1C Market: Barriers and Challenges

Personnel shortage

Lilia Sakhipova, Commercial Director of ICL Soft, noted the personnel deficit in almost all specialties of IT specialists as one of the main problems. And according to Yana Kladova, head of the corporate project support department of Forus Group, the shortage of qualified personnel in the IT labor market caused an increase in the salary expectations of specialists, and not all enterprises were ready for such changes. Companies began to complain about "inadequate salary expectations" in certain specialties, which can no longer be met.

Vladimir Kotov, the head of the Division 1C SoftBalance noted that personnel shortages and resource shortages lead to processing, uneven workload for specialists. Improving working conditions and supporting employees continue to be a relevant focus in work.

Viktor Bespalov, senior project manager at PARMA TG, said that the number of entry-level candidates in the labor market has significantly increased. Many of them move to 1C from other technology stacks, seeing good prospects for this direction, tough competition from employers and a high level of wages. As for the experienced 1C developers, they are necessarily required to be able to work with highly loaded systems that process huge amounts of data. There are very few such specialists on the market.

According to hh.ru, in 2024 there were not enough about 10 thousand 1C programmers alone, said Anton Kulish, head of corporate projects at 1C of Digitalization of Production.

Maxim Bukhanov, Commercial Director of VDGB, said that the shortage of specialists is felt in all areas: in IT, sales and other areas. Companies are forced to raise salaries in order to attract and retain qualified employees. This, in turn, leads to an increase in the cost of services for end customers. However, not all customers are ready to pay such amounts for services and solutions. A mismatch between company expectations and customer opportunities can result in significant losses for IT companies.

Ivan Shegurov, head of the corporate clients department of the IT integrator First Bit, believes that the situation of personnel hunger leads to an avalanche-like increase in the salary ceiling. Risks are increasing for integrators who are forced to operate at lower margins. The market has become more "explosive," and survival on it requires constant focus.

The specialist spoke about the industry standard, when before any transition from the old system to the new one, a certain block of work is provided related to load testing and performance testing - modeling the load that is assumed during the operation of the system. Specialists who know how to do this, "1C" distinguishes "experts on technological issues" in the cohort, and there are few of them on the market today.

According to the Deputy General Director of K2 TechIgor Zeldets, in 2024, K2Tekh and Technologies of Trust conducted a joint study. It turned out that 59% of respondents have a shortage of personnel in IT departments. However, this is less than in other departments (for example, in development, maintenance). The most acute problem with personnel is in the transport sector and logistics: the lack of hands was noted by 80% of representatives of the segment. Also, the issue of personnel is one of the key in industry, fuel and energy complex and telecom. According to the expert, companies will strive to solve this problem in the near future, including by automating and introducing innovative technologies such as AI.

According to Mikhail Kireev, Director of the 1C Department of Korus Consulting Group, the shortage of highly qualified specialists led to an increase in the cost of IT projects, an increase in the cost of consulting services. However, he noted, a trend is already emerging to reduce the imbalance in supply and demand in the labor market, although changes are slow.

Pressure from the state has increased, while money has become much more expensive, and the "overheating" of the labor market and the shortage of personnel have threatened many initiatives, "said Dmitry Vasiliev, director of ERP solutions development. IBS

The expert said that today customers have shifted their main focus from the name of the company and its reliability to the presented team and its experience.

Companies prefer to work with teams that can provide high-quality support at all stages of the life cycle of 1C solutions, said Dmitry Vasyukov, director of consulting at ITPS. For successful work in this area, it is necessary to have competent and certified specialists in all functional areas, deep knowledge and experience, and regularly improve skills.

The main challenge is the high utilization of current projects while increasing demand for new implementations, said Leonid Brodsky, Director of 1C-Corporate Management Systems (1C-KSU LLC). The problem is solved by nurturing personnel within the team through more intensive work with students within the framework of practice and internship, as well as by allocating resources for training courses for 1C specialists for IT students in one of the technical universities.

We strengthen our HR profile, improve our social package in order to remain valuable for full-time employees and attract new professionals, "the expert shared.

