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The troubles of Big Tech might seem a world away for many tech sector business leaders. But there is a message for everyone from the share price crashes of the big names last week. (And if you missed last week's Big Tech nosedive, you can find the news here for Amazon, Meta, Alphabet/Google and the one that fared much better, Apple).
There are two factors influencing share prices now:
So the takeaway for everyone else is that communication is key. Make sure any new plans - be they metaverse-style or more mainstream - are well-pitched and fully-explained. And be sure to articulate how even regular revenue streams can be achieved in a tougher environment, how you consider the cost base of the business is appropriate and how you believe you can stay (or become) profitable.
Finance providers are taking a sharper pencil to business plans than in recent years, with many tech businesses in particular feeling the pinch of macroeconomic upheaval due to the longer-term nature of their cashflows. And it is likely to stay that way for the near future.
As Big Tech is discovering, getting (and keeping) stakeholders on board has never been more crucial.
Posted by Tania Wilson at '18:35' - Tagged: markets macro
Last week, TechMarketView attended the InterSystems UK & Ireland Summit in Birmingham. The focus of the event was authentic innovation and not, as keynote speaker David Rowan (founding editor-in-chief of WIRED UK) put it, “innovation theatre” i.e., appearing to be innovative without changing anything.
Chris Norton, Managing Director, UK & Ireland, InterSystems, kicked off the day by talking about the importance of understanding the customer problem businesses are trying to solve and not being technology led. He spoke about the need to put customers and end-users at the heart of the organisation, and about how improving access to real-time data is vital to enhancing innovation efforts.
TechMarketView subscribers (including UKHotViews Premium subscribers) can read more about the Summit and why InterSystems is putting data at the heart of healthcare innovation. If you are not yet a subscriber – or are not sure if your organisation has a corporate subscription, please contact Deb Seth to discover how you can access this research and much more besides.
Posted by Dale Peters at '08:11' - Tagged: innovation data conference healthcare ICS
TechMarketView’s new report Supply Chain Resilience: Opportunities for SITS providers is now available to download.
Global Supply Chains have been under increasing pressure over the last few years triggered by the pandemic and subsequently made worse by raw material and skills shortages, the war in Ukraine, an energy crisis and ratcheting inflation. Supply Chains that were optimised for cost and quality of service are having to increasingly accommodate the need for resilience and the necessity of sustainability. Such a challenging environment is however, presenting opportunities for Software and IT Services (SITS) providers where technology will have a significant role to play in offering solutions to the plethora of threats and risks.
The most resilient supply chains are proactive and can forecast, predict, and adapt to changing circumstances. This requires investment in better transparency and visibility both upstream and downstream. Resilient supply chains also work by understanding and leveraging data. With these building blocks in place more advanced solutions such as Digital Twins can be adopted and applied to improving resilience through scenario testing.
This report looks to identify and profile opportunities for SITS providers operating within the Supply Chain resilience space.
If you are a subscriber to TechSectorViews click here to download the Supply Chain Resilience: Opportunities for SITS providers report.
If you don’t yet have a subscription and would like to gain access the report and our other research and services, please contact Deb Seth.
Posted by Marc Hardwick at '07:43' - Tagged: newresearch supplychain resilience
The UK's cost of living crisis, coupled with spiralling debt have helped to change traditional attitudes to indebtedness. In turn, this is giving rise to new approaches in response to a problem that is increasingly widespread across society.
As the economic climate contines to worsen, established players in the debt management space, along with innovative technology vendors, are bringing to market new propositions with the needs of the consumer in mind.
TechMarketView subscribers can learn more by downloading Debt Management - a holistic approach becomes a priority. This AnalystViews examines the variety of factors at play (including the growth of BNPL) and explores some of the alternative approaches to tackling debt and credit defaults.
If you do not currently have access to this research and are interested to learn more about this or any other of our services, please contact Deb Seth for more information.
Posted by Jon C Davies at '08:46' - Tagged: SopraSteria debt financial+services bnpl
The 2022 version of the UK SITS Solutions Market Trends & Forecasts report is now available to download. This report contains TechMarketView’s latest market size and forecast data along with an analysis of the trends shaping the UK Solutions market.
