The full acquisition by Dimension Data of the Britehouse Group and the resultant merging into Britehouse of Dimension Data Application Services (DDAS) has created a Microsoft practice with capabilities and facilities not available elsewhere in a single package.
The Microsoft business within DDAS, which falls away as a business entity, has been merged with the Microsoft business within Britehouse Digital.
"This gives customers far more than access to a broader skills base with strong .Net, SharePoint, digital marketing and BI capabilities," says Britehouse Digital head, Graham Parker.
"The Dimension Data team's focus tended to be on long term managed services and outsource contracts. They therefore have depth in the run and transform side of customer applications. Their point of reference was usually the IT department."
"Britehouse, on the other hand, has usually been entrusted with building and modernising customer applications on to newer technologies. So, the Britehouse team has depth in project work, building systems from the ground up, augmenting existing systems, or augmenting staffing resources within customer businesses. That team's point of reference ranges from line of business to IT departments within the client.
"With the teams merged, we can now offer customers an aggregated capability that ranges from a longer term outsourcing focus to shorter, sharper, build type scenarios."
In terms of business continuity for customers, the addition to the Britehouse team of another 70 developers helps address the industry-wide Microsoft skills shortage by providing customers with the benefits of Britehouse economies of scale.
"Also, the former Dimension Data members of our team have a close working relationship with all the Dimension Data infrastructure-based lines of business, including networking, communications, end-user computing, security and data centres," Parker says. "This positions us to enhance any Dimension Data infrastructure our customers may have and to provide discerning guidance when customers want to move to such infrastructure.
"In addition, Britehouse brings to the party a market leading enterprise mobility competency that includes our own applications platform (ATAJO), the only one of its kind in the country. It enables customers to affordably spin up mobility applications that are deeply integrated into their back end in a matter of weeks.
"All of these strong capabilities are enhanced by our digital advisory division, which helps customers articulate their digital strategy, and our unique productivity products that sit on top of Microsoft Office in order to make people more effective in their daily tasks".
"Overall, Britehouse offers a remarkable package of technology and business vision, skill, and experience that confers agility and speed to benefit for customers."
The integration of the Dimension Data Microsoft business into Britehouse Digital adds momentum to Parker's mandate of building a business that helps customers go digital. Parker points out that Britehouse Digital's strategy doesn't change. "What the merger has done is give us better balance in our offering. I am now able to have better outsource and long term application management conversations with our customers.
"And, through aggregation of the capabilities now at our disposal, I can tailor and target solutions for particular customers much more tightly."
Donovan Lawrence, former head of DDAS and now chief operations officer (COO) of Britehouse, says that the coherence of capabilities created by the Britehouse DDAS merger constitutes a competitive advantage for customers. "When customers tap into what differentiates us in the market, in terms of the scope, scale, speed, and future relevance of the solutions and services we are able to offer in an integrated way, they automatically create differentiators for themselves."
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