Is owning your tech the best solution?

eGR Live 2011 provided industry influencers with a platform to discuss and debate a number of emerging trends and issues surrounding the industry today. As an expert in the field of IT and Infrastructure, we were invited to sit on the panel that discussed the differences of developing your own technology versus using a third party supplier. This also included a question about the main factors surrounding acquiring and retaining loyal depositing players.

The player database
We discussed and agreed that the player database is the most valuable asset to any operator. Acquiring players comes at a high cost and in order for an operator to manage its database freely, it was felt the player database should be kept solely in the hands of the operator, and not managed through a third party operation.

The reason for this is that operators should be able to implement their own security measures on a daily basis, providing the option to design stringent access policies that fall in line with strategic business objectives. If compared to hosted or third party solutions, there is always the chance that security could be breached while outsourcing provides the operator with little or no control.

Software platform
The software platform was another area discussed and it was agreed that operators should tread carefully. The panel felt that having complete ownership of the platform is the key to flexibility and ease of any future developments. It was also advised that operators developed their own software in-house, or perhaps considered acquiring a platform from an independent provider that would allow easy and cost efficient content integration.

Third party content
There are many good content providers in the market and the panel advised delegates to avoid agreements whereby an operator is locked into a particular supplier or contract on an exclusive basis. They also concurred that a platform should not limit operators and become the bottleneck, which in turn could affect freedom of choice, particularly when bolting on new platforms such as a sportsbook, casino or a poker room. The panel also discussed the importance of an operations strategy and central management system for bonuses, loyalty, customer services and wallet integration.

Conclusion
It was concluded that a combination of developing in-house software and the use of third party suppliers offered the perfect solution in order to differentiate from the competition. It was also suggested that as long as the operator had complete control and freedom of choice, then there was no reason why the two options could not work in harmony. For example, a new-to-market operator should consider purchasing a third party solution over in-house software as a starting block in order to gain a head start on this forever evolving industry.