The pandemic highlighted how many organisations were unable to fully function in the event of a crisis. Organisations needed to increase their resilience across a broad range of areas. This has stimulated a wave of investment in digital technologies that has seen the UK Solutions market remain buoyant since the second half of 2020. Investment in areas such as hybrid working, improved customer and employee experience, intelligent operations and cybersecurity saw UK Solutions return to growth in 2021, having declined the year previous.
Widespread transformation activity is providing end-users with an opportunity to reinvent their business models and working practices, in a way that looks to improve the experience for all stakeholder groups. Ultimately this should see improvements in the ‘humanisation’ of technology in ways that deliver better outcomes for users.
Expectations on what can be delivered by Solutions providers has never been greater given the experience of innovation during the pandemic. Helping clients navigate a wide range of headwinds in a coordinated fashion will continue to provide opportunities for Solutions providers.
If you are a subscriber to TechSectorViews click here to download the UK SITS Solutions Market Trends & Forecasts 2022 report. If you don’t have a subscription and would like to gain access to the report and our other research and services please contact Deb Seth.
Posted by Marc Hardwick at '15:03' - Tagged: report newresearch Solutions market+trends
TechMarketView’s UK Health Software and IT Services (SITS) Suppliers, Trends, and Forecasts report is now available. It is the third of six subsector reports that follow our UK Public Sector Software & IT Services Suppliers Trends, & Forecasts report, which was published in July.
We have already published our subsector report on Central Government and Defence, and over the coming weeks we will also publish subsector reports for the remaining public sector subsectors as defined by TechMarketView: Local & Regional Government, Education, and Police.
In this report you will find our analysis of the performance of the UK Health market in 2021, a year of unprecedented growth in Health SITS spending. It also contains an update to our Health SITS Top 10 supplier rankings, with our analysis of what is driving each supplier’s performance, as well as an insight into those suppliers that are threatening to unseat the leading players.
We also look at the years ahead (2022-2025) as the NHS continues to face immense pressure from COVID-19, capacity, skills gaps, and an ageing population. The latest figures reveal the scale of these challenges. There are 7.0m people waiting to start treatment (Aug 2022)—up from 4.4m at the start of the pandemic; 38% of cancer referrals are having to wait more than two months to start treatment (Aug 2022); the average ambulance response time for Category 2 incidents was 48 minutes—30 minutes longer than the target (Sept 2022). The NHS is also facing severe challenges as a result of this year’s pay settlements and the impact of inflation and could be tested further when the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, makes an emergency statement on the mini-budget later today.
Given the scale of the challenges, there will be opportunities for SITS suppliers that can demonstrably improve efficiency and enhance productivity, boost effectiveness and enhance patient outcomes. Although the Health market will be impacted by the worsening state of the economy, it will remain more resilient than most.
PublicSectorViews suppliers can find out the size of the UK Health SITS market, its future growth, and who the leading suppliers are by downloading Health Software & IT Services Suppliers, Trends & Forecasts 2022-2025 today.
If you are not yet a subscriber, or are unsure if your organisation has a corporate subscription, please contact Deb Seth to find out more.
Posted by Dale Peters at '09:57' - Tagged: nhs rankings healthcare healthtech market+trends
I recently met with Julia Tierney, CEO of Hive Learning, a Blenheim Chalcot company.
Hive Learning was established in 2013. It is the brainchild of rugby world cup winning coach, Clive Woodward. Clive, who remains on the Board, worked with digital venture builder, Blenheim Chalcot, to “disrupt the ineffective and unengaging world of digital learning”.
Jules, alongside some engineers, was one of the founding team that came on board to make the vision a reality. From day one, the Hive Learning goal was to create a scalable learning model that took the pressure off learning teams and placed the responsibility into the hands of their people in order to stimulate everyday learning and collaboration.
TechMarketView subscribers (including UKHotViews Premium subscribers) can learn more about Hive’s approach to learning, the clients with which it has worked, its financial performance, and its ambitions in Workforce resilience: Hive’s ‘at scale’ peer learning approach. If you are not yet a subscriber – or are not sure if your organisation has a corporate subscription, please contact Deb Seth to discover how you can access this research and much more besides.
