Blockchain in the context of digital transformation: A slow-moving, inevitable revolution

In fast-approaching fourth industrial revolution, bureaucratic labor will become as nonessential as manual labor became to the agrarian economy with the advent of the combustion engine. Blockchain technology will enable smart contracts throughout our economy and will be the red thread stitching together multi-enterprise business networks for frictionless commerce that will greatly reduce demand for bureaucratic labor. As one management consulting partner put it, “If you are not at the point of consumption or at the point of creation, then your job will disappear.”

In TBR’s latest Digital Transformation Insights Report: Emerging Technology, Senior Analyst Boz Hristov and Principal Analyst Geoff Woollacott describe in detail how blockchain technology sits firmly in the hype phase today and, in little more than a decade, has reasonably distinguished itself from cryptocurrency even as blockchain underpins that digital reality. Solving the coopetition paradox, revolving around establishing common governance and standards across competitive and cross-industry ecosystems, is the biggest challenge, yet offers the long-tail opportunity for vendors.

Additional assessments publishing this week from our analyst teams

IBM Services remains challenged by its internal portfolio and resource transformation, such as in traditional infrastructure management and technology support, and reported a fourth consecutive quarter of revenue decline in 2Q19. Pockets of revenue growth in constant currency in business and technology transformation areas, such as consulting, application management and cloud, indicate IBM Services’ portfolio transformation to higher-value services is working. While profitability will remain IBM Services’ core priority in 2H19, the company’s work with clients around advising, moving, building and managing next-generation technology solutions will continue to increase and begin to offset revenue growth pressures in 2H19. — Elitsa Bakalova, Senior Analyst

TBR’s IBM report highlights some of the recent developments in IBM’s Systems Hardware portfolio as the market awaits the newest refresh of IBM Z, which is likely to be announced at the end of 2019 and become generally available at the start of 2020. Hardware-centric investment trends are also highlighted, for both IBM’s traditions Systems Hardware portfolio and its investments in quantum computing. TBR’s financial projections in this particular iteration of the report include how TBR anticipates the Red Hat acquisition will impact corporate numbers. — Stephanie Long, Analyst

Lackluster performance in traditional IT and telecommunications continues to weigh down T-Systems’ revenue, but cloud-based services will help revenue rebound in 2Q19. Strengthening its partner network improves T-Systems’ innovation as well as drives adoption of its cloud and IoT capabilities. For example, its recent partnership with Software AG allows T-Systems to underpin its Cloud Internet of Things platform with the Cumulocity IoT platform, expanding its delivery scale in Europe and North America.
Kelly Lesiczka, Analyst

HCL Technologies (HCLT) emphasizes its engineering and R&D core services to support foundational revenues as the company balances acquisition integration with portfolio management. With the completion of its acquisition of IBM Software assets at the beginning of July, HCLT launched HCL Software, which we expect will help the firm deliver software and product solutions that bridge HCLT’s legacy services with its Mode 2 and Mode 3 emerging technologies and services, particularly for cloud, digital and analytics, and security. — Kelly Lesiczka

In our upcoming DXC Technology Initial Response, TBR will look at whether DXC has been able to overcome recent pressures stemming from completion of several large contracts without replacement and ongoing headwinds in legacy applications work. — Kevin Collupy, Analyst

Additionally, check out our recent insights into IoT and KPMG, available in our Special Reports section.  

Investments in acquisitions and startups enrich Capgemini’s next-generation solutions portfolio and improve its competitive position

Capgemini has taken multiple steps to enhance its portfolio to drive transformations through next-generation technologies and create business value for clients. The acquisition of Altran to deliver digital transformation in the industrial sector, enhanced relationships with Microsoft around Microsoft Azure solutions and with SAP around certification of industry innovation accelerators in manufacturing and retail, and investment in startups and joint commercial activities exemplify Capgemini’s recent activities to advance its competitive position,” said Senior Analyst Elitsa Bakalova. “Offering deep industry expertise improves Capgemini’s ability to address clients’ business-specific challenges. The company will continue to experience momentum in cloud services, with cloud revenue driven by offerings in the Capgemini Cloud Platform portfolio that support clients when building, migrating and managing applications and infrastructures in cloud environments. Offering each client its entire portfolio of solutions enables Capgemini to provide holistic transformational solutions and effectively compete with peers. The expanded partnership with Microsoft around Microsoft Azure solutions will enable Capgemini to increase cloud professional services activities, especially around cloud application development and maintenance.”

Additional assessments publishing this week from our analyst teams

Apple continues to pursue both service and hardware initiatives to maintain growth. The company is leveraging services and its wide install base to grow continuous revenue streams as device refresh activity wanes amid lengthening device life cycles and slowing hardware advances. While services are growing as a cornerstone strategy for Apple, the company also remains focused on maintaining its market perception as the most advanced smartphone producer. TBR expects the iPhone 11, which is slated to be released later in 2019, to have steady sales, but Apple will likely not see breakout sales like that of the iPhone X until the release of the 2020 model, which will deliver larger hardware upgrades such as 5G enablement. — Dan Callahan, Analyst

