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TechMarketView’s theme for 2016 is “surfing the waves of disruption” as companies within the financial services sector face lots of change, both in the shape of the industry and through the impact of advances in technology and evolving customer behaviour.
The December edition of Payments Bulletin looks at two different disruptors to payments in 2016. These are at different stages of development and we consider their respective impact on the market and on the outlook for the SITS supplier community, particularly for the coming year.
The first wave of disruption considered is that of the Blockchain, whose threat/promise is still some way off-shore, but which does have the potential to transform many value chains and established ecosystems across the financial services industry. The potential impact goes well beyond the payments market, but nonetheless it will have a significant disruptive effect on this important segment.
In addition, we consider the impact of the Smartphone on the payments market. This “wave” has already been crashing against the sector’s defences for several years, but the continued increase in both penetration and sophistication of the devices means that there is still a lot of work for the payment incumbents to do to counter the adverse effects on their business. The smartphone is also enabling the introduction of new business models and their proponents, further adding to the competition in the sector.
Subscribers to FinancialServicesViews can access this latest report here. If you are interested in subscribing, please contact Deb Seth of our Client Services team.
Posted by Peter Roe at '09:35' - Tagged: mobility smartphone payments banking blockchain
On 25th November 2015, the UK Government announced the joint Comprehensive Spending Review (for the period from 2016-17 to 2019-20 inclusive) and Autumn Statement. On the day we gave our initial reaction in UKHotViews, highlighting the focus on collaboration and digitisation to support the continuing search for efficiencies in the delivery of public services.
Since then we have been looking more closely at the detail in the CSR 2015. As a result, in this latest research from the PublicSectorViews team, we discuss:
The impact of budget cuts and efficiency savings targets;
The £1.8b budget for digital transformation and where it will be spent;
The commitment to ICT-related projects made by departments and agencies and the likely opportunities for SITS suppliers;
The increased focus on collaboration and which organisations it is likely to affect.
If you are a subscriber to TechMarketView’s PublicSectorViews subscription service, you can download the research now: Comprehensive Spending Review 2015: Delving the detail for SITS opportunities. If you are not yet a subscriber you will miss out... unless you contact Deb Seth and sign up to his popular research stream.
Posted by Georgina O'Toole at '14:25' - Tagged: publicsector centralgovernment localgovernment strategy policy
Software defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualisation (NFV) presents UK Infrastructure Services suppliers with the opportunity to radically alter the way they provide cloud hosted services to their public and private sector customers. But perhaps more importantly, it may also help them strip cost out of their provisioning operations to improve tight profit margins being squeezed by demand for ‘lowest cost’ infrastructure services.
SDN and NFV are both forms of network virtualisation: an architectural approach that moves applications, services and processes off physical hardware and into virtualised software instances, or virtual network functions, which can be hosted on lower cost ‘white box’ routers and switches, virtual customer premise equipment and/or standard x86 servers.
But for all its potential, the SDN/NFV ecosystem remains immature and little understood, currently underpinning no more than a handful of live commercial services on a global basis.
In this latest research note we examine some of the early commercial uses of the technology and how it can be applied to improve the margins of cloud delivered services. We also layout some of the challenges suppliers face as they move deeper into this relatively immature market. Subscribers to the InfrastructureViews research stream can read the note here: SDN/NFV to boost cloud service profit margins.
Subscribers might also be interested to read Predictions 2016: Infrastructure Services and the latest UK Infrastructure Services Market Trends & Forecasts. If you would like to become a subscriber, please contact Deb Seth.