High cost of competence

According to the general director of Prof-IT Group, Yevgeny Sudarkin, at the current stage of restructuring the IT architecture of customers, the growth of the support market is inevitable, and the only option is to develop your own expertise, "grow" specialists within the company and motivate with new and interesting projects.

Almost all the projects we have implemented over the past 2 years have entered the stage of support and development, the expert commented. - The demand for teams and experts has grown.

Evgeny Sudarkin mentioned the development of a corporate school with the further employment of candidates for the company's staff.

As Mikhail Kireev said, the boundaries between the introduction and development of solutions are being erased on the market due to the acceleration of the pace of project implementation, which puts forward additional requirements for the competencies of IT partners.

The demand for teams to support and adapt 1C solutions is growing, said Viktoriya Reutskaya, head of the business automation department at IT company SimbirSoft. According to her, companies pay attention to the ratio of speed and quality of work performed, which is very important when the situation in the market and in legislation changes. In addition to product support, there is a growing demand for integrations with various third-party information systems: marketplaces, marketplaces, sites, etc. This imposes additional competency requirements on teams.

The demand for a quick response and a high-quality SLA solution tends to grow, said Denis Zharuk, director of KSU Bobdey Soft. This, obvious to the expert, growing trend is forcing 1C franchisees to constantly increase the qualifications of their employees.

We realize that today, and for many more years ahead, our specialists will have something to do, and we pump them as much as possible - for the long term, - said Leonid Brodsky.

The expert mentioned the development of partnerships with domestic manufacturers of related software Postgre Pro, Astra Linux, Red Soft, Alt and others. Within the framework of these programs, full-time administrators are trained in related IT areas.

Integration of Integrators

State regulation certainly influenced demand in 2024, said Ivan Shegurov. The specialist stated that the list of KII facilities is constantly expanding, and now all companies associated with the chemical industry have been added to it. They are forced to switch to Russian software and equipment, and this creates not so much organic as artificial demand. Given the difficult personnel situation in the market, this creates problems.

We can say that the demand for integrator services in 2024 began to exceed the supply, - said the specialist.

He stressed that at the moment no integrator, no matter how large, is able to fully meet the needs of a large customer. Hence, one of the important trends in the market, clearly traced in 2024, is the formation of "partnerships," "consortia," "alliances" of IT companies. On the one hand, this is due to the fact that there are point competencies that no one else has, and on the other hand, with the increased needs of large customers.

This already leads to the fact that not one company responds to tenders, but "national teams" consisting of several integrators. Customers are already looking for just such teams purposefully, but there are still not enough experienced teams. Therefore, the main issue of import substitution is no longer "how?," But "who?."

Most likely, in a year or two we will have a big stage of M&A, - predicts Maxim Bukhanov.

According to the expert, when the market is oversaturated with small developer companies that focus on only one product area, a significant part of new IT teams and products will inevitably enter larger holdings.

Functionality of domestic software

Imported products and technologies have long been on the market, have a high level of quality, and the market inevitably compares with foreign Russian developments. IT companies from the Russian Federation are gradually increasing their technological capabilities. At the same time, the deterrent is limited access to technologies and innovations that are used in Western products. This affects the quality, the speed of development, and the adoption of the market. There are also financial constraints as the creation and implementation of competitive IT solutions requires significant investment.

Customers switching from sanctioned foreign systems to domestic ones face a weaker "engine" in our software, - said Anton Kulish.

According to the specialist, there are good platforms and various configurations in the Russian Federation, there are several options for exchanging information between them, but IT systems need data buses to quickly integrate a large amount of data. World leaders had high-quality tires for integration between their products and other information systems. In domestic software, they are just beginning to appear. Therefore, there are always problems with integration in projects, especially large ones.

The specialist believes that at the moment domestic solutions cover 50-70% of the functionality of the best foreign systems. For example, one of the leading software products 1CERP":. Holding management "does not have a controlling block existing in the sanctions software, and the TOIR block has just begun to develop.

