Two Back, Three Forward: All about consecutive quarters

In our new weekly blog series Two Back, Three Forward, we look at two numbers in TBR reports from the prior week as well as three numbers from our upcoming reports, highlighting the analysis TBR provides and the vast amount of data — the numbers — we’re working with every day. It’s all about the data and what that data means to you.

Two Back

$1.47B, Cognizant’s 4Q19 earnings from financial services clients: As noted in our full report, Cognizant’s Financial Services (FS) revenue increased last quarter, but at a slower pace than the company overall, partly due to softness from European banking clients, according to Cognizant. We’ve heard this complaint from other India-centric vendors and will be publishing a special report this month on what those companies have been doing to offset those pressures. To keep some context, FS remains Cognizant’s largest vertical, at 34.3%, but this trend bears watching.

3, consecutive quarters IBM’s healthcare IT services revenue has declined: 2019 was unquestionably an off year for IBM’s healthcare IT services (HITS), but our most recent analysis indicates the company will rebound in 2020 through new leadership, partnerships and technologies. Considering IBM’s long history of excelling in all three of those areas, we’re predicting a modest 2.2% expansion this year. See the full IBM HITS report for all the analysis.

Three Forward

71.2%, contribution of DXC Technology’s Cloud Professional Services segment to overall cloud revenue, per TBR estimates: Nothing surprising about cloud professional services earning the greatest share of revenue, but what stands out is the 9.6% growth rate of that service line within DXC’s overall cloud practice. Ahead of the other service lines and far better than the company as a whole (-3% over the same period). As we note in the upcoming full report, “DXC’s established relationships with major public cloud providers such as Microsoft and AWS [Amazon Web Services] enable the company to build out integrated solutions and maintain healthy growth in 2020 providing cloud management and migration services.” Further, the company continues investing in cloud-savvy professionals even as it bolsters its traditional IT services talent. DXC’s long-term strategy, including around cloud, appears solid.

More than 50%, Capgemini’s digital and cloud revenues as a percentage of total revenue: Like most IT services peers, Capgemini has strategically shifted resources and investments toward new opportunities in cloud and digital, in part through expanding capabilities alongside partners, developing solutions with partners like AWS, and acquiring talent and IP. Even if revenue growth slows from 5.3% year-to-year in constant currency in 2019 to something closer to 4% in 2020, as Capgemini expects, we don’t expect digital and cloud revenues will ever again dip below the 50% line, even if Capgemini joins market leaders in moving beyond the term digital.

3, consecutive quarters in which Perspecta elevated its FY20 guidance: Due to accelerated demand and strong bookings of net-new work, Perspecta is now guiding for annual revenue growth of between $4.45 billion and $4.5 billion, or 4.1% and 5.3%, over FY19. Even with healthy revenue growth, TBR projects the company’s full-year gross margin will erode 2020 (declining from 24.9% in 2019 to 23.6% in 2020) due to  accumulating costs from its acquisition of Knight Point Systems, the launch of new delivery facilities, and investment in Perspecta Labs. Perspecta’s 2020 operating margin should increase 10 points over 2019, from 6.2% to 6.3%, as unprofitable contracts are completed and Perspecta converts strong bookings of more lucrative and net-new contracts featuring the company’s expanding store of homegrown IP. In all, TBR sees steady growth as more important than financial guidance adjustments, given our concern for strategy and performance, not stock price.