Search through our UKHotViews and UKHotViewExtra articles plus complete research reports
A key message from the new ESAS 2013/14 Supplier Landscape report is that the fundamentals of the market – what to supply, how to supply it, and who should supply it - are under scrutiny.
Leadership positions are up for grabs in the high growth digital agenda technology areas of cloud, big data/analytics, mobile and social/collaboration. Established providers in both the traditional enterprise software and application services sectors are moving in on them but there are a host of up-and-coming suppliers standing in their way and determined to intercept the flow of revenue. This highlights one of the other major changes in the ESAS market – that it is starting to split along traditional vs. modern technology and supplier lines rather than enterprise software vs. application services. It is attitude as much as technology and services offerings, which separates the ‘new’ from the ‘old’.
Understanding these new dynamics is critical because the ESAS market is locked into a slow growth mode. The overall UK ESAS market, which we estimated at £21.8bn in 2012, is only expected to grow to £22bn in 2013. During 2012 we estimate that aggregate revenue growth over the Top 20 suppliers was just 1%.
Eligible TechMarketView ESASViews subscribers can find out more about these and other shifts in the ESAS supplier landscape here. If you haven’t signed up for our services, contact Deborah Seth who will gladly guide you through the process.
Posted by Angela Eager at '21:14' - Tagged: software applications
Today TechMarketView launches “Mid-market Data Centre Services: Competitors and Opportunities”, part of the InfrastructureViews research programme.
The mid-market (100-1000 employees) is often referred to as if it is a single market sector, such as financial services or manufacturing. It is not. There is not, for example, a single set of regulatory challenges that will drive data centre services investment. There is not a collective pattern for margin or cash flow performance. This is a highly fragmented market consisting of a large number of enterprises with different business and technology challenges.
The opportunities for suppliers of data centre services to the mid-market vary considerably. Some of the best opportunities are amongst firms that have an overstretched IT function and have acknowledged they must invest to prevent a total meltdown. Or, alternatively, firms where technology is central to the business model - for example, sectors that are data centric, seasonally driven and/or that have a high reliance on IT. As one data centre services supplier put it: “The biggest customers are not necessarily the largest corporations. The big spenders are the more innovative companies, such as online firms.”
The strongest growing data centre services in the UK are the cloud and hosting markets (Provisioning market), which will be worth £1.7bn in 2013 and will grow (CAGR) 9% to 2016. While that represents an undoubted opportunity, suppliers to the mid-market must be aware that tier one – and even tier two – vendors are often considered to be too expensive by mid-sized buyers. The perception is that larger suppliers are more inclined to help their big accounts when something goes wrong or requires immediate attention.
However, as cloud services become more prevalent in the market, the question is whether the resultant contracts and delivery/payment models will make larger suppliers more attractive to these buyers. Will larger suppliers be able to deliver cloud services at a price point that is more attractive to smaller buyers than their traditional IT services? Or, will cloud and hosting services prove to be the making of some of the UK’s burgeoning mid-sized suppliers? This report provides particular focus on the latter: the emerging set of mid-sized managed hosting and cloud suppliers.
“Mid-market Data Centre Services: Opportunities and Competitors” is available to subscribers of our ever-popular InfrastructureViews research stream. Please contact Deb Seth if you would like to join the stream.
Posted by Kate Hanaghan at '09:08' - Tagged: datacentres research infrastructure
India HQ’d business process services (BPS) suppliers are facing increasing threats to their position in the UK market today.
Many like WNS, EXL Service, Wipro, Genpact and Infosys have built up their UK businesses and client relationships via an offshore-centric delivery model, whereby operations are lifted, shifted and operated out of lower cost countries like India. However leading India HQ'd player TCS and smaller peer Firstsource have taken a different approach, investing in onshore UK delivery operations.
The debate whether to offshore or retain operations onshore in the UK is getting more complex. Political and economic concerns, and cost vs. quality and security remain of paramount concern. Meanwhile automation technology, and new disruptors around social media, mobile, analytics and cloud (SMAC) are introducing new operational challenges, and driving demands for new technologies and BP service models. How India HQ'd suppliers respond to these shifts over the next few years will determine who will succeed or fail in the UK market.
Subscribers to TechMarketView's BusinessProcessViews research service can read our analysis of the leading India HQ'd BPS players' strategies, and the keys for future success in our research note What does the future look like for India HQ’d players in UK BPS?