And there are many of them, - complained Anton Kulish. - Customers accustomed to working on the products of world leaders require the same level of solution.

Fortunately, according to him, specialists remained in the Russian Federation, who are now forced to retrain for domestic products. They have the necessary experience, and they will be able to quickly repeat the necessary developments.

1C has difficulties with scalability and performance, says Ivan Shegurov. The most important thing, in his opinion, is that the customer and the contractor provide for these features at the project planning stage, pledge money and time to work with them, and then they will not become a problem.

As Maxim Bukhanov said, the desire to quickly replace the departed vendors and release their own products as early as possible leads to the fact that some manufacturers offer customers raw products with limited functionality. The refinement of such products by system integrators translates into high costs.

Taking into account the departure of foreign vendors, many companies faced problems integrating 1C systems with the remaining Western and local solutions, said Denis Zharuk. Previously, familiar interfaces and APIs have ceased to be supported, which requires refinement and the creation of new integration bridges between different systems. This is especially true for enterprises with international activities or those who use specialized software.

Also, according to the expert, despite the flexibility of "1C," for large enterprises with large-scale operations, difficulties may arise with its scaling. Complex processes and a large amount of data require significant refinements and customization, which increases the cost and time of implementation. In 2024, such projects are becoming even more resource-intensive due to personnel shortages. Not all industries can easily switch to 1C solutions, since the system in some cases is not sufficiently adapted to specific requirements. The specialist cited as an example a situation when for enterprises with highly specialized production processes it may be necessary to develop custom modules, which lengthens the implementation time.

As Yevgeny Sudarkin said, in some functional areas there is a gap with the opportunities that foreign solutions offered, and this leads to additional investments. In partnership with the vendor and based on feedback from customers, solutions are constantly being improved.

As an integrator, we try to offer customers the best practices included in new product releases, "he said.

According to the expert, the accumulated project experience plays an important role - it allows at the start to offer the client proven approaches and methodologies to reduce not only the implementation time, but also to reduce risks in projects.

Industry-specific gaps

Despite the active development of 1C products for various industries, there were still "white spots" not covered with solutions for automation and production planning.

As Lilia Sakhipova said, so far there are no noticeable solutions in terms of production enterprises in industries, such as mechanical engineering with different types of production, in the chemical industry, in electronics and others. They practically do not have full automation of production processes and production planning at different levels.

The directions indicated by the expert are quite relevant today. The growth of machine-building production in 2023 was significantly higher than in other industries, and amounted to more than 20%^[1] was^[2]. The chemical industry also shows very good dynamics and is among the top 10 leading industries among manufacturing industries in terms of import substitution growth Results^[3][4]. The production of electronics and optical products in Russia in the first half of 2024 increased by 35%.

According to the data provided by Leonid Brodsky, in terms of the number of projects implemented for 2021-2023, the share of 1C in the MES segment was 2-5%, while in ERP - almost 70%.

ERP on the 1C platform is developing quite successfully, which cannot yet be said about MES class solutions, - confirmed Dmitry Vasiliev.

Most of our industrial customers choose the 1C:ERP platform as the basis for their digital landscape, "said Evgeny Sudarkin. - The ecosystem is complemented by our flagship product - a digital engineering platform with MES and QMS blocks, which closes the issues of production management and product quality in mechanical engineering.

According to the expert, the Russian intelligent platform QMS Professional with a set of MES and QMS services is suitable for end-to-end production management from semi-finished products to finished products. The solution is based on 1C, PostgreSQL and Astra Linux technologies.

Top 10 industries with the highest need for automation

Experts interviewed by TAdviser assessed the relevance of automation for various industries. By the sum of opinions, mechanical engineering is leading by a wide margin. Further, in descending order, agro-industrial complex and agriculture, retail, logistics, industrial production, chemical industry, oil and gas industry and mining, defense industry, power, transport have the greatest potential. Experts also noted the following areas: pharmaceuticals and healthcare, metallurgy, trade, food industry, public sector, construction, financial sector, FMCG, legal and accounting services, housing and communal services and education. Most often, the word "industry" sounds in the comments of specialists on this topic.

