# SIMO compared ยท Where we sit, how we deliver, where we stop Which layer SIMO works on, what strategy consultancies, systems integrators and data-management firms are each responsible for, how we deliver, and when another firm is the better fit. Dargestellte Fassung: https://simo-online.com/en/compare SIMO compared: position in the market, delivery model, and the line we draw at the platform ## SIMO in comparison. A category of our own. Vendor Comparison Which layer SIMO works on, how we deliver, and when another firm is the better fit. An orientation for decision-makers in the Mittelstand and in large enterprises. We describe models, not rankings. ## Five layers. SIMO works on one of them. Market map Consulting firms differ less in what they know than in the layer they enter at. Between corporate strategy and a system in production, five of them sit stacked. Each has its own question, its own kinds of firms and its own result. SIMO works on the fourth: below the program layer, above the technology. ### Corporate and business strategy Where the company is headed: markets, portfolio, growth, the operating model in principle. Classic strategy consultancies. The result is a decision on direction. ### Transformation strategy How a decision on direction becomes an initiative: target state, roadmap, governance, effort. Large consulting and audit firms, and the advisory arms of the global integrators. The result is a program. ### Architecture and technology decision This is where the work forks. Both branches answer the same question from opposite ends: how does the company have to be built for the initiative to hold? Two branches, two languages: one talks about capabilities, the other about systems. #### Business architecture From the business side: capabilities, processes, accountability, what information is needed. #### Technology strategy From the technology side: target architecture, platforms, procurement, operations. ### Enterprise business data strategy and transformation The layer where the two branches meet: the business model turns into a data strategy, the data strategy into a target structure, and that into an implementation that proves its own value. SIMO. We stay above the technology layer: which platform is needed is an outcome of this work, not its starting point. ### Implementation and operations What gets built, migrated and run: data platforms, cloud, pipelines, application operations. Platform vendors, data engineering firms, IT service providers. The result is a system in production. The map orders layers, not firms. A large firm works on several layers at once; a small one can go very deep on a single layer. Which layer your initiative starts on is yours to decide. ## Who is responsible for what. A map, not a ranking. Market context The map above sorts the layers. This section sorts the mandates: how far does an engagement reach once it has been awarded? Three kinds of firms come up particularly often for a decision-maker. What follows sets out what each of them is customarily responsible for, and what SIMO is responsible for. That does not describe the market in full: mid-sized full-service data consultancies, for example, do not appear in this list at all. ### Strategy consultancies and audit firms The large strategy and audit firms bring what no small firm can build: cross-industry market knowledge, comparative data drawn from many programs, the capacity to work in several locations at once, and a name that carries a recommendation through a supervisory board. If a decision has to hold up against internal resistance, that is where it belongs. Their mandate is the decision itself: analysis, options, target state, recommendation; implementation is customarily the subject of a separate engagement. For statutory auditors, a legal limit is added: Article 5 of Regulation (EU) No 537/2014 prohibits certain non-audit services to the public-interest entity being audited. That is a boundary in relation to the firm's own audit client, not a general separation of audit and advisory work. ### IT consultancies and systems integrators The global systems integrators command what execution at scale demands: certified specialists in large numbers, proven migration methods, round-the-clock operations, and experience with programs that run for years and across borders. Once it is settled what should be built, this group builds it dependably. Their mandate begins precisely there, with a target architecture that has already been decided. Whether that decision was the right one is, as a rule, settled before the contract starts. ### Data-management firms The data-management firms master the craft without which no data strategy holds: modeling, data quality, catalog and lineage, pipelines, performance, and the operation of a platform with dependable response times. They are measured on metrics that have to be right: completeness, timeliness, throughput. Their mandate sits with the engineering: which data matters, and which decision it is meant to support, arrives as a requirement from elsewhere. They answer the how, not the what for. ### What SIMO is responsible for SIMO is not a smaller edition of these firms. We occupy a category of our own: data strategy as a management discipline, on par with financial or HR strategy, owned by executive leadership. We never start with the technology; we start with the company, and we accompany the work from strategy through to