What’s going on in Texas with Atos?

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TBR’s Patrick Heffernan and Boz Hristov share highlights from a November 2018 visit to Texas to hear directly from Atos and Syntel executives on their strategies and expectations for 2019. Boz brings up Atos’ competitors and how the acquisition of Syntel could change the competitive landscape. Patrick discusses what scale will mean for Atos and how a client’s comments during the event demonstrate how critical this Atos-Syntel pairing could be.

 

Check out other videos from TBR by visiting  https://www.youtube.com/user/TBRIChannel.

 

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Services Weekly Preview: December 3-7

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As we wrap up the quarter, just a few key items are left including the four reports listed below, the Management Consulting Benchmark and predictions for 2019.

Here’s what’s coming this week:

Thursday: Our semiannual deep dive on DXC Technology’s healthcare IT services (HITS) practice includes our assessment that DXC’s long-awaited return to HITS growth remains elusive in the face of stubborn post-merger disruptions and poor contract performance. However, we had expected the company’s recent traction in APAC and select European markets would work in concert with rebounding IT spending patterns in the U.S.-based payer sector, the ongoing bull market in life sciences IT investment, and DXC’s acquisition of Molina Medicaid Solutions to launch a period of renewed HITS revenue growth. The report also includes scenarios on DXC’s acquisitions and the company’s activities in the Middle East.

Friday:

  • In our mid-November initial report on Cisco Services, TBR noted that the company sustained growth in 3Q18 by attaching services to Cisco’s growth initiatives around next-generation solutions. Our full report will explore the drivers behind that growth and include scenarios around streamlining headcount in the Customer Experience business, which includes Cisco’s software, subscription and services activities; transforming clients’ IT operations at speed and scale utilizing predictive services powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning; and expanding cloud-related offerings by partnering with Google Cloud, SAP and Amazon Web Services.
  • With SAIC’s earnings release slated for Friday, TBR will be looking to see if the company conformed with our July assessment that SAIC needs to address federal priorities as a low-cost alternative in IT modernization, platform integration and training, as well as expand into underpenetrated areas of the federal market organically and/or through acquisitions.
  • Finally, our semiannual look at NTT DATA’s HITS practice will acknowledge that the 2017 acquisition of Dell Services’ healthcare assets was a major undertaking, but is now complete and has significantly enhanced NTT DATA’s capabilities across multiple healthcare segments. In addition, the report includes scenarios around alliances and virtualization in the healthcare IT space.

AWS shakes up the private cloud infrastructure market with Outposts

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Outposts enable AWS to meet clients’ demand for private cloud

Amazon Web Services (AWS) unveiled at re:Invent in Las Vegas its new Outposts on-premises cloud infrastructure, which will enable AWS to become the sole cloud infrastructure provider for its clients. The underlying Outposts infrastructure closely resembles AWS’ public cloud data center infrastructure. Since the infrastructure will be similar, it is conceivable AWS will be able to tie customers’ public and private clouds together seamlessly, fulfilling customers’ desire to deal with one less vendor for their IT needs. AWS will deliver, install and maintain Outposts for customers.

The sheer volume of AWS public cloud customers creates a large base to sell Outposts to and takes aim directly at private cloud data center providers. Outposts will also directly compete with Microsoft Azure, and will generate accretive hardware revenue for AWS.

An advantage AWS has over infrastructure vendors is economies of scale, which will enable AWS to sell massive infrastructure volumes for low margins — much like an original design manufacturer — and become a price leader against OEMs such as Dell EMC and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). AWS also plans to arm its channel partners with the necessary capabilities to sell these infrastructure solutions, further enabling large sales volume. Moreover, AWS is better equipped than other infrastructure vendors such as Dell EMC and HPE to attach the necessary services to provide connectivity between public and private cloud environments due to its expertise in the public cloud space — and will gain the higher-margin sales to boot. IBM has strong services capabilities but lacks the commoditized infrastructure and customer volume to match AWS’ strategy. TBR notes that pricing details of Outposts have not yet been determined.

VMware gets a piece of the AWS Outpost pie with the VMware Cloud variant

VMware and AWS collaborated to provide VMware Cloud on a variant of AWS Outposts, which will be offered by VMware as a managed service. As this creates a conflict of interest for Dell Technologies, TBR believes Dell Technologies has its sights set on the higher-margin sales generated from VMware Cloud and will forego the loss of lower-margin hardware sales to gain it.

Although AWS’ announcement may seem like bad news for the private cloud infrastructure OEMs, the good news for them is that AWS’ Outposts will not hit the market until 2H19, giving the infrastructure players some time to develop solutions that can compete with AWS as it moves into the data center hardware market.

Digital and Compaq: A cautionary tale for IBM and Red Hat

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Big mergers bring big risks: Compaq and Digital Equipment Corporation, a tragicomedy

Compaq proved in the early 1980s you could buy non-IBM hardware and not get fired in the process by creating a portable PC that could be lugged around by weightlifters. Ultimately, Compaq struggled trying to move up the stack into the peer-to-peer networking space, as Dell and Gateway undercut Compaq’s undercutting of IBM PC price points, and made a big acquisition of Digital Equipment Corporation to buy enterprise server direct sales and services. But culturally, Compaq choked off the very assets the company desired by imposing volume business sales cost controls onto an enterprise-selling organization. In the end Compaq wound up being absorbed by Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP), which has acquired many hardware companies over the years.