Among the industries in which automation shows very good results - logistics, retail, industry, agro-industrial complex, - said Alexander Naumtsev, CEO of BIA Technologies.

According to Yevgeny Sudarkin, the relevance of automation in the chemical industry is due to the need to rebuild logistics and sales markets, and more flexibly manage costs to maintain competitive positions in the market.

The general factor for all industries is the lack of labor, and automation and robotization can partially close this issue and maintain the pace and volume of production, the expert noted.

1C vs SAP

There is a well-established opinion in the market that 1C cannot cover the needs of the business in the same way that SAP can.

This is a stereotype that does not correspond to the truth, - said Evgeny Sudarkin. - We have a real case when we transferred the plant to Russian software in 3 months.

According to the expert, it is possible to migrate from SAP to 1C with an efficient transfer of the IT infrastructure, while maintaining the continuity of business processes.

Solutions on the SAP platform are more easily structured internally and better adapted for large-scale computing tasks. Solutions on modern "1C" configurations are complex and, at the same time, more complex. So, for example, in "1C:ERP" you can accurately calculate the actual cost of the produced unit of the finished product, and not collect it by the semi-tin method of the standard cost price adjusted for the actual deviation, as it is implemented in "1S:UPP" or in SAP. When migrating, you need to take into account the difference in paradigms between the two systems.

Most often, - said Evgeny Sudarkin, - you need to lay a long period of time on the reengineering of analytical sections and models.

For example, in SAP there is no such thing as "expense items," and in 1C there is no concept of "cost center" (as SAP users use it).

We have learned these and many other difficulties, which I did not mention, to overcome as quickly and efficiently as possible, - the expert shared.

I can't say that 1C does not have something important that SAP and Oracle users are used to, "Ivan Shegurov confirmed. - It's just that something in 1C works differently, and companies have to re-engineer processes.

Immaturity of customers, high cost of projects

Anton Kulish spoke about the common stereotype. According to the specialist, everyone is accustomed to the fact that "1C" is a fairly simple system, and you can hire a couple of specialists who will install, configure and support almost any 1C product. And often it is difficult for SCLs who decide to implement "1C: ERP" to realize that this is a completely different level, where there can be a huge amount of functionality, many blocks where analytics, architecture, and sometimes consulting on restructuring business processes are required.

Therefore, up to 15% of our clients, seeing a commercial offer, decide to implement on their own, - said Anton Kulish.

According to him, after some time such companies turn to the integrator already forced: such a client path passes not only representatives of medium-sized businesses, but even quite large (and even the largest) players.

Managers should understand what goals they want to achieve and be ready to change processes at their enterprises to achieve goals, and not just pay tribute to the "fashionable" word "digitalization." This opinion was shared by Lilia Sakhipova. Also, according to the expert, there is a unwillingness of customers to finally make decisions for migration due to an increase in the IT budget, since projects can be quite long and expensive.

Alexander Naumtsev said that for many companies the transition to domestic counterparts will be quite difficult and expensive due to dependence on the IT infrastructure based on products and services of Western suppliers. They will have to rebuild processes, train employees, and ensure data compatibility and security as they transition to new solutions.

The transition to 1C solutions requires significant resources for training and retraining of personnel, Denis Zharuk stated. He explained that the introduction of new systems is often met with resistance from employees who are accustomed to old solutions. This is especially true for those companies that have used Western systems for a long time. It takes a lot of time to adapt employees, and the lack of readiness for change slows down digital transformation.

Enterprise Type Implementation Difference

In government agencies

In government agencies and enterprises, implementation requires more coordination and compliance with regulatory standards. By purpose, implementation is usually focused on performing government functions and tasks, when compliance with regulatory authorities comes to the fore: the most important thing is to ensure that the implemented solutions comply with the legislation and data security standards.

Implementation in government agencies is characterized by bureaucratic processes, and financing is made from budget funds. At the same time, the budget is strictly fixed and controlled either by specialized bodies or by the budget organization itself.

