Ray Armstrong
Co-CEO, Saros Consulting
Justin van der Spuy
Co-CEO, Saros Consulting
Businesses in Ireland must innovate using digital technologies and automation to optimise business processes and gain a competitive advantage globally.
Digital technology improves efficiencies for businesses, but information technology (IT) experts fear some companies are in danger of falling behind. Worst affected are organisations burdened with large technical debt as they try to digitally transform.
Demand to automate business processes.
Justin van der Spuy, co-CEO of Saros Consulting, notes that younger companies ‘born in the cloud’ have an advantage over more established competitors, as they are more agile and have no legacy systems. Saros Consulting provides independent IT advice and project management services and is seeing a growing demand to digitise and automate business processes.
Ray Armstrong, co-CEO says: “Since 2020, businesses have been forced to embrace digitisation, and many companies, such as retail, have had to strategically change. They had to innovate quickly, setting up online and transforming their supply chain.” Saros works with several large pharmaceutical clients, who are seeing changes in the industry. “The advances in cell therapy and biologics are at the fore in this industry; these advances require underlying innovative digital technologies.”
Digital means different things for different people.
Ray Armstrong
Effective digital transformation strategy
Formed in 2016, Saros — who combine strategic thinking with strong project delivery — underlines the strategic value of digitisation and other technologies but does not believe in ‘technology for technology’s sake.’
“Innovation and digitisation need to be at the forefront of an IT strategy,” says Armstrong. “But the driver has to be the business strategy which is then enabled by utilising digital technologies to support innovation.”
His company focuses on the business case for digital transformation and delivers that transformation through consulting and project management. When clients look to automate their business, van der Spuy explains that his company identifies technologies, works with vendors, and delivers projects to budget and timescale.
Preparation and understanding consumer demands
They also warn of consequences of failure to embrace technology “Digital means different things for different people,” says Armstrong. “Before an organisation embarks on its digital journey, it must have underlying technology, governance, project management and enterprise resource planning at hand.”
He emphasises that businesses should know how their product or service is being procured or consumed, warning that customers can “drop a product and move on very fast” in the current competitive landscape.