The Platform Connectors

Mr. Heckhorn, the media talks about the golden age of platform economics. However, with managers in the industry, one sometimes encounters uncertainty – what’s that about?

The industry recognizes the many opportunities inherent in modern platform technology. But decision-makers want to be sure that they can act on new developments. That means connecting new IT solutions to a platform or changing the provider altogether without major cost and effort.

How do software companies handle concerns about vendor lock-in?

From my point of view, a lot has happened. Of course, they tend to favor their own solution, but software providers recognize that businesses are faced with a diverse digital ecosystem. A new platform shouldn’t turn legacy IT systems and structures into a silo. Also, cross-enterprise collaboration is growing more and more important in industry, meaning that businesses must be able to exchange data with customers, partners and suppliers. The digital age is the age of collaboration, and IT has to help us cope with that fact.

So, what do recommend to decision-makers who tell you about their reservations?

Don’t delay digitalization – act now to get the solution that best suits your requirements. And then leverage integration to create a “digital thread” – within your enterprise via an end2end architecture, and with your external network via standard interfaces. I admit, integration is easily said and much more difficult to do, at least if you not only plan to enable data flow but also want to make processes seamless – and I believe that today that is the only possible goal. For this, you need the right consulting and mature technology. CENIT provides both.

What does “integration by CENIT” look like?

Based on their role, all users navigate through their tasks on a user-friendly interface and carry out the efficient workflows of defined processes. We take care of the IT behind it.

We have been dealing with integration for decades, and we have the foresight to always invest in state-of-the-art technology. To mention just one example: CENIT developed the SAP-recommended solution for connecting SAP and 3DEXPERIENCE, which you can find on the SAP price list as a 3DEXPERIENCE®-SAP INTEGRATION. This integration follows precisely the principle of cross-over process control that I mentioned.

Is CENIT also capable of realizing integration with cloud architectures?

We are well equipped to address platforms in hybrid architectures as well. We have prepared for this need, and we have the requisite solutions – because we can expect situations where a client may leave SAP ERP on-premises, add SAP cloud applications and also use 3EXPERIENCE Cloud.

Our guiding principle is: We implement what our clients need. In future, that may include new solutions that arise from the strategic partnership between SAP and Siemens. CENIT is a systems integrator with 100% client orientation.