Posted by John O'Brien at '08:59' - Tagged: offshore bpo bps
With ‘NHS IT disasters’ still hitting the headlines in the UK on a regular basis, it’s almost reassuring to see similar issues plaguing the US government’s high profile Healthcare.gov website which went live on October 1. SITS suppliers CGI and Serco are amongst those bracing themselves for bad press as the topic is debated at the highest levels of government in Washington. TechMarketView subscription clients can read more in our latest UKHotViewsExtra article: US healthcare IT woes carry lessons for the UK.
Posted by Tola Sargeant at '16:42'
The aggregate value of UK software and IT services (SITS) companies listed on the London stock market (Main and AIM) hit a two-year peak last quarter, reaching £22.3bn. The number of quoted companies rose again for the second successive quarter to 98. Indeed, the FTSE SCS (software and computer services) index was almost 23% higher ytd at the end of Q3 (to 30th Sept), just pipping the 21% gain on Nasdaq.
Eligible TechMarketView subscription service clients can read a more detailed analysis of how the stock performance of UK software and IT services companies compares with their international peers by downloading the latest edition of IndustryViews Quoted Sector.
Posted by HotViews Editor at '09:35'
In 2011 we reported that public sector-focused IT services and BPO player, Agilisys (part of the Blenheim Chalcot Group) was rapidly becoming a viable alternative as a BPO provider to the local government market (see: Agilisys: successfully taking on the big boys). Since then, the company has continued to grow despite an increasingly tough local government outsourcing market.
In this latest PublicSectorViews note - Agilisys leverages Blenheim Chalcot relationship - we highlight Agilisys’ increasing focus on platform-based service delivery, and discuss how the business is benefiting from being part of the Blenheim Chalcot Group.
Posted by HotViews Editor at '09:22' - Tagged: publicsector localgovernment platform suppliers
Despite the relatively small size of the Scottish Public Sector software and IT services (SITS) market (just 6% of the UK public sector SITS market) and recent modest growth, it is attracting great interest from the leading UK SITS providers. The Top Ten suppliers to the market, led by Atos, currently derive c£250m of revenues from this market. But most have bold ambitions to grow their Scottish public sector business (many with double percentage growth over the next few years).
As reflected in the rest of the UK public sector, budgetary constraints are a core concern for Scottish public sector organisations. However, there is a potential for the Scottish public sector SITS market to grow more strongly driven by increased organisational restructuring, increased reliance on external providers to deliver public services, and investment in ICT, for example in the digitisation of services, to improve efficiency and effectiveness.
This latest TechMarketView report from the PublicSectorViews team – Scottish Public Sector SITS Market: Trends and Opportunities outlines the current state of SITS market in the Scottish public sector and highlights the important success factors for SITS suppliers to take full advantage of forthcoming opportunities. If you are not yet a subscriber, please contact Deb Seth to become one!
Posted by HotViews Editor at '09:00' - Tagged: markettrends trends scotland
We are delighted to announce the twelve companies selected to participate in the third TechMarketView Little British Battler Day, to be held on 5th November.
They are (in alphabetical order):
Nearly 100 companies applied to participate and it was as ever a difficult task for the TechMarketView team to select 12 from a very deserving list.
The CEOs from the 12 companies will have the opportunity to spend an hour with TechMarketView research directors to share and get feedback on their business plans and aspirations. The companies will also be featured in UKHotViews and profiled in a report at the end of the year which will be available to eligible TechMarketView subscription service clients.
Congratulations to the latest ‘LBB 12’.
Posted by HotViews Editor at '07:44' - Tagged: lbb
The number of UK software and IT services (SITS) mergers and acquisitions in Q3 was the highest since Q4 2006, with 91 UK buyers and 107 UK sellers (including 65 domestic deals) according to data from corporate finance firm, Regent Partners. Most in demand were Vertical Software companies comprising 25% of all UK SITS deals in Q3. Consultancies & SIs, which have traditionally been the most popular, were pushed into second place accounting for 20% of deals.
Software acquisitions now account for 51% of the deals in Q3, up from 36% in Q4 2012. The situation in the wider European SITS sector is quite different with acquisitions of IT services companies still accounting for more than 60% of deals and a much smaller move in favour of software companies.
Eligible TechMarketView subscription service clients can read much more on the UK software and IT services corporate activity scene by downloading the latest edition of IndustryViews Corporate Activity.
Posted by HotViews Editor at '08:50' - Tagged: acquisition
We’ve just picked up that cloud-based collaboration platform provider, Alliantist (pronounced as in alliance and scientist combined), has achieved G-Cloud accreditation IL3 for multi-agency working. We spoke to CEO, Mark Darby, earlier in the year about the company’s 'pam' offering and future plans.
