Search through our UKHotViews and UKHotViewExtra articles plus complete research reports
When we issued an invitation last November to CEOs of small, privately-held, UK-owned software and IT services companies to meet the TechMarketView analyst team (see here), we thought 20 or 30 might reply.
In fact, we got over 180 responses – and the requests are still coming in!
Our aim was to give CEOs of ‘Little British Battlers’—LBBs—the opportunity to get on our radar, and present their products and services, successes and aspirations, to the TechMarketView team. In exchange, TechMarketView would give the LBBs honest feedback and of course visibility in the marketplace – a level of exposure that frankly money can’t buy!
Over subsequent weeks, we whittled down the list to just twelve companies whom we thought were representative of the peer group. They were Assuria, CentraStage, Coactiva Aspiren, Featurespace, Littlefish, Mobica, Redstor, Sumerian, The Logic Group, TIW Group, Toplevel and Web Technology Group. These were companies that the TechMarketView team thought were among the most interesting, in terms of the themes that they played to and the markets that they served. In particular, we felt that they all were punching well above their weight, winning marquee clients against the giants of the industry.
In our first report in the Little British Battler series, we have summarised the views and opinions of the TechMarketView team on each of these companies While every company had its specific strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, we found there were some common themes, and we have drawn these together in the SWOT of the SWOTs at the end of the report.
We are now in the process of planning the next stage of the TechMarketView LBB programme. Meanwhile, eligible TechMarketView clients can download the Little British Battlers – Q1 2012 report right now!
Posted by HotViews Editor at '08:30'
It’s been a busy start of the year for the TechMarketView team, with 9 new research notes and reports already published and some 20 insights posted in UKHotViews Extra – all of which only eligible TechMarketView subscription service clients get to see. This is in addition to over 250 articles (and counting!) we have posted on UKHotViews so far this year, seen by many thousands of top industry executives and professionals around the world.
Kicking off our in depth research this year was Angela Eager’s keynote UK Enterprise Software Market Trends & Forecasts report, essential reading for both software and enterprise application services providers. And don’t forget, you can read expanded versions of our 2012 Predictions Summary from each of our research directors – just check out the TechMarketView research archive.
And we’re ramping up the research! There’ll be up to 20 new research notes and reported scheduled for publication this quarter, with ground-breaking research covering all aspects of the UK software and IT services marketplace. Next cab off the rank is our much awaited Little British Battler Report (due out Wednesday), with our trenchant analysis and opinion on the 12 ‘small but perfectly formed’ (well, some of them, anyway!) companies participating in our inaugural Little British Battler Day last month.
And we are so proud of our media profile, with TechMarketView frequently quoted in the quality broadsheets (e.g. Richard Holway's quotes in The Times here and here) and of course many too numerous to mention in all the main trade press (and therefore read by your clients!).
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again. If you have any skin in the game in the UK software and IT services market – whether as a supplier, investor, or advisor – there is no other source of insight and opinion as highly regarded as TechMarketView’s. Just contact Deb Seth on our client services team to find out more.
Posted by HotViews Editor at '08:39'
Picking up on our comments in Atos UK beats peers on FY11 revenue growth, it’s worth dwelling on the remarkable performance of Atos’ UK business over the last year. While the Group has suffered nine consecutive quarters of revenue decline (at constant scope and exchange rates) and only achieved positive organic growth in Q411, the UK business (which makes up 17% of the whole) has grown consistently quarter-on-quarter throughout the year. Q4 was indeed its finest quarter with organic growth of 5.6% by our calculations.
But what impact has the integration of Siemens IT Solutions & Services (SIS) had on the performance? And what will the impact be in the years ahead? TechMarketView subscribers can read our views in Atos UK: Making the most of SIS.
Posted by Georgina O'Toole at '20:51'
As the second largest enterprise software supplier to the UK market with estimated UK software revenue of c£1bn and one of the broadest portfolios, Oracle’s actions have implications across the whole UK SITS landscape. The latest report from the ESASViews research stream, Oracle: advances and market implications, dissects Oracle’s developments around the white hot areas of big data and analytics appliances and impact they will have on competitors, including putting pressure on them to ramp up their own appliance-related project schedules. The report also looks at how Oracle’s appliance and cloud initiatives will open up partner opportunities but highlights the need for better partner engagement devices because without these the company risks struggling to establish its offerings in the market. Eligible TechMarketView subscription service clients can download the report here.
Posted by Angela Eager at '17:50' - Tagged: saas cloud software analytics bigdata
Eligible TechMarketView subscription service clients can now download an edited version (sans hommes nus!) of the 'Disruption!' presentation that our managing partner, Anthony Miller gave at the Intellect Regent Conference last week.
This was a cracker of a show (we are not entirely impartial, admittedly) with some very strong messages to suppliers and investors about the disruptive influences that are generating huge challenges – and, if they play it right, big opportunities – in the UK software and IT services market.
Anthony would be delighted to reprise this presentation for your company in all his sartorial splendour at the most modest of fees. Just contact Belinda Tewson (btewson@techmarketview.com) for more information.
Posted by HotViews Editor at '09:40'
Late last year we published our top predictions for the UK public sector SITS market in 2012 (see TechMarketView Predictions 2012 –UK Public Sector). We have now taken a deeper dive to examine the impact of these predictions on the suppliers and the market in 2012.
With many central government contracts coming to their natural conclusion in 2012 and 2013, there is huge potential for change. However, numerous barriers continue to threaten progress and the Cabinet Office's Efficiency & Reform Group will continue to face an uphill battle as it tries to implement the UK Government ICT Strategy. The largest SITS suppliers will see their revenues under threat and will need to look carefully at the way they approach the market if they are to retain market share. The SME community has the potential to make its mark as the G-Cloud programme progresses, but much will depend on how quickly departments and agencies change the way they procure services.
