Empower 2025 Recap: Digital Transformation
August 8, 2025
4 min read
August 8, 2025
4 min read
In June 2025 at Empower our CMO, Nancy Maluso, sat down with Richard Spithoven, EMEA Lead – Publisher Advisory Services at SoftwareOne, and Barry McShane, VP of Sales, Rest of World for Origina, to chat about getting away from rigid vendor-driven models and adopting flexible IT strategies that support transformation, scalability, and long-term growth. The session served as a reflection on Empower day as a whole and, in particular, how many of the subjects covered across the day can help to inform your path to innovation.
Our expert panellists discussed strategies for overcoming your business’s technical debt to free up resources (money, time, people) and drive growth and innovation. They also took the time to chat about the barriers many businesses face when attempting to unlock their full potential through digital transformation.
One of the chief concerns that CIO’s face in regard to their digital transformation centres around resources being tied up in vendor-driven roadmaps. Many IT teams are so wrapped up in upgrading their current systems that they simply don’t have the time, budget or manpower available to focus on innovation or growth. On average, companies spend up to 90% of their IT budget just keeping the lights on.
Some of the vendor-built barriers to progress that our speakers pointed out include constant technology upgrades that continuously consume time, budget and resources. Not just the never-ending cycle of vendor-driven upgrades, but our panellists also pointed to licensing complexity, compliance fears, regulatory audits and security maintenance as common OEM vendor tactics holding back many businesses.
The session aimed not just to raise awareness of these issues, but to help businesses to address them as well.
As discussed in the session, one of the main ways that companies such as Origina and SoftwareOne are effectively mitigating much of these issues is by placing a greater emphasis on technical debt management. Habitual renewals driven by vendor influence are continuing to add risk, cost and time to companies day to day lives. Such a high turn-over of software, and hardware which comes hand in hand with it, is a needless expense that companies often just accept, but also one that introduces potential security risks and creates a huge amount of e-waste every year.
Maintaining your critical systems, rather than simply upgrading because the vendor says it’s time to, can be a huge step toward freeing up your business for future innovations. As Richard Spithoven discussed in the session, it can lead to cost-effective transformation for customers looking to explore modernization. He emphasised this by discussing how many customers are pushed by vendors to move to new cloud solutions, even when their infrastructure is not yet ready. Trusting in your current systems, finding secure alternatives and, most importantly, having an expert partner that can guide you with internal audits, guidance is the way forward for businesses looking to modernize in a way that makes sense for them.
Many companies fall into the trap of vendor tactics designed to keep them in a never-ending loop but by better understanding your alternatives you can find your way out. As Barry McShane puts it “The main thing that makes a company successful in change is a real appetite to challenge the status quo.”
OEM vendors have made constant, needless upgrades the norm but they are far from the most effective way to move forward. As our speakers across the day continued to hammer home, your trusted systems are trusted for a reason- because they have served you well so far. Stability is the base off which you can build your ability to innovate, maintain your systems that work as long as you need, make incremental investments where needed and use the money, time and resources you’ll save to invest in the future.
Continue to think forward, but do so with an eye on keeping a balance that doesn’t put your business under financial or security risk.
Barry put it best during the session “Our partnership with Software One is a great union to help customers unlock more from their environment through expert knowledge and experience”. Companies like Origina and SoftwareOne are your key to getting more from your business than even you thought possible.
Through tailored support that focuses on technical debt management, security, proactive maintenance etc. your business can thrive and grow. Independent support can help you take the stress and strain out of your everyday software needs and channel resources towards future innovations instead.
The Empower 2025 session on digital transformation was packed full of expert advice and insights, but one key point was clear above all else throughout- there is a better way. By partnering with independent support instead of the OEM vendors, you can take back control of your IT roadmap and maintain your systems for longer.
Saving money, time and resources by avoiding needless upgrades while maintaining your stability and security are vital to freeing up your business to do more. If you’re looking to transform your business, Origina and SoftwareOne have the key to unlock your full potential.
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