Posted by HotViews Editor at '08:48' - Tagged: cloud infrastructure nfv
In the introduction to TechMarketView’s Theme for 2016 – Surfing the Waves of Disruption, on Monday, Anthony Miller waxed lyrical saying “The waves of disruption are crashing against the shore. The smart surfer knows you have to ride them, control them, master them, use the force of the waves to set you in the right direction before they drag you back out to sea.” Since then the TMV team have presented their Predictions for 2016 for their respective areas:
The theme is particularly apt. We’ve written about disruption for many years. We have also commented about the speed of that disruption. And ‘Surfing the Waves of Disruption’ seems to convey both. Indeed, to continue Anthony’s analogy, the waves are coming thick and fast. If you miss the Big One, you really have missed a major opportunity. If you don’t ride it well, you will surely be wiped out. Indeed you might well think you have caught the right wave at the right time only for the next wave to wipe you out. How many times in HotViews have we warned of the ‘Disruptors being Disrupted’? Remember AOL? MySpace? Yahoo? We might soon write ‘Remember Twitter?’. How long before Uber, Airbnb etc themselves get challenged? We already have concerns over Google’s longevity.
That just covers the recent disruptors. What about the disruptors of earlier generations? SAP, Oracle, Microsoft have all had to change their models dramatically. Indeed are still in that difficult transition period with no absolute guarantee of success or even survival.
If you go back 50 years to the start of the computer revolution, not too many current readers will even be able to name the members of the BUNCH – let alone recall what major contribution they once made.
Then we come on to today’s major SIs. In some respects, many of these should be in a better position to cope. Afterall they have already survived during many previous periods of disruption. Their role in life is to help their clients through the disruption. This can create a major opportunity for them. But it is also a huge threat as those loyal clients move to smaller, faster, more agile and often much cheaper suppliers. You only have to look at the quite incredible, recent success of AWS.
I think – and have said to the CEOs of many of the largest suppliers in the last year – that many of them face the greatest challenge of their existence. I am not predicting their demise – although some will cease to exist in their current form. But, unfortunately, many will face a future where their standing in the industry is seriously diminished.
And, of course, in so many ways, that is why the more nuanced predictions from TMV’s highly regarded Research Directors are so important. Indeed, I would go so far as to warn ‘Ignore them at your peril’.
Posted by Richard Holway at '22:48'
Pan European data protection has taken a big step forward, with the EU finally agreeing the draft text for new data privacy rules. But the agreement creates risk for the technology sector, alongside expanded opportunities.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Data Protection Directive are expected to be in place by 2017/18 but suppliers need to understand the implications and get their strategies, services, technologies and partner ecosystems in order well before that. The implications will take some time to work through but we have compiled our initial reactions on the impact for suppliers in HotViewsExtra. Subscribers can click here to see our first take or you can contact Deb Seth for details about a TechMarketView subscription.
Posted by Angela Eager at '19:31' - Tagged: security regulation EU
“Surfing the Waves of Disruption” will be crucial for the financial services sector in 2016 as the companies within it face lots of change, both in the shape of the industry and through the impact of advances in technology and evolving customer behaviour. Although momentum built in 2015 we are not as sanguine as some about sector IT spend as incumbents will still have to fund much of their innovation by cutting running costs and being selective and strategic as they face the future.
New competitors will continue to disrupt the sector, particularly in banking, where a raft of Challengers will make a lot of noise. In insurance, new aggregators and further fragmenting of the distribution process will cause additional headaches. Regulation will continue to consume a lot of IT resource and, across the sector, M&A activity could muddy the corporate waters.
Incumbent FS companies will struggle to keep on top of the disruptive waves, as cultural and organisational issues slow them down. Customer inertia will give some succour, but many profitable areas will be vulnerable. Suppliers should propose ways to accelerate the transformation of their customers. Vital skills will be the ability to manage hybrid IT, leverage key personnel and prioritise initiatives which generate future value.
Disruptive waves unleashed by technology will impact different parts of the sector at different times. Incumbents will continue their move to Cloud, setting up IaaS and PaaS environments as they look for more agility and better cost ratios. The rapid advance of the smartphone is still sending shock waves through the sector, creating pressure to “design for digital” and improve customer experience, and while the threat/promise posed by Blockchain may still be some way off shore, many companies are eagerly investigating its potential.
Moving to standardised processes and new delivery models will be increasingly necessary to accelerate change. Sector companies will look to API-dependent models to access more capable apps and increasingly work with the FinTech sector to solve cross-industry problems. Catching another person’s wave (or partnering) will help, but this strategy would probably benefit from being managed by a trusted systems integrator.