Posted by Georgina O'Toole at '09:05' - Tagged: software training learning workforce
The 2022 version of the UK Applications Operations Market Trends & Forecasts report is now available to download.
Containing our latest market size and forecast data, along with insight into market dynamics and the key trends shaping the market, plus analysis of the challenges facing suppliers and recommendations for how to move forward, it is vital reading for suppliers operating in the UK.
The Application Operations (AO) market rebounded strongly from the decline in 2020 to post 5.9% yoy growth last year. Driven largely by a marked increase in demand for both applications modernisation and migration services coupled with the more widespread deployment of digital applications, market-wide sales reached over £6.5bn in 2021.
While the nearer term outlook for the UK AO market is reasonably positive, the increasingly gloomy economic backdrop will once again place run budgets under severe scrutiny. With some additional £1.5bn of digital-centric AO services set to be bought in this country over the next three years, however, the opportunity for providers to play a pivotal role in the reinvention process of their clients remains substantial. To succeed, however, suppliers must re-orient themselves around simultaneously supporting the delivery of both accelerated change and immediate impact, while better future-proofing the organisations they serve.
If you are a subscriber to TechSectorViews click here to download the UK Applications Operations Market Trends & Forecasts report. If you don’t have a subscription and would like to gain access the report and our other research and services please contact Deb Seth.
Posted by Duncan Aitchison at '07:00' - Tagged: forecasts applications newresearch operations market+trends
TechMarketView’s new report Supply Chain Resilience: The Cyber Threat is now available to download.
This report follows on from our recent analysis, Supply Chain Resilience: Opportunities for SITS providers, diving deeper into the cyber threats that organisations across supply chains face, how they differ across different industries and explores the mitigation measures, as well as process and cultural changes, that are required for organisations to build robust cyber resilience.
In addition to the range of business and economic issues organisations are facing, when it comes to maintaining a reliable and resilient supply chain, it is not only the physical sphere that is a cause for concern. As businesses have grown exponentially thanks to increased digitalisation and reliance on third-party digital products, they have left themselves exposed to a growing cyber threat.
The security of organisations, their data and that of customers and partners is a key factor that can impact business resilience. Failure to prepare for the threats posed by cyber threat actors, whether criminal organisations or state sponsored hackers can pose a risk not only to operational uptime but also to financial and brand health.
However, building that resilience means securing not just one organisation, but that of the whole chain. To do this will take more than implementing new security solutions, it will also require process and cultural change and a proactive stance towards securing against future threats.
If you are a UK SITS provider now is the time to be having a conversation with your customers about their supply chain cyber resilience, especially those with large partner ecosystems and exposure to OT and IoT assets.
If you are a subscriber to TechSectorViews click here to download the report.
Posted by Simon Baxter at '09:02' - Tagged: supplychain cybersecurity resilience
Well, so do lots of other young tech businesses that need to broaden their go-to-market having passed the stage where the founder is the chief (often sole) sales rep and deals are done through personal connections.
But where do you start?
Well, you can search the web for ‘how to build a partner channel’ and you’ll find plenty of businesses offering to take your money to give you their opinion on how it’s done.
Or you can learn from other founders that have ‘been there and done that’.
And that’s what we’d like to help you do.
So I’d like to hear from founders of UK tech startups, scaleups and other young businesses that have built or are building their partner channel from scratch and arrange a 30-minute chat about your experiences.
I’ll put whatever I get into a short research note which anyone who participates will get for free, no strings attached. Don’t worry, I won’t mention your company name unless you want me too.
Just drop me a line (amiller@techmarketview.com) and let’s set up a chat over the next few weeks.
Posted by Anthony Miller at '01:00'
Kloo’s co-founder, Tim Baker, has an interesting background. In a previous life, he co-founded a funeral director comparison website, Funeral Choice. It was, essentially, ‘Compare the Market’ for bereaved families planning a funeral. In autumn 2021, he sold the business to Dignity Ventures.