Google doubled its revenue over the past six quarters, surpassing $2 billion in 2Q19 as the vendor migrates customers to Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and attains particularly strong revenue growth from selling analytics. Google’s PaaS business will continue to drive revenue growth as enterprises integrate their hybrid environment with Anthos and leverage Google’s analytics, AI and machine learning offerings. In addition, Google supplements growth with G Suite as the company’s growing sales base brings industry-specific versions of the collaboration suite to market and cross-sells G Suite into GCP-oriented customer engagements. — Jack McElwee, Research Analyst

Cognizant has reworked its corporate strategy to emphasize the criticality of digital technologies to its growth plans. Pursuing acquisitions, such as that of Meritsoft, enables Cognizant to diversify its revenue mix, fostering new sources of digital revenues within key verticals. We expect Cognizant will maintain steady revenue growth year-to-year, largely led by demand around its digital operations capabilities.    — Kelly Lesiczka, Analyst

An integrated sales structure, paired with investments in price-competitive AI solutions and on-site presence, will help Infosys transform its brand identity. At the same time as Infosys builds a healthy pipeline, the company may need to calibrate stakeholders’ expectations around margins to sustain trust. — Boz Hristov, Senior Analyst

Reinforcing Verizon’s reputation as a premium wireless service provider will be essential for the operator to sustain revenue growth in the 5G era, as competitive pressures from T-Mobile will intensify, especially given the pending Sprint merger. Though Verizon will continue to trail T-Mobile in postpaid phone net additions over the next several years, Verizon will be able to sustain revenue growth by attracting customers willing to pay a higher price for the operator’s network coverage and premium unlimited data plans. Steve Vachon, Analyst

Sprint continues to undercut its rivals as the operator remains reliant on competitive pricing to attract subscribers given its subpar network coverage, though the company is moving away from more aggressive promotions, such as its previous Cut Your Bill in Half offer, to improve average revenue per user (ARPU). Sprint will continue to struggle to balance ARPU and subscriber growth, however, as many customers are unwilling to pay higher prices for the company’s network quality and Sprint is experiencing high churn rates from customers rolling off promotional pricing offers. — Steve Vachon

Public sector IT services spotlight: The U.S. federal earnings season continues the week of July 29 with three services-led defense contractors — Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH), Leidos and ManTech — releasing their fiscal results for the second calendar quarter of 2019.

As reported on Monday, July 29, Booz Allen Hamilton delivered 10.8% year-to-year growth during 2Q19, the first quarter of its fiscal 2020, and 100% of BAH’s growth was organic as the company continues to eschew acquisitions. BAH’s strong performance in 2Q19 reflects how ideally positioned the company is to serve its federal clientele, as well as a growing number of commercial entities, with a high-value, differentiated solutions suite spanning the strategy, mission and critical IT needs of public and private sector clients alike. As a result of its strong 2Q19 year-to-year growth, BAH is also likely to be the top-performing organic growth vendor in TBR’s upcoming 2Q19 Public Sector IT Services Benchmark (publishing in early October). BAH’s growth and margin performance (operating margin of 9.8%) in 2Q19 mostly outstripped that of the trio of federal competitors that released 2Q19 earnings and fiscal performance last week: Raytheon (YTY growth of 5.3%; operating margin of 9.1%); General Dynamics Information Technology (YTY contraction of 11.6%; operating margin of 7.1%); and Northrop Grumman Technology Services (YTY contraction of 0.4%; operating margin of 10.8%). We believe BAH’s performance relates directly to its solution set, which sits at the juncture of federal agency IT and mission objectives with a differentiating blend of consulting, technology and emerging solutions.           John Caucis, Senior Analyst  

Leidos will release its earnings on Tuesday, July 30, and is expected to post top-line, year-to-year growth of between 5% and 7% to reach about $2.7 billion in 2Q19 revenue. Growth will derive from Leidos’ continued strong pace of new awards, net increases in volume across several high-profile programs, and improving win rates, which are accelerating the conversion of pipeline opportunities into bookings and revenue. Leidos should also be able to offset the wind-down of existing programs and some limited currency headwinds from unfavorable swings in the U.S. dollar. The company has guided for 2019 revenue of between $10.5 billion and $10.9 billion, implying a median 5% growth rate, and record backlog levels achieved in prior quarters positions Leidos well to achieve its projections. — John Caucis  

Finally, ManTech will release its 2Q19 fiscal performance and earnings after business hours on Wednesday, July 31. ManTech’s latest strategic acquisition (Kforce Government Solutions, or KGS) will add roughly $100 million in new revenue and expand ManTech’s opportunity set in the federal civilian segment, augmenting robust Department of Defense (DOD) and intelligence growth while inorganically boosting ManTech’s top-line growth (projected to be between 6% and 8% in 2Q19). ManTech’s top-line growth in 2Q19 should be significantly augmented by the KGS acquisition, as the purchase closed in April and immediately began to contribute inorganic revenue to ManTech’s top line. On an organic basis, classified customers continue to accelerate spend with ManTech, while spending on behalf of ManTech’s principal DOD and Intelligence Community clients continues trending upward. Prior to the KGS acquisition, ManTech tendered a 2019 outlook for full-year 2019 revenue of between $2.05 billion and $2.15 billion, implying growth of between 4.7% and 9.8% over FY18 revenue of $1.96 billion. KGS is expected to contribute between $60 million and $80 million in inorganic revenue during the latter nine months of FY19; this compelled ManTech to elevate its prior guidance for FY19 revenue to instead reach between $2.13 billion and $2.21 billion, implying growth of between 8.8% and 12.8% over FY18. — John Caucis  