SITS suppliers should take more responsibility, blurring the line between FS provider and SITS supplier, by focusing on business outcomes, providing more insight and data management, and using scale-advantaged technology and intelligent automation to generate new value.
Many initiatives are competing for budget as companies seek to gain a competitive edge. Companies will push digitalisation to reduce costs and look to enterprise-wide Big Data and increasingly IoT to drive share of wallet. Security and data integrity will be big issues, increasingly across the mobile and hybrid IT space, as companies seek to avoid major reputational damage.
The successful surfer selects the right wave and gets into the right position at the right time. The same will be true for the FS sector in 2016. Sector companies and suppliers need to focus on the end to end process and on the customer, determine their priorities and get their timing right if they are to realise their potential.
If you do not currently have access to the FinancialServicesViews research stream and would like to, please contact Deb Seth.
Posted by Peter Roe at '08:02' - Tagged: cloud financialservices bigdata insurance payments banking iot
TechMarketView’s 2016 theme ‘Surfing the Waves of Disruption’ perfectly encapsulates the difficulty that public sector organisations face in dealing with a mass of internal and external forces disrupting the status quo. All, whether their budgets were protected or not (see Autumn Statement: Digitisation & Collaboration for efficiency), must make further efficiency savings, while also implementing new Government policies.
Meanwhile, in deciding how to use ‘digitisation’ and ‘collaboration’ to drive efficiency, they must consider the increasing demand for public services, the array of new technologies on offer to support that delivery, and the vast amounts of data, within and outside government, that if used effectively, could release huge value.
All the time, they must hold steady while riding the wave, in order to continue to do what they have always done: serve the UK public.
Increased collaboration: Without the political will to go back to the drawing board and restructure government in line with today’s requirements, increased collaboration is the only viable alternative. In 2016, we expect, for example, further integration of health & social care, of organisations involved in mental health, and of those responsible for our national security.
Acceleration to the cloud: The drivers encouraging public sector organisations to embrace cloud services are increasing. While private cloud arrangements will continue to dominate, public cloud will be an increasing feature of the landscape. The opening of UK datacentres by US giants Microsoft and Amazon Web Services (AWS) will give public sector organisations more options and help accelerate decision making.
Increased understanding of the value in data: During 2015 the public sector slowly began to grasp the importance of its data (and of everyone else’s data). The potential benefits are significant, so the drive to ensure growing volumes of structured and unstructured data become a help rather than a hindrance, and to ensure the security of that data, will intensify in 2016.
More use of private sector to deliver public services: Under a Conservative Government, the “shrinking of the state” is a core belief. This will mean more investment in ICT to improve productivity of those that remain, a boost to the white-collar BPO market, as well as a greater push to utilise the private sector (often blue collar outsourcers) to deliver core public services.
Continued drive to adopt alternative procurement models for ICT services: Mega ICT outsourcing deals are history. But Government is still trying to find out what works and what doesn’t. There is an increasing acceptance that organisations will never be able to cope with complex transformation alone, despite a drive to build up in-house capabilities. The ‘strategic partner’ model will, therefore, rise in popularity over 2016.
Large SIs/outsourcers and ‘alternatives’ on a more even playing field: As long as suppliers can show a commitment to the public sector and align their positioning with the Government ICT agenda, for example around the open source agenda or agile development, opportunities will be open to them. This will be the case whether large, mid-sized or small.
Ongoing tug of war between centralisation & localisation agendas: Centralised procurement frameworks, Government-as-a-Platform, and shared services will encourage greater commonality and reuse, as well as economies of scale. However, it will be tough to balance this agenda with the desire to shift decision making to the front-line.
If you do not currently have access to the PublicSectorViews research stream and would like to, please contact Deb Seth. We will be putting more flesh on the bones of these predictions early in the New Year... but only for subscribers!
Posted by Georgina O'Toole at '08:00' - Tagged: publicsector predictions
Our research theme for 2016 – Surfing the Waves of Disruption – encapsulates the precariousness of the Enterprise Software & Application Services (ESAS) sector during this time of digital transformation. Suppliers need to be flexible, embrace change and be ready to shift at short notice. Falls are inevitable so what matters is how quickly suppliers can get back on board.