provable execution, in that order, in phases you decide on anew after each step. We are not a software company. The platform we run ourselves, SIMOSphere AI, has been in production since March 2025; it lives at simosphereai.com and is not part of the engagement. Your integrator builds it. We hold your side of the table while they do. As a rule we bill for outcomes rather than day rates; the fee is agreed individually in the engagement contract. We process in the EU or on your premises, and the keys stay with you. And we name the goal plainly: your independence, including from us. ### How far the mandate reaches: responsibility across a transformation A horizontal stretch with five stations: business question, decision, target architecture, implementation, operation and evidence. Below it, one bracket per row shows which section a group of providers typically takes on. Strategy consulting runs from the business question to the decision. The systems integrators start at the target architecture and run through to operation and evidence. The data-management firms begin at implementation and likewise run through to operation and evidence. Below a dividing line sits SIMO's bracket; it runs from the business question through to operation and evidence. Scope of mandate, not size, depth or quality: the bracket shows which stretch of a transformation a group of providers typically takes on. The length of a bracket is a scope, not a rating and not a ranking. Which scope fits your initiative is yours to decide. - Business question - Decision - Target architecture - Implementation - Operation and evidence - Strategy consulting - Systems integrators - Data management - SIMO GmbH ### Responsibility at a glance - Criterion - Strategy consultancies - Systems integrators - Data-management firms - SIMO GmbH Starting point - The corporate strategy - The target architecture already decided - The data model and the source systems - The question the board is asking Who is advised - The board and its committees - Program management and IT - IT and business-unit leadership - Executive leadership, directly Scope of the mandate - Analysis, target state, recommendation - Implementation and operations - Pipelines, models, platform operations - From strategy through to provable execution, commissioned phase by phase Own product in the engagement - As a rule not part of the deliverable - Mostly third-party platforms, some proprietary accelerators - Proprietary or licensed platform - None. Our own platform lives at simosphereai.com. Billing - As a rule time and materials (day rates) - As a rule time and materials, fixed work packages and service fees - License and consumption, plus effort - As a rule outcome-based, agreed individually in the contract Jurisdiction of processing - Follows the client's own estate - Follows the target platform chosen - Follows the platform contract - EU or on the client's premises, client-side key sovereignty Evidence for regulators and internal audit - Can be commissioned as a separate mandate - Part of the program scope - Via tooling: catalog, lineage, quality metrics - Built in and continuously updated Goal at the end of the mandate - A decision that holds - A system in production, often with ongoing operations - A data platform in operation - The client's independence, including from SIMO The entries for the three groups describe customary mandate structures, not any individual provider. Individual firms may work differently. ## The people who scope it deliver it. Enterprise-grade method, no enterprise overhead. Delivery model We work the same problem space as the large firms. The difference is in the setup: small teams of experienced people, compact mandates, and the same people from the first meeting through implementation. These are the six points we commit to. Six points SIMO commits its delivery model to A hexagon. Its six corners carry the names of the six points: managing directors in the mandate, delivery supervision, compact scope, vendor-neutral, evidence down to the data, and processing in the EU. The drawing contains no scale and no rating; what is committed for each point is spelled out in words below it. A statement about our own way of working. The drawing carries no scale and rates no one. It names the six points SIMO commits to. ### Managing directors in the mandate The managing directors work on the case themselves, from the first meeting through implementation. The case stays with the same people. There is no handover to a delivery team. ### Delivery supervision We do not stop at the recommendation. We stay until the implementation is proven, and the evidence sits in your data, not in a closing deck. ### Compact scope Compact mandates instead of large programs, in phases you decide on anew after each step. Every phase delivers value on its own. From the Mittelstand to the large enterprise: scope follows your initiative, not a minimum company size. ### Vendor-neutral We earn nothing on your licenses and nothing on your operations. That is why we can also tell you which technology you do not need. ### Evidence down to the data Evidence for internal audit and regulators accrues continuously, not only once an audit is announced. To get there we work all the way down to individual data sets. That is where data quality is decided. ### Processing in the EU Processing takes place in the EU or on your premises; the keys stay with you. Proven, not