Understanding an acquisition: Capgemini snaps up Germany’s energy-centric KONEXUS

Capgemini’s acquisition of KONEXUS, a 30-person Germany-based energy strategy and management consultancy, triggered a reaction at TBR, as earlier this year we had looked at consulting for the energy sector and had been surprised at the relatively small number of acquisitions across the firms we track. Thirty management consultants will be a fractional addition to a company of Capgemini’s size with headcount of roughly 215,000, and the revenue increase will likely be marginal, but the decision speaks to Capgemini’s strategy to build capacity in both emerging areas and areas where the firm has established strengths. Perhaps Germany’s politically charged Energiewende will limit the impact of KONEXUS on Capgemini as a whole, as the strategic advice for companies working in Germany’s energy sector may not easily translate to other countries and regions. More likely, though, energy companies globally will face ever-increasing political pressures to reform and will seek strategic guidance — maybe ever-increasingly from Capgemini.

In our May 2019 full report on Capgemini, we noted that the company’s Energy, Utilities, and Chemicals practice earned the smallest share of revenue by industry (11.3%, but was leading in growth compared to other verticals) and predicted the company would seek acquisitions that will “bolster its services expertise around digital and cloud, such as in automation, analytics, cloud, digital services, AI and IoT, in addition to expanding its onshore presence.” With that context, acquiring KONEXUS appears to be a small move tangential to the company’s broader strategy. Folding KONEXUS into Capgemini Invent could be a way to use experienced management consultants to guide innovation and transformation engagements with a broader set of clients. Some of Capgemini’s peers have similarly made acquisitions expected to provide traditional benefits — enhanced offerings, new clients, additive revenue — while also changing go-to-market strategies, operational approaches to engagements, and overall brand. That may be too much to expect from KONEXUS, but this may indicate where Capgemini is headed.

Look for our initial assessment of Capgemini’s earnings this week.   

While competitors stumble and struggle, Raytheon continues to outperform in IT services for the U.S. federal government

The U.S. federal earnings season kicks off the week of July 22, with legacy defense contractors General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon releasing their fiscal results for the second calendar quarter of 2019.

  • General Dynamics IT (GDIT) passed the one-year anniversary of its $9.7 billion acquisition of CSRA in 2Q19. Absent the inorganic impact of the integration of CSRA — and GDIT’s attempt to camouflage the multifaceted disruption — and GDIT’s portfolio makeover to improve the top line, not surprisingly, we expect sales to fall precipitously in 2Q19. In 1Q19 the bulk of GDIT’s new awards were concentrated in the defense sector. Bookings trends inverted somewhat in 2Q19 for GDIT, with a blitz of civilian sector deal activity with a potential aggregate contract value near $2.4 billion. Much of this new work will be to digitally modernize back-office processes or IT infrastructures for civilian agencies; for example, GDIT won a subcontractor position in 2Q19 on a potential $2 billion IT modernization engagement for the Department of Energy.
  • 2019 is shaping up to be another difficult year for Northrop Grumman Technology Services (TS) as headwinds from large-scale contract expirations continue to impede the company’s goal to revive top-line growth amid its ongoing restructuring program. Northrop Grumman will have to fall back on its margin performance as the best indicator of the success that its operational and portfolio realignment is improving TS’ overall cost structure. Northrop Grumman raised full-year 2019 margin guidance for the TS segment last quarter, and Northrop’s management appears comfortable standing by the elevated outlook, validating the company’s efforts to streamline operations and expand higher-value revenue streams in its order book.
  • Raytheon Intelligence, Information & Services’ (IIS) is expected to again be one of the top performing vendors in TBR’s Public Sector IT Services Benchmark in 2Q19 — IIS’ parent company’s massive merger with United Technologies (announced on June 9) notwithstanding. The Raytheon-United Technologies megadeal will result in a $73-plus billion technology giant broadly diversified across global aerospace, defense and commercial markets. Not to be lost amid the hubbub of the merger is how IIS is expected to again deliver robust growth and TBR public sector benchmark-leading margin performance in 2Q19 while expanding its book of business in the lucrative cyber and space sectors as well as with classified programs. — John Caucis, Senior Analyst  

Additional assessments publishing this week from our analyst teams

Leaders in TBR’s Public Cloud Benchmark continue to deliver strong results, but their closest competitors are aggressively innovating to challenge them. Google and IBM have enlisted Kubernetes to help them decouple PaaS business from Microsoft’s and Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) IaaS-led strongholds on the market, while pressure on Salesforce from both full-suite and modular CRM competitors is building. — Meaghan McGrath, Senior Analyst

Microsoft’s Commercial Cloud business continued to grow in FY4Q19, to $11 billion. Office 365 and Azure products accounted for 52% and 33% of total Commercial Cloud revenue, respectively. Though not yet the primary revenue driver of its Commercial Cloud business, Microsoft’s Azure portfolio is critical to the vendor’s long-term cloud growth, prompting investment in its developer community and tools as well as in high-profile partnerships that challenge AWS. — Meaghan McGrath