The one constant is the requirement to derive intelligence from data. This is what unites the expanding set of digital enablers - SMAC, IoT, automation and security - that are core to the customer experience-centric digital business and sets the context for the key trends within software and application services in 2016.
API Applications. The shape and form of applications will continue to change. Customer facing ‘digital’ apps will increasingly exploit open APIs to build flexible apps that unite disparate data and processes, in real time. The objective is to make more use of data assets and create solutions that are defined by their output not their technology.
Data intelligence. Intelligence is not a specialist function so it needs to be embedded across all business areas and processes. With Microsoft, AWS, Microsoft and Google’s machine learning services making advanced technology more accessible, we expect analytics and data intelligence to permeate further through organisations, particularly when allied with automation.
Software + business processes. We are seeing more software pitched in terms of business outcomes, blurring the lines between software and business process enablement. Established suppliers need to break down the walls between their business units.
Design for digital. Customer experience is still top of the agenda making it all the more important for suppliers to get the user interface right. The UX is critical for user adoption, which will be an important determinant in the success or otherwise of implementations. The issue will be finding developers with both enterprise skills and a ‘digital design’ mentality.
Security. The accelerating rate of change in the threat environment will drive demand for simpler controls able to operate across complex hybrid environments, security embedded into processes and policy based models to cope with changing virtual and distributed environments. Security strategies will build on ‘prevent’ and ‘detect’ to include greater emphasis on ‘anticipate’ and ‘divert’.
Skills shift. Digital transformation may be thwarted by lack of skills availability more than willingness, budget or imagination. Suppliers need to invest in skills training and skills transfer will be more important between customers and services providers. And there is also the difficult question of who can – and can’t – be reskilled.
If you do not currently have access to the ESASViews research stream and would like to, please contact Deb Seth.
Posted by Angela Eager at '09:09' - Tagged: software predictions applications
TechMarketView’s research theme for 2016 is “Surfing the Waves of Disruption”. In the Infrastructure Services (IS) market, this refers to the significant disruption that is coming in the form of new technologies, new players, and alternative delivery models. It is causing a rebalancing of spend, with budget being diverted from legacy technology areas into more cost effective and more flexible infrastructure provisioning, as well as projects and programmes that support digital objectives.
These disruptive forces are exacerbating the impact of tough conditions for very large and mature IT outsourcing contracts, which account for around 40% of the total IS market. The challenge for established players, therefore, is two-fold: Protect the best of the legacy business while carefully identifying the opportunities in newer markets that can be pursued credibly and effectively. The motto for IS players for 2016 could well be: “To protect and to surf”!
In 2016, we expect to see the following:
Partnerships will be key for timely wins: Faced with the need to quickly provide emerging technologies and expand available expertise resources, most providers will need to partner if they are to successfully keep up with the pace of change and the ‘race to digital’.
Demand will accelerate for intelligent workload management: The provisioning of infrastructure doesn’t just need to be rapid, it’s got to be clever too – so that buyers can minimise cost and maximise performance and competitiveness.
A wave of buyers will begin scrapping sub-standard ‘disruptive’ technologies: Following a period of enthusiastic trialing and exploration, some emerging technologies will be revealed for what they are: not fit for purpose.
Emergence of IoT strategies will accelerate the need for IS consultancy and back-end integration: Most current infrastructure is insufficiently equipped to handle the scale and diversity of the information IoT will produce. This will lead to the exploration of requirements and some initial investments. Beyond 2016, this opportunity will become much more substantial.
Workforce mobilisation will extend beyond smartphone apps: Suppliers must respond to the need for a vastly superior user experience by driving improvements to back-end system integration and building a cohesive mobile experience from the ground up.
If you do not currently have access to the InfrastructureViews research stream and would like to, please contact Deb Seth.
Posted by Kate Hanaghan at '09:05' - Tagged: cloud predictions infrastructure
‘Surfing the Waves of Disruption’ is critical for business process services (BPS) providers in 2016, as they attempt to take advantage of new-style BPS, enabled by digital, automation and analytics technologies. BPS providers should be embracing these waves, even though it means taking some very bold (risky) turns, deciding where to invest and where not to.