TechMarketViews PublicSectorViews subscribers can access the report here. We will be further investigating these themes in our PublicSectorViews research over 2012. For more information contact Deb Seth.
Posted by Georgina O'Toole at '08:41' - Tagged: publicsector
2011 was truly a year of disruption and diversity for UK software and IT services companies listed on the London Stock Exchange. Their number declines inexorably year by year, and it won’t be long, surely, before there are fewer than 100 – there were almost 160 when we launched TechMarketView a mere three years ago.
This is why IndustryViews Quoted Sector – 2011 Review makes such interesting reading. You get to see who were the Rising Stars and who the Blazing Comets. You get to compare the stock performance of our leading players with the great and the good in foreign lands.
And of course, you can join in the mourning for the Dearly Departed, whose ranks are being swollen even as we write.
Plus, our venerable chairman, Richard Holway, imparts his Longer View on the outlook for the industry.
Words, pictures, and expert opinion, what more could you possibly ask for? Eligible TechMarketView subscription service clients can download IndustryViews Quoted Sector – 2011 Review right now!
Posted by HotViews Editor at '22:46'
Here are highlights of the last two ‘small but perfectly formed’ UK software and IT services companies whose CEOs we met at our inaugural Little British Battler event last week (see here).
We will be compiling an analysis of all 12 companies for publication in our inaugural LBB Report later this month. We have been deluged with requests for this report, but just as a reminder, it will only be available to eligible TechMarketView subscription service clients. Our Deb (dseth@techmarketview.com) can show you the way!
In targeting small UK central government agencies, Toplevel is managing to tick a fair few boxes when it comes to the UK Government ICT strategy. Its key offering is designed to help government organisations increase the take-up of online services. Tick number 1! As an SME it achieves that by offering a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) product – Outreach – allowing it to compete against the bespoke solutions offered by the big SIs. (SME. Tick. Less bespoke development. Tick). Outreach is a business process automation suite for delivering case management systems that have an online portal. Also ticking the boxes, it can be used for ‘agile development’ allowing the quick build of prototype forms and process workflow. And once developed, Toplevel will host and manage the application in the cloud (another tick). Toplevel also has some strong references; it helped Arts Council England increase online take-up (grants applications) from 3% to 53% over a twelve month period. Having bid for a place on the G-Cloud framework it will now be hoping that success will help it expand its presence in the sector.
We’re so used to seeing analytics applied in customer-centric areas that it’s easy to forget that the use cases are much broader. Sumerian stands out because it brings innovation to enterprise IT operations through the application of analytics. What that brings is the ability to predict and understand the impact of change in terms of direct financial cost or savings, and the overall impact on the business of better (or worse) IT performance. Where time literally is money such as in real time high volume trading environments, latency has a tangible cost and Sumerian has proved its value with big name clients in this area. Activities like system consolidation, optimisation through virtualisation, and capacity planning determine how businesses run and are highly topical within cost conscious enterprises. Following the appointment of CEO Bryan Clark (formerly CIO at KPMG Europe, and a Sumerian customer) in December 2011, the company is preparing for its next growth stage. Expect to hear much more from this Scottish LBB.
Posted by HotViews Editor at '07:59' - Tagged: lbb
Here are highlights of two more ‘small but perfectly formed’ UK software and IT services companies whose CEOs we met at our inaugural Little British Battler event last week (see here). There’ll be the last brace of companies spotlighted tomorrow in UKHotViews, only from TechMarketView!
And don’t forget, we will be compiling our in-depth analysis of all 12 Little British Battlers for publication in our inaugural LBB Report later this month, but this will only be available to eligible TechMarketView subscription service clients.
(Apology: In yesterday’s UKHotViews we misspelt the name of Tony Ruane, one of the founders of cloud storage player Redstor. The offending analyst has been horsewhipped.)
A company can have all the right ingredients in place but success depends firmly on the execution. And since CEO Ray Fielding undertook a supported MBO of Coactiva Aspiren from Sungard Public Sector (prior to its acquisition by Capita) in 2010, his management team has set about allowing the company to fulfil its potential. With a focus firmly on the UK, and predominantly on the UK public sector, Coactiva Aspiren is providing innovative solutions to UK government organisations seeking to use the vast swathes of data available to them to improve their performance. Incredibly timely! Offerings include business intelligence and performance management software as well as advanced data analytics solutions. And all the software is available ‘as a service’ (and has been since 2007). There’s no doubt they’ve been punching above their weight, winning business against the likes of IBM, KPMG, Northgate, Experian and Equifax. Indeed, when the big players aren’t competing with Coactiva, they’ll often by incorporating their solutions into their own offerings. And their ambitions don’t stop there. Following recent investment in product development, we’re likely to see Coactiva making a mark for itself in new ‘adjacent’ markets.
Reading-based Assuria operates in one of the ‘hottest’ SITS niches of all, developing enterprise cyber security and compliance software to combat the growing threat of cyber attack. It truly is a ‘Little British Battler’ and is punching way above its weight in competitive global markets. Assuria is particularly strong in the ‘classified’ environment because the information that its software collects meets the high forensic needs of defence customers. Combine that with the fact that Assuria offers its systems at a price that allows any organisation to access the technology and it’s easy to see how it’s built up such an impressive customer list. Its 250+ enterprise clients include Government departments in the Americas, Asia and the UK, as well as organisations from the banking, financial services and telecoms sectors. Interestingly, it does more business internationally than in the UK, in part a reflection on the UK government’s historic attitude to SMEs. There’s evidence that attitude is changing, but the UK public sector market is just one of the areas where Assuria sees opportunity in 2012.
Posted by HotViews Editor at '08:02' - Tagged: lbb