Tata Consultancy Services’ (TCS) revenue increased 8.6% year-to-year to $5.5 billion in 2Q19, highlighting the successful alignment of TCS’ service delivery frameworks with the needs of its global client base. Digitally based engagements constitute an ever-expanding share of TCS’ revenue base and backlog, and TCS claims nearly one-third of its revenues are digital-related, which would explain the top-line growth despite marketwide pressures facing legacy services, such as traditional outsourcing engagements. — Kevin Collupy, Analyst

Atos is well positioned to compete in the dynamic digital transformation (DT) services market. With Atos’ shift to an industry-specific go-to-market strategy, developing outcome-based vertical solutions will help Atos not only build a business case that persuades clients to invest in DT but also expand mindshare among existing clients, a necessary move as Atos tries to grow sales from digital services. Expanded cloud capabilities with partners such as Microsoft and Google Cloud enable Atos to design, build, manage and deploy cloud solutions and grow revenues in the segment. Two cybersecurity capabilities set Atos apart from its IT services peers: its portfolio of security services and IP-based solutions, and its verticalized cybersecurity offerings. Partnerships with established technology vendors and increasingly with startups enable Atos to innovate its portfolio and expand client reach. — Elitsa Bakalova, Senior Analyst

Fujitsu continues to invest in its portfolio offerings to provide vertical-oriented solutions, including within travel and transportation as well as healthcare. As the company looks to focus on its primary markets, Fujitsu expands its talent bench to support market presence and portfolio development, evidenced by the opening of a security operations center in its office in Canberra, Australia. The center will enable Fujitsu to maintain its client base in the region while also capturing upselling opportunities. We expect these investments will allow Fujitsu to build out its presence outside Japan to bolster revenue streams. — Kelly Lesiczka, Analyst

Recently, Analyst Stephanie Long hosted a webinar on how the quantum computing market will evolve from research-centric to commercial use cases as the technology reaches economic advantage — algorithm by algorithm — in the next two to five years. Once this occurs, developments will be rapid and organizations with the foundation built to take advantage of quantum computing will quickly reap the rewards of their early investments. Quantum computing, as a transformation-inducing technology, will impact multiple aspects of the IT environment, including power consumption, data generation, security and classical computing tie-ins. The swift impact of quantum computing will be a key factor in determining who wins and who loses in this technological transformation. Check out the replay of this webinar anytime in TBR’s Webinar Portal.

TBR upcoming research dives into quantum computing market

If you are a skeptic of or bullish on the quantum computing market, or somewhere in between, TBR has insights to share with you! Over the next few months, TBR will dissect the developments occurring in the quantum computing market and share a lot of interesting findings.

The week of July 15  

  • TBR’s blog will feature an infographic highlighting some of the key findings from TBR’s recently published Quantum Computing Market Landscape. According to the report: “At its core, quantum accelerates the mathematical computations seeking to map and compare high volumes of independent variables. Machine learning (ML) is expected to be a key use case for quantum computing initially, as the faster time to insight will enable organizations to train their computers significantly faster than could be done with classical computers.”

The week of July 22

The week of Sept. 9

  • TBR is going to Quantum.Tech! This quantum computing-centric industry event will host analysts, customers and vendors over two days and dive into the real world application of quantum and the rapid development of this emerging market. Reach out directly to Long ([email protected]) or Woollacott ([email protected]) to set up a meeting with them during the conference. 

The week of Sept. 16

  • Long and Woollacott will recap Quantum.Tech as well as share their key takeaways from the event and projections around quantum’s impact on the greater IT market in a TBR special report.

Executive change at Accenture portends changes for the market leader

With Julie Sweet appointed the next CEO of Accenture and David Rowland named the executive chairman of the board, the company doubles down on its proven go-to-market strategy and delivery frameworks. However, as Accenture strengthens its core as a technology organization and Accenture Technology plays a pivotal role in North America’s performance (Sweet was previously CEO of Accenture North America), TBR Senior Analyst Boz Hristov says a couple of questions remain:

  • Will Sweet bring a clear vision and execution strategy for the company’s IP, in particular around monetizing it?
  • Should Accenture consider spinning off its Accenture Software business as a separate entity and launch a mature startup-like software organization?

We do not expect major changes in Accenture’s strategy and/or performance in the short term; however, as with any new CEO, one should always expect some degree of change. Only time will tell if that change will be minimal or involve a 180. As TBR recently noted, Accenture delivered record-breaking quarterly revenue, with growth increasing 3.8% year-to-year in USD (8.4% in local currency) to $11.1 billion in FY3Q19, as the company’s aggressive investments in “the new” are paying off, as the segment now contributes over 60% of total sales and expanding at double digits in constant currency. While many of the new opportunities for Accenture stem from investing in innovative offerings (e.g., Industry X.0) and building out relationships with new buyers, demand for application services in connection with adopting intelligent ERP systems, enabled by key partners such as SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, Salesforce and Workday, drove double-digit revenue growth in local currency, with the segment generating 40% of sales.

