msg creates added value in the digitalized world by focusing on people: as customers, as users of the solutions and as employees.
Interview with Maximilian Niermann, Unit Head Corporate Communications & Content Marketing at msg.
A brief description of the company and its activities.
Maximilian Niermann: We build on over 40 years of industry expertise, the creative and solution-oriented entrepreneurial spirit has always characterized our work. We also draw on the diversity within our group of companies: from brainstorming to application. This is expressed in our slogan “value – inspired by people”. With more than 10,000 experts in 33 countries, we are represented in the world’s most important markets. Long-standing partnerships strengthen our clout and ensure sustainable success. Sustainability (in all aspects of our business activities) is a decisive and guiding value for us.
What are the main areas of activity of the company?
M.N: As industry specialists, we are very familiar with the structures, trends and challenges of a wide range of sectors. We drive the digitalization in the sectors automotive, banking, consumer products, food, healthcare, insurance, life science & chemicals, manufacturing, public sector, telecommunications, travel & logistics and utilities to identify trends more quickly, increase their productivity and optimally align them with digitalization.
Our strategic consulting incorporates the diverse competencies of our group: our industry expertise, our in-depth technology know-how and our experience in business, strategy, IT consulting and digital business. With our individual, focused consulting, we put you on the road to success.
What’s the news about new products/services?
M.N: Our products are becoming more and more smarter by leveraging the possibilities of AI, esp. of GenAI. New releases of our core banking and insurance portfolio makes use of chat functionality as well as automated in- and output management.
Moreover, we modularize our product offering by slicing SaaS functions. Therefore, we provide a SaaS architecture, called DigiRack, which allows us and our customers to combine our services and third-party services with new applications.
What are the ranges of products/services?
M.N: As the msg group, we offer a wide range of products and services covering various industries and areas. Here are the most important offerings:
Industry solutions:
- Insurance: msg offers specialized IT solutions (e.g., msg.Insurance Suite) and consulting for the insurance industry. This includes the digitization of processes, innovation management and the development of new business models.
- Banking: Solutions for the banking industry (e.g., Marzipan by msg for banking) that cover the areas of strategy, business models, finance, risk & compliance, capital markets, payments, and digital transformation.
- Automotive: msg develops software solutions for automotive manufacturers and suppliers, including SAP solutions, data-based ecosystems and solutions for the digitization of production (smart factory).
- Food industry: With the msg.Food Solution, msg offers a modular, SAP-based solution for the food industry that covers the entire supply chain from raw material procurement to production and logistics.
Technological solutions:
- SAP solutions: msg offers a wide range of SAP-based solutions, including specialized modules for various industries such as insurance, the food industry and more. These solutions are integrated into SAP S/4HANA and optimize companies’ business processes.
- Microsoft SharePoint: msg implements and manages Microsoft SharePoint solutions that facilitate collaboration and knowledge sharing within organizations.
- IT consulting and services: msg offers comprehensive IT consulting services, including strategic consulting, IT project management, application management and IT consulting. These services support companies in optimizing their IT infrastructure and business processes.
- Managed Services: msg offers managed services, including the Single Point of Contact (SPoC) for companies. These services include technological support and the management of IT resources.
- Testing and quality management: msg offers various testing services, including test automation, performance testing and test consulting, to ensure the quality and reliability of software solutions.
Innovative solutions and sustainability:
- msg.GREENfactory: A specialized solution for the insurance industry that provides a CO2 emissions trading and product development portal to support companies’ sustainability goals.
- Digital transformation and data analytics: msg supports companies in their digital transformation through innovative technologies and data analytics to enable data-based decisions and increase efficiency. Another example is the SAP Sustainability Control Tower.
Portfolio of services
- Consulting: Business and IT strategy | Optimization of Business Processes | Organization | Applications | Business Intelligence | IT Architectures | IT Technologies | IT Security
- Industry Solutions: Development of Standard Software and Individual Solutions | Development of SAP-based Software Systems | System Integration | Business Process Outsourcing
- Seminars and Training Courses: Product Training Courses | Specialist Seminars | Customized Seminars
- Cross-Industry Services: Program and Project Management | Test, Quality & Lifecycle Management | System Services | Service Management | Platform Services | Migration / Post Merger Integration
Our most successful international products include SAP for Insurance (i.e., FS-PM, FS-CM, msg.PM), FPSL, FS-RI, FPSL Banking, PaPM and SAP Dairy Management by msg.
What is the state of the market where you are currently active?
M.N: We are expanding our business in all industries. Our strong position in the insurance and banking industry allows us to keep on our strategy in digitalization of our customers B2B2C business. In the manufacturing and process industry, we support our customers in cost saving to overcome the energy cost pressure. In addition, we also provide consulting services and IT-related solutions regarding regulation and compliance needs. Units such as msg Rethink Compliance open new perspectives on the core business of our customers. With our two international group members, msg Plaut and msg global solutions, we can enlarge our global impact.
What can you tell us about market trends?
M.N: We continue to see the growing importance of AI in various business areas. Our AI Center of Excellence acts as an internal knowledge center and drives our dedicated AI offerings. We offer comprehensive solutions from strategy consulting to implementation and operations. Through partnerships with leading AI companies, we develop innovative GenAI solutions that complement our service portfolio in areas such as accessibility, frameworks, and specific models. This year, we are also launching the productive operation of an internal AI chatbot for our employees.
There are also significant opportunities in the area of cloud business. Customers are increasingly looking to move complex applications to the cloud and receive a comprehensive range of services in the process. The requirements include the provision of SaaS-enabled applications and the ability to offer managed services for both cloud and application operations. Our unique selling point is that we can fulfil these requirements seamlessly from a single source.
What are the most innovative products/services marketed?
M.N: In times of market pressure, the service offering of the CFO agenda gets a higher priority. Using the core of our SAP HANA based PaPM, we enable our customers to boost their performance analysis in directions of sustainability as well as questions of other regulatory aspects, e.g., Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS). Our solution powered by optravis immediately generates cost savings in the field of transfer pricing.
Following these aspects, the msg group has a various set of automated and semi-automated solutions for regulations and compliance needs, e.g., automated Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) checks.
Our expertise in autonomous software engineering is also available to our customers by making use of automated test services, semi-automated requirements definition, self-services in Ops or low code approaches, e.g., in the public sector.
What estimations do you have for 2024?
M.N: Market pressure will remain in the next years, which means that we will continue to move from business model enablement to cost reduction when it comes to digitalization. Automation in software engineering will become standard so that coding assistance is merely an entry point. Security and cloud will converge since our customers understand that on-prem solutions will become more expensive to avoid security attacks. Beside security, cloud will remain preliminary for collaborative business in central and decentral data spaces, e.g., Catena-X, Manufacturing-X. New hardware will only be available for cloud enabled applications, which are not only Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), but Tensor Processing Units (TPUs)or photon based calculation. Big Computing will be the next big thing, not even for Large Language Models (LLM).