What do Japanese companies value when choosing IT vendors and consultants? Top 8 selection criteria ranking
When a company promotes a DX project, it is not uncommon to outsource the work to external companies such as IT vendors and consulting companies. Without the ability to select IT vendors/consulting companies (hereafter referred to as DX partners), it is not possible to partner with the right partners, and DX projects are more likely to fail. What should companies focus on when selecting a DX partner?
In order to explore the selection criteria for DX partners, following the previous survey in 2020, “When outsourcing work to an external IT consulting company (including major system integrators) as a partner for realizing DX, how much importance do you place on 16 items? do you?” he asked. The 16 items include “ability to formulate digitalization strategies,” “appropriateness of service charges,” and “skills of consultants/engineers.” For each item, respondents were asked to select the degree of importance on a five-point scale from “very important” to “not at all important”.
No change in the number one importance of “consultant/engineer skills”
The results were compiled as the “Ranking of Importance Regarding Selection Criteria for DX Partners”. Here are the top 8 items with the highest response rate of “very important”.
The results of the previous survey in 2020 are also shown below. Comparing this time with the previous time, there was no big change in the ranking, only a slight change. Let’s take a look at the details.
“Consultant/engineer skills” was the most frequently cited by 54.7% of respondents who said “very important”. When combined with “Somewhat important” (32.3%), it is about 90% (87.0%), and it is noticeable that it is larger than other items.
In the previous survey as well, 40.5% of respondents answered that “consultant/engineer skills” were “very important,” and the number 1 remained the same. 75.5% combined with “somewhat important”. This time, the ratio of emphasis increased by more than 10 points.
Over the past two years, the rate of demand for consultant/technical skills has increased. It seems that the shortage of human resources for digitization in companies is becoming more serious.
