameworks, consultative approach, and innovation to the table we intend to bridge the gap between business requirements and technology. This means understanding customer’s business needs before offering them a complete business plus backend IT solution. In this sense, we differentiate ourselves as being “Business Integrators” rather than being labelled as traditional System Integrators or Business application solution providers.
We also took another step in consolidating our position by adding a services arm to provide seamless and enhanced customer experience.
As an SI yourself, what challenges does Meta Byte face in the market?
The most generic challenge that most SIs face today is ensuring that decision makers are getting the right input to make correct decisions. We took this challenge as an opportunity and shifted our ideology towards providing solutions from a business requirement perspective.
Many traditional partners treat their IT, finance etc. separate entities when it comes to decision making. The challenge is to change this thought process and create awareness about its importance throughout the market. Since we are already thinking and acting along these lines, this challenge presents itself as a niche opportunity for Meta Byte to be ahead of the curve in coming times.
How would you evaluate the regional SI landscape and in which direction is Meta Byte heading?
Systems Integration market is expanding at a decent pace and traditionally SI’s have been working towards providing IT solutions but in the process many of them have become just the “suppliers of IT products and services”. This needs to go back to real times when IT decisions were fully focused towards business needs and the right decisions made at the right time. Some of us are addressing this view and most are remaining traditional by choice.
Meta Byte has been ahead of the learning curve and for the past year we have been working with customers on futuristic technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Smart Solutions. Our understanding of these technologies, which are yet to be explored by many in this region, has lent us an upper hand in the overall innovation in SI space. Moving towards this direction has enabled us to provide better guidance to customers and assist them in avoiding the pitfalls on choosing the right product since many cannot differentiate between Automation Solutions and AI/Robots.
What can SIs do to stay viable and competitive going forward?
As the technology and processes are evolving the customer’s business requirements are also evolving, so the SIs should also evolve accordingly to stay viable. Now, the competition is not any more about product to product or service to service, but addressing business requirements with IT solutions. We, at Meta Byte Technologies are standing by the adage that ‘business requirement addressed with smart IT solutions would be the way forward’.