asserted: 23 TB of data volume processed, 700 business-critical files fully reconciled, processing time cut from several weeks to 10 hours. References and figures ## We do not sell platforms. We build the structure that shows which ones you need. Where we stop A systems integrator earns on licenses, migration, operations and maintenance. If you want a system built, that is the right address: that model carries the execution. Ours is a different one: we earn on the advice, not on your software, and we build nothing you could not switch off later. That is why we put the question of retirement at the start and not at the end. Advice and tooling, side by side - Criterion - SIMO GmbH - Databricks - Palantir Foundry - Snowflake - Large consulting firms What it is - Advisory with delivery supervision - Platform for data, analytics and AI - Platform - AI Data Cloud - Advisory Stake in the technology choice - Vendor-neutral, no share of license or operations - Vendor of its own platform - Vendor of its own platform - Vendor of its own platform - Client chooses The entries for Databricks, Palantir Foundry and Snowflake reproduce nothing but each vendor's own public self-description; as of 9 August 2026. On place of operation, governing law, contract term, scale and pricing we deliberately make no claim here: those turn on the individual contract and cannot be established in general from the outside. All three vendors document places of operation inside the EU, among others. ## When SIMO is the better choice - You want to keep sovereignty over your data: your own house, European infrastructure or mixed, without a US contract. - Your business units and your IT describe the same initiative differently, and the two descriptions never converge. - You have no data organization of your own and want neither platform lock-in nor a rotating cast of contacts: with us the managing directors work on the mandate themselves. - You are under supervision, for example in banking, insurance, healthcare or the public sector, and have to evidence GDPR and the EU AI Act. - You want to decide for yourself which technology you use, today and in two years. - You are looking for senior accountability in the mandate, not a presentation followed by a change of staff. ## When SIMO is not a fit - You want to buy a data platform from its vendor. Databricks or Snowflake is then the more direct route. - You are standing up a program in several countries at once and need capacity in large numbers. That is a job for one of the large firms. - You need a large brand name to cover a politically sensitive initiative. One of the large firms then fits better. - You are looking for a one-time tool purchase. We work in ongoing mandates. - Your initiative is predominantly anchored in the US. You are then better served by a provider based there. ## Are you a strategy consultancy, a systems integrator or a data-management firm? None of the three. A strategy consultancy's mandate is the decision and ends there; systems integrators implement a target architecture that has already been decided; data-management firms work on the engineering below the business question. We start with the question the board is asking and stay in the mandate through implementation: from strategy through to provable execution, in that order, in phases you decide on anew after each step. Data strategy is a management discipline here, not an IT topic. ## What sets SIMO apart from a large consulting firm if the expertise is comparable? We work the same problem space. The difference is in the setup: with us the managing directors work on the case themselves, from the first meeting through implementation. The mandate is compact and can be commissioned phase by phase. And we earn on the advice, not on licenses or operations. The people who scope it deliver it. ## When is SIMO the better choice than a data platform? A platform is a tool. Alongside it you still have to build the target state, the implementation and the governance yourself, or commission them in addition. We advise on the company and supervise the implementation until the benefit is proven. For organizations without a data organization of their own, that is the shorter route to dependable decisions. ## We already run a platform. What does SIMO change about that? As a rule, nothing about the platform itself. We do not replace a running system blindly; we get the existing ones to talk to each other. We are vendor-neutral, we process in the EU or on your premises, the keys stay with you, and we keep the option of changing vendor open. For institutions with sovereignty requirements, that is precisely the decisive point. ## SIMO or one of the large audit and consulting firms? The large firms have brand names, capacity and cross-industry market knowledge. Where a decision has to hold up against internal resistance, they are the right firm for it. With us the managing directors work on the case themselves, from the first meeting through implementation, and as a rule we bill for outcomes rather than day rates. ## How is the mandate structured commercially? There are no public packages and no price list. Every mandate is scoped individually and modularly after the discovery call: measures can be commissioned individually or in full, and the sequence follows the greatest benefit to you. You decide again after every phase. You pay us no license fees: we earn on the advice, not on your software.