Additional assessments publishing this week from our analyst teams

Ericsson has made significant progress in its latest restructuring initiative, leading to higher margins and a more focused go-to-market strategy. The company has also lately been helped by the ongoing deployment of 5G and 5G-ready networks in the U.S. and, to a lesser extent, South Korea. U.S. spend on 5G will accelerate as operators aim to gain a competitive advantage, and Ericsson is positioned to capitalize. In our 2Q19 Ericsson Initial Response, we will examine Ericsson’s continued restructuring progress and monitor its status as a leading 5G RAN supplier. — Michael Soper, Senior Analyst

TBR will publish its 2Q19 Oracle Cloud report on Thursday, discussing where Oracle sits in its quest for cloud dominance, the status of autonomous database adoption and the expected impact of Oracle’s alliance with co-AWS-rival, Microsoft Azure. — Meaghan McGrath, Senior Analyst

Application software vendors continue to realize healthy growth of subscription revenues, accompanied by accelerating declines in licensing, as reported in the upcoming Applications Software Vendor Benchmark. Application vendors aggressively pursue cross-selling of subscription solutions to generate scale and protect operating margins as the cloud sales mix increases. This is particularly true for multiline vendors with substantial legacy license bases, though these vendors are well positioned to upsell existing customers to cloud alternatives by emphasizing the value of deploying managed, unified suites between the front and back office. — Meaghan McGrath

SAP will release its 2Q19 earnings on Thursday, uncovering the near-term impact of its highly transparent restructuring effort. TBR will discuss this, as well as portfolio developments related to C/4HANA and Qualtrics application releases, in our SAP Cloud Initial Response, which will publish on Friday. — Meaghan McGrath

IBM’s acquisition of Red Hat officially closed on July 9 and will impact the trajectory of the business for the remainder of 2019 and beyond. TBR’s Initial Response report will touch on this and other developments at IBM in 2Q19, including within the company’s Systems Hardware business. — Stephanie Long, Analyst

IBM Services continues with its portfolio realignment initiatives to deliver higher-value and higher-margin services that integrate technology and industry expertise and enable clients’ digital reinventions. While IBM Services’ activities around advising, building, moving and managing next-generation technology solutions are increasing, it will take time before the shifting business mix returns sustainable revenue growth. — Elitsa Bakalova, Senior Analyst

On Friday TBR’s 2Q19 IBM Cloud Initial Response is publishing, detailing the company’s last full quarter without Red Hat. Recent and ongoing portfolio investments, particularly at the platform layer, are expected to help boost IBM’s cloud revenue in the second quarter. — Cassandra Mooshian, Senior Analyst

TBR’s 1Q19 Hosted Private Cloud Benchmark discusses how vendors with hybrid PaaS and IaaS portfolios that span vendor and customer data centers are well positioned to capture additional hosted private cloud market share. IBM and Google continue to enhance their Kubernetes-based platforms to be increasingly infrastructure and environment agnostic while Amazon Web Services and Microsoft focus on hybrid cloud stacks, with emphasis on the IaaS layer. — Cassandra Mooshian

IBM and Red Hat close the deal — will it be red washing or blue washing?

On July 9 IBM held a 30-minute Q&A with industry analysts, led by Red Hat EVP of Engineering Paul Cormier and IBM SVP of Cloud and Cognitive Software Arvind Krishna. The discussion confirmed the overarching strategic benefits both parties see in the union while stressing the intentions to keep Red Hat vendor agnostic. Around three-quarters of Red Hat’s revenue is generated through its channel, suggesting Red Hat is viewed as a valuable and highly sought-after partner. Despite the fact that IBM and Red Hat executives continue to echo the necessity of maintaining all of Red Hat’s existing alliances, these relationships could come under review by the partners themselves now that the acquisition of Red Hat by IBM has been approved by regulatory boards globally and finalized.

Indeed, when queried about industry concerns that Red Hat would be “blue washed,” Krishna said, “[Blue washing] would be a bad thing for both [companies],” and suggested the exact opposite — that there could be some “red washing” of IBM that results, which has also been an opinion TBR has offered in various commentary as this deal moved toward closure.

Red Hat almost single-handedly commoditized the enterprise software space before taking aim to do the same thing with the platform layer through OpenShift. Commoditization is not something IBM necessarily has liked to see over the years at it rapidly eroded the transaction-oriented hardware segment of the industry as IBM pivoted to software and services. The developer community can now accelerate innovation through this open foundation layer, which is how Red Hat will remain autonomous from IBM. Red Hat’s best practices around subscription monetization of essentially free IP generated by the open-source community will likely be the best practices brought forward to red wash IBM as it moves further into the automated services arena, with Watson Anywhere and Blockchain Anywhere as two recent examples of these moves.

How can IBM scale Red Hat’s best practices?

IBM will bring its technical skills to the union to bridge the legacy world with the open-source world underpinned by Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), OpenShift and Kubernetes containers. Both Cormier and Krishna highlighted the breadth of IBM Services’ that can be brought to bear for enterprises looking to migrate the 80% of workloads that have yet to migrate to cloud, according to IBM. Through OpenShift, this migration can extend beyond just moving from legacy applications to one public cloud, to encompass nimble and secure migration to and between multiple clouds and on-premises instances.

Red Hat will still operate with multiple vendors while also maintaining the robust and expansive developer community that has been described, with some legitimacy, as almost a cult-like following. Indeed, it can be argued that this merger will in retrospect be viewed as a milestone event in the ongoing march to consumerize IT to simplify the technology side of business operations and focus more on business objectives than on the technical challenges. DevOps and security practitioners will have one platform cemented by Kubernetes containers to work within a true multicloud environment.

