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I would honestly love to read a write up from somebody closer to the source, what the hell do all these companies do? I’ve been in tech and tech-adjacent compa

I would honestly love to read a write up from somebody closer to the source, what the hell do all these companies do? I’ve been in tech and tech-adjacent companies for over a decade. And not once have I or anyone around me ever thought “we really need some IBM/Hitachi/Avanade products now”. What value proposition do firms like this actually fill? I’m genuinely curious.

namdnay 6y ago
They’re outsourcing firms
ab_testing 6y ago
I have worked in this space for a long time . Most of these companies implement COTS software . So if you want to implement Oracle, SAP, Salesforce, Service Now , JIRA or other such enterprise software , you will invite bids from these consulting companies for implementation, support and SLA .
keypusher 6y ago
The short answer is that they deliver solutions and support. What they sell, primarily, is the ability for someone at your company to call them and say "we have problem X" and they will respond "no problem, we can solve problem X for you", and they will take care of the rest. This usually costs millions of dollars. Let's say you are a large Fortune 500 company. A bank perhaps, a large retailer or an oil company. Your net worth rivals Amazon. You do not use AWS or GCP, you host your own data centers, and you have for decades. Now let's say you need another few petabytes of storage with global replication, durability, availability, you need hardware delivered, fibre cables routed, software to tie it all together and someone to call when you run into problems or someone on your backend application team can't figure it out. Or maybe you need Oracle and SAP integrated with Active Directory for your 100,000 employees. Well, these companies will make that happen. Or many other problems you might have, such as building custom applications, implementing tooling, designing systems, whatever. It's kind of like asking "who employs all these personal chefs?! I've been eating for years and I've never needed a personal chef. I just go to the store, buy some groceries, and make food from the recipes I find online!" The thing is that some people just don't want to deal with all that, and they have enough money to make it someone else's problem who has done it before.
- hunterloftis 6y ago
  I spent five years in this space (in a small consultancy that was acquired by GlobalLogic last year). I think this is how one of our salespeople might describe the process. The reality tends to be somewhat messier. I especially disagree with the "personal chef" analogy. A personal chef is an expensive, dedicated, long-term employee - much closer to a full time SWE than to a consultancy. It's more like hiring a catering company for a wedding.
  - keypusher 6y ago
    You're right, that would have been better. I certainly didn't mean to imply this process always goes smoothly, or that the quality of the work they provide is without question.
    - pjmlp 6y ago
      When I started down the Fortune 500 consultancy path, the quality (or lack thereof) used to bother me a lot, then I realised that most customers don't really care, what they want is something that makes their core business run, doesn't matter how. As long as their core business and KPIs remain untouched, and no scalations take place, everything is fine.
sethhochberg 6y ago
Tech or tech-adjacent firms tend to be defined that way, at least in part, because they do the things these major software consultancies and outsourcing firms do on their own. If you're not a tech or tech-adjacent firm, and have a nontrivial technology need, you're likely to pick up the phone and call someone who specializes in delivering those solutions. Think of it like the difference between Instacart having their own software teams and infrastructure to manage shoppers and orders, vs the national grocery chain Instacart operates within calling IBM for an integrated inventory management and point-of-sale system. There are debates to be had about whether this approach yields good results over the long term (specifically for the inventory management example, you could point to Amazon and to a lesser extent Walmart having such success in part because of their internal software efforts). But if you aren't prepared to reinvent your grocery stores as a friendly frontend for your logistics technology, plenty of firms have solutions to sell you.
tomkat0789 6y ago
Some nice responses to this, but I'd be interested in hearing about the trade off between a big company spinning its own IT department vs hiring an IBM et al. Attached to articles about ERP and government contracts failing and going over budget I often see comments like, this isn't rocket science I could code something for them. Obviously not the right fit for everybody, but is it right for some?
- runawaybottle 6y ago
  Large companies often have business people that drive tech initiatives. Once they come into a position where they need to propose goals, they will either need to lean on existing technical leaders in the org or reach out to firms that can technically scope their aspirations. Sometimes they might have just one year to prove their direction, so they aren’t going to wait around to develop in-house or hire for months and months trying to find a culture fit. They are going to staff in a hurry and get rolling yesterday. Stay close to agencies that have leads at organizations like this because that’s a great way to get hired at a place you’d never expect to be working for (some random Fortune 500 company), and these hiring sprees don’t show up on LinkedIn or job boards. They go straight to the consultancies or agencies (you know, those pesky recruiters you never cared for).

