The consolidation of IT providers became a priority for CIOs in 2025. Because the pressure to reduce complexity, control costs and fully exploit the potential of AI – and at the same time strengthen resilience is increasing.

Studies from various industry sources show that this is not just a new trend – the focus on consolidation increases at an unstoppable pace.

According to a comprehensive study from Adapt Cio Edge with more than 140 cios 68 percent of IT bosses before consolidating the circle of their IT providers.

However, this trend is not just about making minor adjustments in order to meet the requirements of the market. Rather, the majority of companies want the Reduce the number of your IT providers by 20 percent-and thus change the approach to your technology ecosystems significantly and fundamentally.

The need to transform your provider landscape is noticeable at CIOs in all sectors and industries. One Opinion poll Among more than 1,000 IT specialists showed that 90 percent classify the consolidation of the software as a priority. 73 percent assume that their companies will further increase their software investments and at the same time consolidate providers.

This paradox – more functionality while reducing complexity – is characteristic of the challenge in front of which CIOs are facing today.

The wrong promise of best-of-break

This trend towards consolidating providers is in contrast to movements such as the Mach Alliance, which speaks for a pure “best-of-breed” concept. While the underlying architectural approaches (Microservices, API-First, Cloud Native, Headless) are definitely solid and have established themselves in the SaaS area, Mach brought unexpected challenges for companies.

Originally praised for its flexibility and agility, Mach ultimately led to considerable complexity – more than most companies can manage. And this at a time when simplicity is more in demand than ever.

The economic reality is clear: implementations that completely rely on the MACH principle usually require More preliminary investments as a preconfigured uniform solution. Companies not only have to consider buying several services, but also the costs and the time required for the training and familiarization of employees. The operation of a Mach architecture requires personnel with highly specialized knowledge in the area of ​​cloud infrastructure, API, microservices and tools for optimized development of the user-oriented part of a website or web application. The labor market for these talents is highly contested even in the age of AI. So you have to have the necessary resources to pay them well. Otherwise the competition will do this.

The hidden costs of fragmentation

Studies showed several critical disadvantages of the fragmented best-of-break approach:

• More complexity: The management of hundreds of microservices quickly becomes exponentially challenging and expensive, and system problems can have a effect on several services at the same time. Management and the necessary know-how for the supervision of such architectures can be complex and expensive. With system problems, they may affect numerous services. In -depth knowledge is required for troubleshooting and debugging, which must be coordinated across several departments. The solution to the problem can be complicated and cost -intensive.
• Challenges in integration: The attempt to establish links between services and systems that are not designed for this requires additional development knowledge that is expensive. Incompatibilities between functions such as search, customer service, catalog management and OMS can lead to a poorer customer experience and loss of customer loyalty.
• Security concerns: The beauty of the Mach architecture is also its weak point: all migroservices, APIs and cloud offers that can be set together represent security risks. Comprehensive security requires consistent implementation across all components. If solutions of different providers are used, this can be a challenge. Companies have to develop solid security concepts and governance models to ensure the protection of their entire power ecosystem.
• Complex management of IT providers: Best-of-Breed usually means working with many than with a few providers. This can bring an enormous complexity in development and customer support, depending on the long -term survival of the respective provider. Because this must provide important functionality for services or tools, and it may be that they will be discontinued or changed significantly in the future.

The strategic advantage of uniform platforms

Cios prioritize the consolidation of IT providers. In this respect, the approach “Suite as a Service” or “Best of Breed As a Suite” followed by SAP offers a pragmatic solution that concerns the basic challenges of fragmented architectures. Instead of force companies to choose between flexibility and integration, the portfolio offers SAP Customer Experience (SAP CX) Both: a uniform but also merged business suite, which includes front and back office processes, in conjunction with a comprehensive pre-integrated and certified ISV partner network, so that companies can combine solutions with one another wherever this makes sense.

The flywheel effect: applications, data, AI

The true strength of consolidated platforms lies in what SAP calls “flywheel effect”. With this model, applications generate data, data train AI and AI optimizes applications. This creates the following cycle:

• Better data lead to better AI.
• Better AI leads to better applications.
• Better applications generate better data.

This integrated approach is only possible if companies say goodbye to isolated island solutions and pass to uniform platforms that can use the entire range of business data. Companies that have already invested in SAP technologies have found that one uniform data strategy is a proven procedure, To get a data architecture as required for AI.

Quantified benefit: This speaks for consolidation

The US market research company Enterprise Strategy Group has analyzed the SAP-CX solutions in business and found convincing evidence that speak for a consolidation of IT providers:

• Increase in operational efficiency
  • Faster added value: Companies can completely link and integrate their CX and ERP data in just six months.
  • Shorter implementation time: Companies save around 25 to 50 percent of the time and work expenditure, which is required to complete integrations.
  • Higher productivity: Depending on the job function, customers report that daily productivity has improved by 10 to 300 percent.
• Cost optimization
  • Lower total costs for the solutions: Even if individual solutions may seem cheaper, the holistic approach for end-to-end solutions is far more cost-effective.
  • Less maintenance: Companies can save up to 70 percent of the time required for the administration and maintenance of systems.
  • Resource optimization: Companies do not have to enlarge teams to be able to support customer -specific developments and integrations.
• Strategic advantages
  • Better customer experience: Seamless connectivity between customer data and operational data creates the prerequisites for first -class customer service.
  • Faster innovation: Consistent transparency enables faster and sound decisions and thus faster product launches.
  • Lower surgical risk: Standard-diaflows ensure more reliable connections with less potential connection problems.

AI drives consolidation

Ki drives the trend towards consolidation as much as the need to reduce costs. If AI models are to bring something, they require high -quality, accurate data. If Consider data silos siloswhich are often the result of non-associated digital tools, AI measures remain behind the expectations or stagnate.

The uniform concept of the SAP starts directly with this challenge: harmonized SLAS, UX and data models are provided over the entire stack and combined with SAP Business AI embedded AI and a uniform and semantically rich data layer via SAP Business Data Cloud. As a result, companies can fully use AI functions in all domains without having to carry out complex integration separate systems.

The consolidation picks up speed

The trend towards consolidating IT providers accelerates-in many ways:

• According to a Capgemini study In 2022, seventy-five percent of companies carried out a consolidation of IT providers, compared to 29 percent in 2020.
• Gartner assumesthat by 2027, 70 percent of companies will optimize the number of their providers of cloud native applications to a maximum of three.
• In medium-sized companies, the average number of SaaS tools has been in the past two years reduced by 18 percent.

The way forward: strategic consolidation

The documents are clear: 2025 is a crucial year for Cios. Companies that opt ​​for strategic consolidation of IT providers and uniform platforms instead of fragmented individual solutions benefit from significant competitive advantages in terms of operational efficiency, cost management and willingness for AI.

SAP CX represents the future of Customer Experience Technology. The portfolio is not a collection of different tools, but a uniform, intelligent platform that can adapt and develop in business requirements. In view of the challenges in 2025, the decision between complexity and consolidation will decide on the success of Cios.

The question is not whether you consolidate, but whether you lead the trend or remain.

68 percent of CIOs are already planning measures to consolidate. Companies that determine the consolidation of providers are best set up in order to successfully master the future of corporate technology.

Geert Leeman is Chief Revenue Officer for SAP Customer Experience.