Learning fast, rebalancing, and staying on this new course is going to be vital for BPS suppliers surfing these disruptive waves successfully.
In 2016 we expect the following:
Intelligent Automation on the rise: BPS providers will fight back against the wave of Business Process Automation, offering their own 'Intelligent Automation' services that embed intelligence into business processes through the combination of people, process and advanced technologies (see Business Process Automation: What is Intelligent Automation?). The end-goal is a step-change in performance and productivity - and BPS suppliers will need to prove they are up to the challenge.
Transforming legacy operations: Radically improving existing operations is going to be just as important as investing in the new. This means aggressive process standardization, accelerated use of analytics to inform change, and ruthless automation of repetitive, rules-based tasks – all to drive out cost and improve productivity and efficiency. Only with a truly transformed legacy core can BPS providers hope to be agile and responsive enough at the digital front end where the new opportunities reside.
Surge in process consulting and integration: This builds on last year’s theme ‘joining the dots’, because customers continue to need help marrying their digital and legacy process worlds. We will see growing demand for more technical, software-led change specialists, alongside the traditional Lean and Six Sigma process experts. Suppliers will need to invest, re-train and re-invent the role of the process consultant in the digital age.
‘Big Four’ to offer Intelligent Automation services: The pure play IT and business consultancies are going to hit the scene in 2016 offering their own flavour of Intelligent Automation services. These consultancies will aim to position themselves as trusted partners in non-outsourced business process automation opportunities, and could become a credible alternative to the BPOs.
Surge in data driving analytics: BPS players will need to offer Analytics-as-a-Service (AaaS) to add value to new and existing deals, particularly in highly-regulated, and data-heavy industry sectors like energy & utilities, financial services and the public sector. Analytics will become increasingly important for BPS players attempting to target specific customer pain points with business outcomes built around cost reduction, reduced service demand, and/or improved service reliability.
More Multi-client Utilities and BPaaS: We see many sectors now ready to share platforms and processes either on-premise or via the cloud. For many industries facing intense competition from new players or regulations, radical change in process service delivery is the now the only way to future-proof the business.
If you do not currently have access to the BusinessProcessViews research stream and would like to, please contact Deb Seth.
Posted by John O'Brien at '07:43' - Tagged: bps predictions
Reports of security breaches have become a frequent occurrence. In the UK, Talk Talk was one of the latest big brands to suffer an intrusion but intense attacks are prevalent too. Within the last week Janet, the UK academic research network, came under a sustained Distributed Denial of Service attack. Although the DDOS was repulsed, the attackers appeared to be adjusting their attack methods based on Twitter comments about the situation. This rather neatly illustrates the fast pace and increasing sophistication of the threat environment. These themes are picked up in the latest research from the Enterprise Software & Application Services (ESAS) research stream.
The ‘Developments shaping the fast flowing security market’ report provides a snap shot of today’s rapidly changing security market, looking at the prime influencers and developments and the plethora of suppliers addressing this high growth market, which is attracting innovative start-ups on a continual basis. It stresses the need for supple security and includes our view of the foundations of the security model required for distributed and cloud environments. A mind shift from prevention, to prevention plus rapid detection and incident response is one of the changes suppliers should be building into security strategies, using approaches such as advanced threat intelligence, forensic analysis and deception technologies to make it happen.
Eligible TechMarketView ESASViews subscribers can download the report here. If you do not have a subscription, contact Deb Seth to find out how to take one.
Posted by Angela Eager at '09:26' - Tagged: software applications cyber
Each year TechMarketView presents a theme for the following 12 months that sets the tone for the key trends that will determine the shape of the UK tech market and the fortunes of its players.
This time last year we announced that our theme for 2015 would be Joining the Dots. The theme reflected not just the need for businesses to be able to interconnect their IT systems, networks and devices, but to interconnect their organisation too. Internally and externally.