Why is it relevant? Well, because it is ‘simplification’ that ties that venture to Tim’s current role. With Funeral Choice, Tim was seeking to simplify funeral arrangements. With Kloo, the aim is to simplify spend management.
Kloo is part of the portfolio of digital ventures builder, Blenheim Chalcot. It is a fairly new venture. Tim started working for Blenheim Chalcot in November last year as Portfolio Impact Manager and, towards the end of last year, started investigating a new idea: a spend management platform for SMEs. He tested the idea within the Group and closed the beta phase in April this year. The final product has now been taken to market and the company is due to start marketing in earnest.
Subscribers to TechMarketView (including to UKHotViews Premium), can read more about Kloo, including its SaaS platform, its pricing for customers, and its sales & marketing strategy in our latest UKHotViewsExtra - Blenheim Chalcot has a Kloo about SME spend management. If you are not yet a subscriber and would like to find out how to read this research and more besides, please contact Deb Seth.
Posted by Georgina O'Toole at '09:24' - Tagged: saas startup software financialservices workflow data scaleup datavisualisation SMEs
This report looks to identify and profile opportunities for SITS providers operating within the Supply Chain resilience space. If you are a subscriber to TechSectorViews click here to download the Supply Chain Resilience: Opportunities for SITS providers report.
Posted by Marc Hardwick at '14:50' - Tagged: newresearch supplychain resilience
One of the aims of Liz Truss and her Government is to increase the UK’s productivity. One of the ways they intend to enable business growth is to reduce regulatory burdens. It sees the UK’s exit from the EU as an opportunity to move away from red tape generated by EU legislation. One of those pieces of legislation is the General Data Protection Regime (GDPR).
In seeking to replace GDPR, it has drafted a new data reform bill. However, yesterday, the new Secretary of State for Digital, Michelle Donelan (pictured), confirmed that Liz Truss’ cabinet is putting the bill on hold while it undertakes a reassessment of the proposed legislation.
The Government had claimed that by largely basing the draft bill on the European Framework (GDPR), and making several small changes, it would save businesses over £1bn over ten years. Changes related to things like public sector data use and sharing, regulation for small businesses, and data processing in scientific research.
There is now no indication of what the latest ‘reassessment’ is likely to bring. Truss states that the intention is to collaborate closely with business to ensure that any new legislation is fit for purpose. However, in delaying the bill, the risk is that there will be a negative impact on business growth and productivity in the short-to-medium term. Businesses are now left with uncertainty, not just in terms of what the bill will contain, but in terms of when new legislation will be passed. With a General Election likely in 2024, there is no guarantee that a lengthy consultation process will result in legislation being passed before we, potentially, have a new Government with an entirely different stance. Uncertainty is never a positive for business.
Moreover, if the outcome is a further shift away from GDPR, with more widespread change, the risk is that the EU revokes the UK’s ‘adequacy’ status. The result will be that companies that operate in the EU, and handle EU citizen’s data, will be faced with a very complex, and very costly, operating environment. Foreign companies looking to locate in the UK might also think twice.
One of the big issues with the new Government appears to be that they are so headstrong in their commitment to certain principles that good sense is taking a back seat. In this case, the determination to prove that Brexit has its benefits in terms of freeing us from unnecessary regulatory burden, is taking priority. It was a similar story when getting rid of the 45p higher rate tax band. Unintended consequences are more likely when decisions are taken with blinkers on. While ideological consistency is often something to be applauded, I was reading an iNews article that described Truss as displaying “blind rigidity”; that seems to perfectly sum up her approach. That article was written at the beginning of September; a month on and we are seeing more examples that back up the view.
Posted by Georgina O'Toole at '09:28' - Tagged: publicsector government regulation data legislation
'Turbulent' is perhaps the word that best sums up September. A month which witnessed a near-meltdown of parts of the UK financial systems also saw stock prices fall sharply both here and in the US.
From a technology perspective, the NASDAQ is always the most sensible place to begin. After a strong opening to the month, it started sliding on the back of higher than expected US inflation data and continued to fall after the Federal Reserve ('Fed') increased US interest rates by 0.75% for the third time later in the month. It ended the month 10.5% down month-on-month ('MoM') or 32.4% down year-to-date ('YTD').