The approach to solution selection, implementation and maintenance process is characterized by greater control of authorities that are not always ready for new IT products. In this direction, the vendor often enters the whole region and offers its comprehensive large-scale centralization.

At the initial stage of implementation, priority is given to compliance with federal laws and regulations, as well as high scrupulousness in the project reporting documentation.

The process of implementing "1C" itself is more regulated and formalized. Due to the fact that the documentation must meet certain standards, the processes of its approval and approval often require significant time.

The customer in government agencies, as a rule, is more heterogeneous, many decision makers are responsible for their small functions and do not have a deep understanding of the specifics of the work of related departments, and there is no place in the staffing table for centralized architecture departments, so integrators have to take on this function.

After implementation, long-term support is important to the government customer.

In commercial organizations

In the commercial sector, implementation is more flexible. The focus of these implementations is on responding to changes and adjustments in a timely manner during the process.

According to the goals and objectives of the 1C implementation, in the foreground here is making money: companies are aimed at optimizing their own business processes, reducing costs and increasing efficiency. Also often in demand is the integration of various modules and applications to create a single information system.

Financing is made at the expense of own funds and investments. At the same time, the budget is more flexible, which allows you to revise it when new input information appears or the list of processes that automation affects expands.

When choosing solutions, enterprises carefully compare competitors, both in terms of the product itself and the integrator.

At the initial stage, the aspects of cost optimization and the ability to scale to the growing needs of the business are critical. Reliable integration with systems already in use and a tight transition time to new software, especially in import substitution, are also important.

In commercial structures, where there is more freedom in the organizational structure, there are usually already both project offices and centralized departments of methodology and architecture, which makes implementation in commercial structures easier in terms of organizing project activities, but at the same time there are higher requirements for team qualification. Often, the larger the customer, the more complex the project management structure.

Implementation difference in large and medium-sized companies

As Evgeny Sudarkin said, historically, the systems of large customers require more customization and integration with a large number of internal systems. This is especially true in migration projects, when in fact a whole stack of technologies is being replaced with a new technological base.

For example, at the Moskvich plant, in fact, all solutions were launched from scratch, starting from 1CERP":" and "1S:UKh" and ending with MR UAT, document management, and integration with systems was carried out, MES APCS setting up security systems and subsequent training. Given the migration factor to the Russian system, ON this comprehensive project is associated with the need to "conduct" the entire "IT orchestra" and constant work to improve performance and efficiency.

For medium-sized enterprises, this is less painful, since they have less historical baggage, more flexibility and opportunities to adapt to pre-configured processes, and there are also a large number of industry configurations that allow you to go through the fast start stage and refine the system already as part of additional projects or service support.

Igor Ergunov, Director of Practice 1C at Odyssey Consulting Group, stated that large enterprises, in comparison with medium-sized ones, have large resources, set larger tasks that involve complex management, but are less flexible in adaptation. According to him, these differences determine the approaches and strategies for introducing information systems in various types of organizations.

Large companies in most cases have their own automation departments, which are immersed in the processes of the company, strongly influence the process and are involved in the implementation of new systems. This was told by Alexandra Dvoryak. According to the expert, the main difference between the mass market and medium-sized enterprises is the speed of starting work without long approvals. Here, tasks may be less complex, but require flexibility and adaptability. In this case, special attention is paid to choosing the most efficient and cost-effective solutions that will allow the enterprise to get the maximum benefit from the implementation of the system.

Implementation in large enterprises includes work that does not happen in medium-sized enterprises. Ivan Shegurov emphasized this. As an example, the specialist cited the processes associated with load testing. Large businesses have more stringent project management requirements, long coordination chains, increased security requirements, formalized processes. Because of this, in large implementations, the administrative apparatus increases, administrators appear, the role of the project manager increases many times. If in the middle project it is just a person who manages tasks and a team, then on large projects this task becomes the responsibility of timlids, and the project manager becomes a more political figure who is engaged in solving communication issues, interacting with the customer. The cost of such a project becomes higher, the implementation time is stretched.

Notes