With more than £1 million of annual revenues, Alliantist’s aim must be to build scale and attract new clients and users. In offering a solution to multi-agency working, Alliantist’s biggest barrier to growth will be prospective clients deciding to ‘do nothing’ and stick to the old way of working (spreadsheets, email and traditional meetings).
Amongst existing users, the new IL3 accreditation (which required significant investment for an SME), offering higher levels of security, will allow more to be undertaken with the system and more partners to be brought onboard for core frontline services.This brings a much higher user community to target and more of the ‘must have’ challenging problems in society to solve, all too often seen on the front pages of the papers and heralded as multi agency failures around sharing and collaboration
In UKHotViewsExtra 'Alliantist readies for next phase of growth' Georgina O’Toole considers whether Alliantist’s approach to the market will be enough to allow it to prosper.
Posted by Georgina O'Toole at '16:26' - Tagged: saas strategy software justice
August and September have been very busy months for the TechMarketView (TMV) team with the launch of key Market Trends and Forecast reports and Supplier Landscape reports in most research streams, which have raised a lot of media interest. Our research directors also continue to be in demand by the press for their views on developments in the UK tech scene. Here are a few highlights from the last month:
There has been extensive courage in the Financial Times starting with PublicSectorViews research director, Georgina O’Toole quoted in Why big IT projects crash. ESASViews research director, Angela Eager, is also quoted in WANdisco raises £19m in big data push, along with TechMarketView chairman, Richard Holway, quoting his views in the article on employment within the IT industry: Growth in IT jobs confounds offshoring fears. And in Visa, MasterCard and Amex seek new online payments standard, research director, Peter Roe, welcomes the move to tighten security in mobile payments.
There have been several appearances in The Times for TechMarketView analysts, notably for Richard Holway in the article on Dell entitled They don’t give a damn’: investor looks back in anger at Dell. Following the intrigue surrounding Microsoft and the news of Steve Ballmer stepping down Richard Holway offers his views in ‘Make or Break’ at Microsoft as intrigue builds over succession and in Steve Ballmer to step down as Microsoft chief executive. Richard is also quoted on the acquisition by Microsoft of Nokia in: Nokia: Window into the world of a corporate outsider. Managing Partner, Anthony Miller, is also quoted in The Times in Quindell has last word with rising profits.
Elsewhere, in CIO PublicSectorViews principal analyst, Khalda De Souza, is quoted giving her view on the deal with HCL in: Haringey and Waltham Forest councils’ award of a £19m SAP deal to HCL.
In Computing, Angela Eagar is quoted in BMC finally completes $6,4bn private equity privatisation. Over at TechRepublic Angela’s key report on ESAS Market Trends and Forecast 2013 is reviewed in CMOs are elbowing out CIOs: But do they know their back ends from the their front ends!
There was also plenty of coverage in CRN for the TMV team starting with the article, Big players to suffer as infrastructure services market declines, which reviews InfrastructureViews research director, Kate Hanaghan’s, key report on Infrastructure Market Trends and Forecasts 2013.
PublicSectorViews research director, Tola Sargeant, is quoted in ACS poised to celebrate strong H1 results and Angela Eagar appears in K3 gears up for positive new financial year. Richard Holway has further coverage on the recent changes at Microsoft in End of an error? and Microsoft snaps up Nokia’s mobile division for €5.4bn. He also offers his invaluable insight on the new iPhones in Apple stock drops after new iPhones unveiled.
Our analysts have featured prominently in ComputerWorldUK. In UK public sector SITS market down £644m since 2010 Georgina O’Toole urges suppliers to react to changes. Georgina is also quoted in Lockheed Martin buys Scottish IT provider Amor Group, IT jobs at risk as government outsources back office to Steria, and Computacenter beats HP, Fujitsu and CSC to FCO desktop deal.
There was further coverage in ComputerWorldUK for John O’Brien on the Direct Line Group contract win in Direct Line extends BPS contract with Innovation Group. While Kate Hanaghan is quoted in Cloud firm iomart acquires Redstation in £8m deal. In NHS set for £1bn tech investment to enable patient record sharing, Tola Sargeant remains sceptical as to whether such a small pot of money can deliver the government’s ambitious goal of a paperless NHS.
And finally in The Register John O’Brien has plenty to say about recent events at IBM in IBM offloads customer services biz for half a BEELLION DOLLARS.
As you can see from these ‘edited highlights’, it has been an extremely busy period for the research team. If you’ve missed any of the key research reports don’t forget to check them out on our subscriber-only research pages. If you don’t yet subscribe to the relevant research stream you can read a brief overview in our News pages on the TechMarketView website or contact Deborah Seth for details of our subscription packages.
Posted by HotViews Editor at '09:00'