namdnay 6y ago

They’re outsourcing firms

ab_testing 6y ago

I have worked in this space for a long time . Most of these companies implement COTS software . So if you want to implement Oracle, SAP, Salesforce, Service Now , JIRA or other such enterprise software , you will invite bids from these consulting companies for implementation, support and SLA .

keypusher 6y ago

The short answer is that they deliver solutions and support. What they sell, primarily, is the ability for someone at your company to call them and say "we have problem X" and they will respond "no problem, we can solve problem X for you", and they will take care of the rest. This usually costs millions of dollars. Let's say you are a large Fortune 500 company. A bank perhaps, a large retailer or an oil company. Your net worth rivals Amazon. You do not use AWS or GCP, you host your own data centers, and you have for decades. Now let's say you need another few petabytes of storage with global replication, durability, availability, you need hardware delivered, fibre cables routed, software to tie it all together and someone to call when you run into problems or someone on your backend application team can't figure it out. Or maybe you need Oracle and SAP integrated with Active Directory for your 100,000 employees. Well, these companies will make that happen. Or many other problems you might have, such as building custom applications, implementing tooling, designing systems, whatever. It's kind of like asking "who employs all these personal chefs?! I've been eating for years and I've never needed a personal chef. I just go to the store, buy some groceries, and make food from the recipes I find online!" The thing is that some people just don't want to deal with all that, and they have enough money to make it someone else's problem who has done it before.

hunterloftis 6y ago
I spent five years in this space (in a small consultancy that was acquired by GlobalLogic last year). I think this is how one of our salespeople might describe the process. The reality tends to be somewhat messier. I especially disagree with the "personal chef" analogy. A personal chef is an expensive, dedicated, long-term employee - much closer to a full time SWE than to a consultancy. It's more like hiring a catering company for a wedding.
- keypusher 6y ago
  You're right, that would have been better. I certainly didn't mean to imply this process always goes smoothly, or that the quality of the work they provide is without question.
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    When I started down the Fortune 500 consultancy path, the quality (or lack thereof) used to bother me a lot, then I realised that most customers don't really care, what they want is something that makes their core business run, doesn't matter how. As long as their core business and KPIs remain untouched, and no scalations take place, everything is fine.

sethhochberg 6y ago

Tech or tech-adjacent firms tend to be defined that way, at least in part, because they do the things these major software consultancies and outsourcing firms do on their own. If you're not a tech or tech-adjacent firm, and have a nontrivial technology need, you're likely to pick up the phone and call someone who specializes in delivering those solutions. Think of it like the difference between Instacart having their own software teams and infrastructure to manage shoppers and orders, vs the national grocery chain Instacart operates within calling IBM for an integrated inventory management and point-of-sale system. There are debates to be had about whether this approach yields good results over the long term (specifically for the inventory management example, you could point to Amazon and to a lesser extent Walmart having such success in part because of their internal software efforts). But if you aren't prepared to reinvent your grocery stores as a friendly frontend for your logistics technology, plenty of firms have solutions to sell you.

tomkat0789 6y ago

Some nice responses to this, but I'd be interested in hearing about the trade off between a big company spinning its own IT department vs hiring an IBM et al. Attached to articles about ERP and government contracts failing and going over budget I often see comments like, this isn't rocket science I could code something for them. Obviously not the right fit for everybody, but is it right for some?

runawaybottle 6y ago
Large companies often have business people that drive tech initiatives. Once they come into a position where they need to propose goals, they will either need to lean on existing technical leaders in the org or reach out to firms that can technically scope their aspirations. Sometimes they might have just one year to prove their direction, so they aren’t going to wait around to develop in-house or hire for months and months trying to find a culture fit. They are going to staff in a hurry and get rolling yesterday. Stay close to agencies that have leads at organizations like this because that’s a great way to get hired at a place you’d never expect to be working for (some random Fortune 500 company), and these hiring sprees don’t show up on LinkedIn or job boards. They go straight to the consultancies or agencies (you know, those pesky recruiters you never cared for).