Today we see an even greater sense of urgency for organisations to ‘join the dots’. Why? Because the disruptive forces that are prompting businesses to ‘de-silo’ (if you want to put it that way) and, especially, to smooth the path along their ‘digital journeys’, have become potentially even more destructive.
We believe that the defining challenge facing our industry in 2016 – and therefore TechMarketView’s theme for the year – will be Surfing the Waves of Disruption.
Just think about it.
A year ago Bitcoin was mainly seen as a high risk crypto-currency. Today, many think that the underlying ‘blockchain’ technology may completely rewrite the future for the global payments industry – and put many traditional financial services companies out of business.
The same applies to other vertical markets – not least of which, Public Sector. The UK Government’s digital agenda has arguably seen as many shortcomings as successes. Yet progress on major policy initiatives depends on making the IT work. This, as Government faces possibly the biggest disruption to its relationship with Continental Europe should Britain vote next year to leave the EU.
The technologies and services that industry looks to in order to mitigate this disruption are themselves being disrupted, forcing pricing – and therefore profits – down. The lines between applications, infrastructure and business processes are becoming increasingly and more rapidly blurred as organisations seek suppliers that can provide ‘business outcomes’ rather than ‘IT outputs’. Traditional solutions no longer cut the mustard. ‘Intelligent Automation’ – and the huge amount of data it consumes – has moved from nice-to-have’ to can’t-survive-without’.
And what will this mean for the IT industry? More consolidation – not all of it rational. More partnerships – not all of them successful. More crazy valuations – not all of them sustainable.
The waves of disruption are crashing against the shore. The smart surfer knows you have to ride them, control them, master them, use the force of the waves to set you in the right direction before they drag you back out to sea.
To read any of the Predictions by sub-sector, click on the stream links below:
• PublicSectorViews, Georgina O'Toole - Predictions 2016: Pulibc Sector
• FinancialServicesViews, Peter Roe - Predictions 2016: UK Financial Services
• BusinessProcessViews, John O'Brien - Predictions 2016: Business Process Services
• InfrastructureViews, Kate Hanaghan - Predictions 2016: Infrastructure Services
• ESASViews, Angela Eager - Predictions 2016: Enterprise Software and App Services
• Richard Holway - TechMarketView's Theme for 2016 - Surfing the Waves of Disruption
Next up in January, TechMarketView Foundation Service subscription clients will be able to read our Predictions 2016 Report which will expand on the these views.
We hope you have a restful break over the festive season – because 2016 looks very much set to disrupt that peaceful calm.
Posted by Anthony Miller at '08:07' - Tagged: predictions
Xchanging is now in a strong position to get maximum value for shareholders from its pending sale, having accepted a new cash offer of 190p per share from CSC (see Xchanging exchanges Capita for CSC).
CSC’s bid is 19% higher than Capita’s previously agreed deal, and 81% higher than the average price of Xchanging’s shares in the previous three months prior to the offer period. It's also higher than any point in the last five years.
Meanwhile, we now know Capita is not planning a competing bid (see Capita gives up chase for Xchanging).
Subscribers to TechMarketView’s research can read our analysis of a CSC/Xchanging merger and its implications in UKHotViewsExtra here.
Posted by John O'Brien at '13:49' - Tagged: manda bps insurance
Our sixth Public Sector Opportunities Bulletin looks at:
· How the health sector plans to replace the N3 framework
· The latest tender from Government Digital Service (GDS) and the Department of Business Innovation & Skills (BIS)
· The possibility of the East Midlands Alliance outsourcing its control rooms
· A potential survival plan for 2nd Tier Authorities
· The adoption of cloud and analytics by local authorities
PublicSectorViews subscribers can download the 8-page Bulletin from today by clicking here (once logged in).
If you're unsure whether your organisation subscribes to PublicSectorViews, or you'd like details of our subscription packages, please email info@techmarketview.com and a member of our Client Services team will get back to you.
Posted by Michael Larner at '14:58' - Tagged: procurement government
Insight may well be one of the best kept secrets in the UK software and IT services market. Historically a reseller of hardware and software, the last couple of years have seen it evolve to become a notable player in the infrastructure services space, increasingly taking on the role of trusted advisor and end-to-end solutions provider.
Headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, Insight Enterprises was founded as Hard Drives International by Tim and Eric Crown in their garage in 1988 with a cash advance from a credit card. Today the company operates in 22 different countries and turns over $5.3bn globally. Its UK subsidiary, Insight Direct, has been run by Emma de Sousa since 2009. In the UK alone, Insight now employs some 650 people and generates revenue of more than £400m annually.
When we met Emma recently she explained how Insight has been evolving ever since it was born in that Arizonan garage, but that the last couple of years have seen an acceleration in the drive to transform. Insight is evolving from its roots as a reseller of hardware and software to become a provider of ‘service-led solutions’.
Subscribers to TechMarketView’s Foundation Service and InfrastructureViews research streams can read more on Insight in our latest Company Snapshot, which is published today here.
If your organisation doesn’t yet subscribe to either of these streams and you’d like more details on our subscription packages please contact Deborah Seth in our Client Services team to take advantage of our 2015 pricing.
Posted by Tola Sargeant at '17:05' - Tagged: reseller infrastructure
TechMarketView, in association with programme sponsors, MXC Capital, is delighted to announce the publication of the Little British Battler Report – The Magnificent Seventh, which profiles the 12 companies that participated in our seventh Little British Battler Day in November. These companies typify the highly innovative, UK-headquartered tech SMEs vying for attention in the local – and global – market.
Each company has been assessed by the TechMarketView team on its business fundamentals and market proposition, supplemented by an insightful SWOT analysis.
At the end of the report we list salient themes that appeared in these SWOT analyses. We think these are common traits and characteristics among SMEs and suggest that CEOs of other small companies might want to check their own businesses against them.
Subscribers to the TechMarketView Foundation Service can read download Little British Battler Report – The Magnificent Seventh report by clicking the link. For further information, please contact our Client Services team at info@techmarketview.com.
Posted by HotViews Editor at '11:14' - Tagged: lbb
Aggregate trailing 12-month (TTM) dollar-based revenue growth for the Top Six Indian pure-plays (IPPs) has fallen for the sixth successive quarter and now sits at 11% year-on-year (yoy).
This is based on aggregate revenues of $54.1b in the 12 months to 30th September 2015, vs $45.8b in the 12 months to 30th September 2014. Just 18 months ago, in March 2014, Top Six aggregate TTM revenue growth was 15% yoy.
But under the covers, these numbers hide a significant divergence of performance between the players!
Subscribers to the TechMarketView Foundation Service can read more in the latest edition of OffshoreViews, our quarterly analysis of the Indian offshore services scene.
For further information, please contact our Client Services team at info@techmarketview.com.
Posted by HotViews Editor at '07:48' - Tagged: offshore
One of the few remaining independent mid market ERP providers is about to come under PE ownership as EQT VII takes a majority stake in Swedish IFS. It will follow up with a mandatory bid for the remaining shares within the next four weeks, which is unlikely to be contested as the initial shares were acquired from key shareholders.
EQT is paying a premium of c20% on the average share price over the past six months, representing a valuation of 9.05 SEK/$1.04bn/£69m. In the first nine months IFS reported revenue of 2.4bn SEK with 180m SEK operating profit. In Q3 revenue was up 1% to 772 SEK (see here) - and that’s the crux of the matter. Although IFS has been growing well, benefitting from its focus on thee key verticals (Oil and Gas, Aerospace and Defence, Field Service Management), and a lower cost proposition that enables it to go head-to-head with SAP and Oracle, EQT believes it can do more.
We see the move as being positive for IFS because it will help scale the company at a time when mid market providers have a window of opportunity to take market share from the mainstream tier 1 vendors. For more thoughts on what this means for IFS and analysis of the impact of the broader trend for PE investment in mid market ERP providers, see HotViewsExtra here. Unit4, Advanced Computer Systems (ACS), Access Technology Group, and of course Infor have all been acquired by private equity firms. It’s early days for ACS and Access, but Unit4 and Infor are thriving.
Posted by Angela Eager at '18:28' - Tagged: erp acquisition software privateequity
