Engaging with clients’ business side to address mission-critical challenges

TBR perspective

“Capgemini is overall in a good shape relative to the market,” said Capgemini CEO Paul Hermelin during the opening keynote session at the company’s Global Analyst and Advisor Day 2018. Over the past six quarters, Capgemini has accelerated its revenue growth, reaching 8% year-to-year in constant currency in 1H18, and improved its profitability, aiming for an operating margin before other expenses of between 12% and 12.2% in 2018, owing to growth in scale of digital projects, automation, low-cost leverage and cost management. However, there is always room for improvement, and Hermelin pushes Capgemini’s management team to do more. Over the past several quarters, Capgemini has made changes to its portfolio, organizational structure and sales model to address rising demand coming from clients’ business side instead of their technology side. TBR believes Capgemini has a competitive portfolio and global services capabilities that will continue to move the company in the right direction. Capgemini is notably well established in India, not only for outsourcing but also for digital and cloud, and is able to provide fast-growing and emerging solutions at scale while continuing to address clients’ outsourcing needs with revitalized core offerings.

Transforming portfolio, organization and sales will drive revenue growth in the coming quarters

Following a disciplined portfolio management approach, Capgemini is reshaping its offerings to provide solutions, such as digital, cloud and cybersecurity, that enable clients to build their digital models. The company revitalized its core infrastructure, application and business services offerings, such as through launching next-generation ERP solutions to reimagine enterprise core systems to fit in the digital world, and infusing automation and AI across the portfolio to increase value for the client. Partnerships with technology vendors, startups and academic institutions are a key lever for expanding Capgemini’s portfolio and filling in capability gaps instead of always developing its own intellectual property, which can lead to increased costs and slow down the company’s digital and cloud portfolio expansion. From an organizational standpoint, Capgemini has shifted to a unified go-to-market approach that presents one face to the client and sells the entire Capgemini portfolio. From a sales perspective, the company has been pushing initiatives to foster strategic client relationships by deepening the engagement and offering all dimensions of Capgemini’s portfolio. The objective is to have an established group of strategic relationships in which Capgemini ranks among the leading IT services vendors for those clients to address their mission-critical challenges. This relationship approach in which Capgemini is the strategic supplier somewhat resembles Accenture’s (NYSE: ACN) Diamond Client structure.

TBR attended Capgemini’s annual Global Analyst and Advisor Day, held at the company’s combined Applied Innovation Exchange (AIE) and Accelerated Solutions Environment facility in New York City. The facility opened in October 2017 and is part of a global network of 16 locations that enables clients to explore, discover and test new solutions in collaboration with Capgemini and an ecosystem of technology partners, startups, academic institutions and venture capitalists. The event featured plenary and breakout sessions on topics such as portfolio strategy and management; Capgemini’s artificial intelligence (AI) ambition and portfolio; Capgemini Invent, the company’s newest global business line; digital; cloud; and North America. Client cases and demos on AI Insurance, AI Digital Ops, AI Manufacturing and economic Application Portfolio Management (eAPM) exemplified Capgemini’s activities with clients and provided insights into delivered results.