The SIAM role is pivotal in managing multiple service providers

The maturity of the traditional SIAM role is improving, yet both buyers and sellers have a different understanding about SIAM, which often is not very consistent. In addition, as per a Gartner® report: “SIAM’s broad depth and breadth of the portfolio and an emerging market also make the assessment challenging.”

Service integration and management (SIAM, also known as Multisourcing Service Integration or MSI) enables the seamless end-to-end management of multiple IT service suppliers through a single interface for integration and governance, mitigating unnecessary complexity.

SIAM can also help to drive innovation. As a company, Orange is continually investing in its SIAM offerings. It has launched several key innovations, including Multisourcing Service Integration (MSI) for mobility, MSI platform integration, MSI Essential and Service Manage - Watch, an AI/ML-based service to optimize performance.

Disparities around SIAM

According to the Gartner Market Guide report, "the adoption of SIAM has been increasing rapidly. The average percentage of adoption by clients is around 22% for the providers represented in this market guide, with a bias toward further adoption over the next three years.”

As per the Gartner report, “The expected business outcomes from SIAM services are service reliability, quality, operational efficiency, and reduced cost to serve, along with better governance, risk, compliance and control.”

The report also states: “typically, SIAM cost will be around 5% to 15% (depending on complexity) of the total contract value (TCV) under management, but the savings on TCO typically remains between 20% and 50%, with most providing between 20% and 30% cost reduction. However, the business case should be evaluated carefully, along with other intangible benefits that can drive overall efficiency and improvement.”

How to choose a SIAM solution that suits your business

Gartner states that “sourcing, procurement and vendor management leaders can use this guide to identify SIAM service providers that align with their multisourcing strategy.”

As per the recommendations provided in the Gartner report:

Sourcing, procurement, and vendor management leaders investigating SIAM services should:

1. Identify the provider’s alignment to the specific outcome and roadmap they intend to take, its expertise in a particular domain, toolsets, SIAM maturity, and the kind of services they need to integrate. Use this Market Guide to assess providers, as the capabilities vary widely.

2. Develop their roadmap and future directions for SIAM and align it to the overall strategy for sourcing. For example, decide whether to insource and outsource SIAM function or to take a hybrid approach or mature the SIAM function by taking consultative support. Accordingly, align expectations with SIAM providers using the insights described in this Market Guide.

3. Investigate the provider’s toolset for delivering SIAM services in advance, aligned to the future roadmap and architecture and their ability to integrate the current architecture and automation around AIOPs. Reduce the risk of vendor lock-in by identifying your strategy around the toolset, which provides flexibility and control.

4. Use this Market Guide to speed up the identification and down selection of candidate SIAM service providers to meet their SIAM consulting, implementation, or managed services requirements.

Orange Business, for example, runs an MSI readiness assessment that provides enterprises with an estimated maturity level of their organizations centered on technology, people, and processes. They can recommend Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) improvements through workshops, data collection, and assessment questionnaires.

Why Orange may be the SIAM provider for you

For several years, Orange Business has been a leading SIAM provider. It has built up a robust portfolio of services, enabling enterprises to choose the different layers that best suit their business needs. Levels of service can run from service desk support to coordinating vendor services right through to managing infrastructures, including contract management.

Orange Business is mentioned in the 2021 Gartner Market Guide for Service Integration and Management Services:

We believe, its extensive telco experience enables it to efficiently integrate the most complex digital ecosystems and connect them to Orange teams. It can provide a full range of IT service management (ITSM) and monitoring tools along with the ServiceNow workflow automation platform.

Orange works across industries, offering up consultancy, transition, managed services, and a build-operate, transfer model. It works with a wide range of providers, including cloud computing, network, collaboration, mobility, security, and IoT; because it is vendor agnostic, customers choose best-in-breed solutions.

As well as driving efficiencies, decreasing complexities, standardizing governance, and reducing costs, Orange also looks to SIAM to provide improved agility-driven transformation for its customers.

SIAM is the answer to better managing IT estate complexity

The SIAM market is still developing, but enterprises quickly see it as the answer to managing complex IT estates. From improved service quality and increased business value to helping define a scalable, flexible supply network.

According to the Gartner report, “on average, providers are reporting that 22% of their customers are already availing of their SIAM services. But we saw wide variations among the adoption range, which varied from 5% to 50%. Providers are also reporting that in the next two to three years this can change significantly and go up to 50%. We also observed that there is no consistent way of measuring maturity in SIAM services.”

In our opinion, adopting SIAM is a transformational process, but it brings many benefits. If you haven’t already started your SIAM journey, there has never been a better time to start.

To find out more about how Orange Business can help your enterprise manage complex, multi-sourced IT services for greater efficiencies centrally, click here.


*Gartner, “Market Guide for Service Integration and Management Services”, September, 21, 2021.

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Jan Howells

Jan has been writing about technology for over 22 years for magazines and web sites, including ComputerActive, IQ magazine and Signum. She has been a business correspondent on ComputerWorld in Sydney and covered the channel for Ziff-Davis in New York.