In the UK, the FTSE Software and Computer Services (SCS) index was boosted in late August by news of takeover discussions for a number of its main constituents. However, one of these fell through early in the month (Darktrace) and that - combined with nervousness over continued interest rate rises and the impact that would have on growth stocks - meant the index lost ground. It fell 8.2% MoM, now down 23.0% YTD.
And finally, the UK's flagship FTSE 100 index has been a darling of investors so far in 2022. It has performed better than many other leading indices in developed markets on the back of a boom in demand for commodities and the continued weakness of sterling against the US dollar. But even the FTSE 100 could not hold out during the past two turbulent weeks in the UK economy, after the fright caused to both currency and bond markets by the government's mini-budget took its toll on investor confidence. It ended down 5.4% MoM and 6.6% YTD.
Company Performances
We track approximately 150 companies for this column. And it was a measure of investor unease that of those, fewer than 30 managed to avoid posting a loss during September.
Those weathering the storm included cyber specialist NCC Group, healthcare software provider Craneware and distributed computing company WANDisco.
Several companies saw share price rise on the back of acquisition discussions, including industrial software provider AVEVA, fraud and identity software specialist GB Group and e-commerce AI specialist Attraqt.
At the other end of the share price performance spectrum were e-commerce retailer THG, used car retailer Cazoo, cybersecurity firm Darktrace, public sector IT services provider TPXimpact and education product and service specialist RM.
More details on the winners and losers, plus some thoughts on where tech stocks might be heading in this uncertain economic environment, are available in Share Performance in September 2022 - and where next for tech stocks, for HotViews Premium readers.
Posted by Tania Wilson at '07:27' - Tagged: markets macro
The 2022 version of the UK SITS Consulting Market Trends & Forecasts report is now available to download. Containing our latest market size and forecast data, along with insight into market dynamics and the key trends shaping the market, plus analysis of the challenges facing suppliers and recommendations for how to move forward, it is vital reading for suppliers operating in the UK.
2021 saw a surge in demand for SITS Consulting services. The market acceleration which began following the initial COVID lockdown gathered momentum during the succeeding months driving sales of these offerings in the UK up by some 13% year over year. As the macro-situation both domestically and internationally continues to worsen, however, we expect buyers to trim back on their investment ambitions and with it their expenditure on advisory support.
Despite the onset of more difficult economic times, the needs are undiminished for SITS consultancies to play pivotal roles in the reinvention process of their clients as they strive to become to become truly insightful, interactive, real-time, adaptive, event & outcome driven and trusted. With customer expectations for speed to value continue to increase, however, successful suppliers must re-orient themselves around simultaneously delivering both accelerated change and immediate impact, while better future-proofing the organisations they serve.
If you are a subscriber to TechSectorViews click here to download the UK SITS Consulting Market Trends and Forecast 2022 report. If you don’t have a subscription and would like to gain access the report and our other research and services please contact Deb Seth.
Posted by Duncan Aitchison at '07:00' - Tagged: consulting forecasts newresearch market+trends
During 2021, SITS expenditure within the UK insurance sector grew strongly as insurers invested in a variety of business and technology initiatives. The widespread appetite for modernisation and operational change, combined with a desire for improved data efficacy, contributed to an almost unprecendented increase in spend.
Despite the current parlous state of the UK economy, increased investment is expected across the sector, as insurers look to transform their operations via the adoption of technology-based approaches. For those vendors with the most in demand offerings, forecasts through to 2025 continue to paint an encouraging picture.
Insurance Sector SITS Trends & Forecasts 2022 explores the major business and technology trends impacting the sector and provides detailed forecasts for expenditure through to 2025.
Subscribers to TechMarketView's FinancialServicesViews research stream can download this report now. If you are a SITS vendor or active in the UK insurance sector, this report provides essential reading.
If you do not currently have access to this report but would like to learn more about this, or any other of our financial services content, please contact Deb Seth for more information.
Posted by Jon C Davies at '13:20' - Tagged: insurance