What tactical steps must be achieved to implement the strategic vision?

The teleconference had TBR analysts pondering many of the as-yet-unanswered questions that IBM and Red Hat stated will be addressed in the upcoming weeks. Principal among those TBR questions are the following:

  • How successful will IBM be at operating Red Hat as a stand-alone unit — an acquisition model it has yet to take on? Typically, acquired companies are blue washed, and it has been common to see executives from acquired companies resign. Will that be the case with Red Hat? Will Red Hat CEO James Whitehurst stay on, and better yet, will he succeed IBM CEO Ginni Rometty in coming years?
  • How will IBM Cloud Private (ICP) and OpenShift coexist? The move to multicloud with OpenShift underpinning the DevOps and security communities begs the question: How much emphasis will or should be placed on ICP? Will ICP be joined, or will OpenShift supplant that technology, with IBM Services maintaining the implementation based on trust from years of account control in the large enterprise?
  • What will be the development road map for IBM middleware assets? How will these assets align with, merge with, or remain distinct from the Red Hat portfolio?
  • How will IBM blend Red Hat best practices, technology and personnel into its own developer ecosystems, programs, and the IBM Garage method? This issue will be more of a cultural shift.
  • How can IBM and Red Hat increase share in the midmarket enterprise? Developer satisfaction will be closely monitored, but open platforms also mean access to cutting-edge technology by smaller enterprises. That go-to-market motion is radically different from the traditional enterprise motion where IBM has excelled for decades. In the era of multi-enterprise business networks, small enterprises and large enterprises interoperate more frequently through automated systems. IBM’s brand at times works against it within the midmarket, which perceives the offers to be too costly and likely too complex for its requirements. To gain scale with multi-enterprise business networks, this issue will be a critical area to improve upon.

All the right words were spoken, and the strategic vision appears sound. As always, the devil will be in the details, and those details will be laid out in the ensuing weeks and months around one of the most important acquisitions in IBM’s — and the industry’s — history.

Authors: Senior Analyst Cassandra Mooshian ([email protected]) and Senior Strategy Consultant & Principal Analyst Geoff Woollacott ([email protected])

IoT and quantum emerge as new growth frontiers in IT services

Data is exploding, and vendors are preparing to accommodate this trend by effectively managing, storing, securing and analyzing data and by driving business results through next-generation solutions. During Atos’ Technology Days, held May 16-17 in Paris, Atos CEO Thierry Breton stated that while 80% of data is currently stored in data centers and in the cloud, that percentage is forecast to shrink to 20% by 2025 as clients seek ways to analyze data in real time at the edge, where it is created. Pioneering emerging technology development, such as IoT, edge computing and quantum computing, enables vendors to expand their addressable market and cross-sell and upsell their services offerings.

While traditional IT services remain key revenue contributors for many of the 29 IT services vendors that TBR covers in its IT Services Vendor Benchmark, portfolio innovations create new areas of growth. Gaining a first-mover advantage in emerging segments enables vendors to attract clients with practical use cases for new technologies across industries.

Technology partnerships and acquisitions enable vendors to expand IoT portfolios and capture new areas of growth during 2019

While IoT solutions will often span several services, they are usually confined to one vertical, guiding vendors’ IoT-led partnerships and portfolio development. IoT intrinsically cuts across both vendor and customer categories, transforming and connecting business operations. Vendors expand their portfolios to guide customers on how to implement and manage IoT solutions. However, some vendors lack portfolio depth around critical IoT capabilities, such as operational technology (OT), and predictive analytics and data management, that allow customers to proactively manage equipment and reduce costs associated with downtime. To fill these portfolio gaps, we expect vendors to forge relationships and make acquisitions that support development of vertical-oriented IoT solutions.

Examples of Vendors’ Recent Activities

Fujitsu partnered with Coast Research Engineering Co. to develop an IoT solution for aquaculture and marine clients. The solution will monitor water quality and temperature from aquamarine tanks to support aquaculture. Fujitsu RunMyProcess partnered with IoT.nxt to improve data collection and analytics within Fujitsu’s high-productivity application PaaS (hpaPaaS) and to automate operational processes. The partnership will improve Fujitsu’s ability to collect and analyze data from various devices and sensors by standardizing and filtering data.

Wipro announced the opening of its third Industrial IoT (IIoT) center of excellence in March in Kochi, India. Wipro is using the centers, which are also located in California and Bangalore, India, to develop proofs of concept and market-ready solutions for IIoT customers. Further, Wipro has been leveraging the centers to attract local talent from universities through various initiatives such as hackathons.

The acquisition of Altran announced on June 24 expands Capgemini’s engineering and R&D services capabilities and complements the company’s established consulting and IT capabilities. Capgemini is positioning as an “intelligent industry” vendor that can provide solutions around Engineering 4.0 and Industry 4.0. and expand in smart technology-driven segments such as IoT, AI, 5G, cloud, edge, data and cybersecurity. The key for this transaction is that while Capgemini has well-established IT expertise as well as digital transformation and design and innovation consulting capabilities in Capgemini Invent, the company gains Altran’s OT capabilities, a competence that was not developed for Capgemini but is a key component in IoT models. TBR notes that Capgemini is catching up with some of its peers in IoT. For example, Capgemini’s direct competitor Atos already has a history in OT as a result of its acquisition of Siemens’ IT Solutions and Services business and its global strategic alliance with Siemens AG has given it a head start in IoT; Atos has increased its investment in current joint efforts with Siemens in IoT. In February Capgemini partnered with Idemia, a provider of AR solutions, to develop an IoT device management platform that strengthens security and connectivity of devices and data. The platform will be based on Capgemini’s IoT device management platform, X-IoT, which securely connects and manages gateways and protocols to the cloud, and on Idemia’s M-Trust solution.

Vendors are competing to gain a first-mover advantage in the early commercial stages of quantum computing to diversify revenues

Quantum technologies remain in the nascent stage, with vendors increasing R&D practices to develop technologies such as computing. IBM has the technology expertise to accelerate commercial use of quantum computing as its investments date back to 2016. However, competitors such as Atos and Accenture are picking up speed. A key inhibitor to quantum computing adoption will be the impracticality of having the hardware on premises due to the very specific environmental conditions needed to function properly, creating opportunities for vendors to help customers take advantage of quantum computing without negatively impacting hardware sales.

Examples of Vendors’ Recent Activities

IBM released an integrated quantum computing system for scientific and commercial use. IBM Q System One tackles complex problems that are challenging for classical systems to handle while enabling quantum computers to operate beyond research labs. In 2019 IBM is opening its first IBM Q Quantum Computation Center for commercial clients in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., expanding the IBM Q Network commercial quantum computing program, which already includes systems at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown, N.Y. The center will enable IBM to work with a community of enterprises, startups, academic institutions and research labs to advance quantum computing and explore practical applications for business and science.

Accenture Labs, three of which contain dedicated quantum computing R&D practices, engage in projects that have customer sponsors to solve real-world business or economic problems. Accenture maintains nine quantum computing offerings and has identified 150 use cases across its Operating Groups, the most prominent being pharmaceutical vendor Biogen.

Atos also continues to enhance its quantum computing capabilities. As TBR wrote in its May 2019 Digital Transformation Insights Report: Emerging Technology, which focused on quantum, “Atos took its strengths in design computing for appliances and programming and emulation environments and announced several quantum research initiatives, including the opening of a global R&D lab in Yvelines, France, and Atos QLM [Quantum Learning Machine] implementations in Europe and the U.S. to enable clients to experiment with disruptive technologies, tackle the explosion of data and accelerate the number of practical use cases across industries. Additionally, about a year ago, Atos developed a consulting practice around quantum computing to educate and advise clients on whether it is possible to use quantum to accelerate business applications. During Atos Technology Days 2019, Atos announced myQLM, a light version of a QLM, which is an on-premises environment designed for quantum software developers. Users can download myQLM on their desktops and use a set of algorithms to train at home or at a university and simulate the actual QLM. A Phyton-based language, QLM allows students and researchers to develop and share code within the community, creating additional entry points for Atos’ broader services portfolio. With customers ranging from universities and research centers to high-performing computer ecosystems and commercial clients, Atos … is building one use case at a time. For France-based oil and gas company Total, Atos is using a QLM simulator to accelerate the analysis of seismic activities, helping Total stay ahead of competitors. Atos is also working with Bayer and RWTH Aachen University in Germany to evaluate the use of quantum computing to research and analyze human disease patterns.”

Enterprises leverage disruptive emerging technologies within their operations to improve processes and accelerate digital transformation

Extension remains the most natural jumping-off point for digital transformation (DT) initiatives, as enterprises can experiment with disruptive technologies within familiar business operations, see their value in generating new business insights, and then use those insights to re-imagine processes. TBR’s Digital Transformation Insights Report: Voice of the Customer shows that vendors need to orient toward development of pointed, industry-centric solutions to retain mindshare. This report, authored by Senior Analyst Boz Hristov, shares survey results across a spectrum of DT issues as well as excerpts from extensive, in-depth discussions with clients currently purchasing DT services.

Additional assessments publishing this week from our analyst teams

While trailing 12-month IT services revenue growth decelerated from 4Q18 to 1Q19, according to TBR’s IT Services Vendor Benchmark, year-to-year growth in 1Q19 of 2.6% surpassed that of 1Q18, which was 2.2%. Vendors are investing in niche digital design areas and industry expertise to drive advisory services activities with C-Suite executives. They are also leveraging established footholds and trust with new buyers to pursue managed services around clients’ application and infrastructure estates. Improving profitability provides vendors with flexibility to invest gains in high-growth and high-value technology-enabled solutions. — Elitsa Bakalova, Senior Analyst

In TBR’s 2Q19 Accenture Initial Response we continue to assess if scale and appetite for innovation still define and shape Accenture’s success as it becomes a solutions broker. We will also look into how platforms supporting omnichannel architecture will underpin Accenture’s efforts to capture custom work and reach $47 billion in sales by 2020. — Boz Hristov

In 1Q19 Dell EMC’s Infrastructure Solutions Group faced year-to-year revenue declines across all segments, including storage, servers and networking, due to a combination of seasonality headwinds and go-to-market challenges. As Dell EMC’s cloud revenue is largely tied to hardware sales, these same challenges compromised its cloud top-line performance. An increasingly strategic partnership with VMware coupled with the new Dell Technologies Cloud portfolio will help boost performance in coming quarters. — Cassandra Mooshian, Senior Analyst

TBR’s Hyperconverged and Converged Market Landscape explores the vendor landscape of these two markets, including leaders and laggards, and the existing and emerging disruptors in the space. This report details recent announcements in the space made by key vendors as well as the disruptive dynamics of emerging hardware trends from nontraditional vendors, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) with its AWS Outposts.— Stephanie Long, Analyst

TBR’s Hyperconverged Platforms Customer Research surveys hyperconverged customers to analyze purchasing patterns, spending habits, adoption trends and the evolving drivers behind vendor selection. Key highlights of this report include customer desire to leverage hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) for private cloud environments and the ongoing shift to consumption-based pricing. We also surveyed current HCI customers to determine their likelihood of adopting AWS Outposts, along with where customers will pull funding from to support this new hardware model. — Stephanie Long

SAIC officially began its integration of Engility’s nearly $1.9 billion in revenue and 7,500 employees in 1Q19, aiming to leverage Engility to accelerate its expansion with a more balanced, diversified and lower-risk portfolio and an enhanced competitive stance in markets adjacent to its core Department of Defense and federal civilian sectors, particularly space and intelligence. A new leadership era is also beginning at the top of SAIC’s executive management, as CEO Tony Moraco will retire effective July 31 and will be succeeded by COO Nazzic Keene, who was elected to the CEO post by SAIC’s board of directors in March. Keene has already implemented numerous changes during the CEO transition period as part of the broader initiative she has spearheaded to flatten SAIC’s management pyramid and streamline operations amid the integration of Engility.— John Caucis, John Caucis

TBR’s 1Q19 Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH) report details how the company completed its fiscal 2019 with strong top-line expansion and record revenues, better-than-anticipated earnings, and its largest quarterly dividend increase in years. BAH’s performance throughout its last fiscal year reflects a soundly differentiated market position and multilayered alignment of the company’s technology and advisory portfolio with the primary missions of its federal customers. In May 2015, when BAH launched its Vision 2020 strategy, industry and company observers criticized the plan over concerns BAH would be investing ahead of demand, which had yet to materialize. BAH has sustained a top-line growth CAGR of nearly 6.2% and an average operating margin of 8.5% (both in excess of peer averages for these metrics in TBR’s Public Sector IT Services Benchmark) since Vision 2020 was enacted, affirming the strategic framework was well conceived and has been well executed. — John Caucis

Tune in Wednesday at 1 p.m. EDT to hear Stephanie Long share highlights from TBR’s HCI research including exclusive recent findings from TBR’s Hyperconverged Platforms Customer Research. The webinar will highlight how the HCI market has shifted over the last few years and where TBR sees it headed. Additionally, this will be a great opportunity to ask our analysts your questions about the HCI market. Sign up today!

Deloitte’s willingness to go into unorthodox markets supports growth

“Broad-based investments including low-cost resources and platform-based solutions are among the recent examples of Deloitte’s efforts to expand its addressable market, resulting in improving non-management consulting revenue performance,” says Senior Analyst Boz Hristov.

“While Deloitte is far from reaching revenue diversification compared to the likes of Accenture, the firm is making inroads in unorthodox markets such as outsourcing services. To succeed, though, Deloitte will need to showcase pricing flexibility as it deploys new ways of engaging with clients.”

In his recent assessment of Deloitte’s management consulting practice, Boz noted that augmenting legacy services through investments in legal services, as well as technology partnerships with the likes of Google and ServiceNow, will play a critical role in building and solidifying trust with new and existing buyers, especially as the majority of them fall within the Extension stage of Deloitte’s digital transformation initiatives. Teaming consulting and analytics experts with solutions architects as a core go-to-market strategy will likely not differentiate Deloitte much from rivals. However, the firm’s dedicated investments in regions such as Germany, where consulting sales revenue share surpassed that of legacy audit services, will help build the globally integrated, diversified portfolio Deloitte needs to protect its No. 1 position among TBR’s benchmarked vendors.    

Additional assessments publishing this week from our analyst teams

In 1Q19 VMware experienced another healthy quarter of revenue growth, which increased 12.8% to $2.3 billion. Late 2018 acquisitions helped buoy revenue, as did double-digit cloud management bookings and the reported success of CloudHealth in the quarter. — Cassandra Mooshian, Senior Analyst

In its 1Q19 Hewlett Packard Enterprise Cloud report, TBR discusses the company’s modest 2.8% cloud revenue growth, to an estimated $1.9 billion, and how that underscores Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s (HPE) focus on and commitment to cloud-based hybrid and emerging technologies. HPE GreenLake continues to play a crucial role in HPE’s success, as GreenLake orders grew a reported 39% year-to-year in 1Q19. — Cassandra Mooshian

TBR’s Dell Technologies report deep dives into the performance and strategies of the vendor’s Client Solutions and Infrastructure Solutions groups, while painting the picture of Dell Technologies’ bigger overall strategy. Deeper analysis of some of the announcements that emerged from Dell Technologies World will also be highlighted as well as the ongoing strategic positioning of VMware. — Stephanie Long, Analyst

And sign up now for TBR’s next webinar, Where will hyperconverged infrastructure fit in the modern data center?