What are the lessons learned for IBM-Red Hat?

IBM has decided to invest one-third of its market cap in acquiring Red Hat for $34 billion. Essentially IBM bought the ecosystem engine necessary to create the flywheel effect of IP services and support. There are synergies, to be sure, on the support of open foundations that have accelerated product commoditization in ways that benefit customers and pressure technology vendor business models across the entire technology spectrum. At issue will be which pieces of two different cultures and business best practices prevail, for, as Peter Drucker famously said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”

What can IBM learn?

Red Hat pioneered the business model of monetizing services around free products. This stands diametrically opposed to the best-in-class blue suit selling model made famous by IBM and increasingly less relevant in the digital economy. Red Hat generates 75% of its revenue through the channel. Given that scale matters less, IBM has to improve its downmarket selling motions. Red Hat best practices should be imported into the current IBM selling motions as quickly as reasonably possible.

Red Hat also has near-zealous support among the developer community. Again, allowing Red Hat leadership to help shape new developer programs, run the Red Hat way from the wealth of IBM assets, will be critical lest those supporters migrate to another Linux distro such as Suse or Canonical.

What can Red Hat learn?

IBM has enterprise trust to solve critical technical integration problems soundly and securely. It likewise has access to more CxO decision makers in the enterprise. Success of the proposed acquisition will be as much adding more product to an existing sales channel as it will be to tailor messages to the decision makers while preserving the uniquely ardent support Red Hat has with the teams writing the code.

More to follow from TBR

A more extensive TBR Business of One special report, IBM-Red Hat economic implications: Is disruptive state the new steady state?, will be out shortly, written with Professional Services Practice Manager Patrick Heffernan. Recent commentaries are also available by Cassandra Mooshian, Big Blue opens its arms, and its wallet, to Red Hat; and Michael Soper, Red Hat can save CSPs from themselves.

Cognizant’s 3 new acquisitions enhance digital and global reach

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Cognizant has made seven acquisitions since the beginning of 2017, adding between 2,200 and 2,300 employees and over $500 million in acquired revenue (by TBR estimates). The company’s acquisition spree continued in recent months with three additional purchases. In August Cognizant bought SaaSfocus, a Salesforce consultancy based in Noida, India, with operations in Delhi and Mumbai, India, as well as Sydney and Melbourne, Australia. SaaSfocus has completed over 1,500 Salesforce engagements in India and Australia with clients across the financial services, insurance, manufacturing and automotive sectors, including Audi, Baxter and Holcim. SaaSfocus has also forged strategic integration, application and industry-specific partnerships with companies including Informatica, Jitterbug, MuleSoft, DocuSign and Cloud Lending Solutions. TBR estimates SaaSfocus will add between $3 million and $4 million in new revenue and over 350 employees (about 280 are providing service delivery from India).

In September Cognizant announced the acquisition of Kansas-based Advanced Technology Group (ATG), further expanding its advisory capabilities on the Salesforce platform, specifically around the management and implementation of quote-to-cash (QTC) solutions: configure, price, quote (CPQ) software; multiplatform contract life cycle management and billing; and automating QTC processes. ATG operates delivery facilities in Kansas, Missouri, Ohio and Montana and has IBM, Subaru and CenturyLink on its client roster. We estimate ATG will add between $2 million and $3 million in revenue and about 280 employees to Cognizant after it is fully integrated.

Finally, in early October Cognizant announced it would acquire Austin, Texas-based Softvision. Financial terms were not disclosed, but Cognizant was expected to pay as much as $550 million to acquire Softvision’s 2,800 digital product and design engineers working in 27 studios across 11 countries (though the majority of digital product development will be in North America). TBR estimates Softvision will add between $160 million and $180 million in inorganic revenue to Cognizant beginning in 4Q18.

Cognizant’s latest purchases deepen its digital engineering capabilities, particularly around Salesforce technologies, but short-term margin erosion can be expected as Cognizant integrates its latest buys. Even as enhanced Salesforce competencies position Cognizant as a leading cloud CRM, marketing and platform vendor, integrating three additional employee bases into a workforce already beset by high turnover may exacerbate Cognizant’s struggle to control attrition. Still, Cognizant’s newest acquisitions will further enable the company to fulfill its overarching strategy of driving digital to the core of client enterprises.

TBR continues to view Cognizant as a leader among the India-centric vendors, and the company certainly separates itself from peers with its aggressive acquisitions. Executing on integration remains the key, and TBR will closely watch (and report on) progress.

Services Weekly Preview: November 26-30, 2018

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In this magical time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, despite racing to get as much analysis and as many predictions published before the new year, we’re able to enjoy a slight pause in the usual news cycle and company activity to reflect on 2018 and predict what will be coming in 2019. In two upcoming webinars, we will be looking at many marketwide trends, starting with an assessment of management consulting in the digital transformation age.

 

Here’s what’s coming this week:

Thursday: Last quarter when we looked at DXC Technology, we noted the company’s spike in revenue growth following its formation last year normalized to single-digit growth in 2Q18. The underlying businesses of both legacy CSC and Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s (HPE) Enterprise Services are still experiencing pressures around commoditized legacy services. This quarter TBR will highlight and discuss DXC’s recent M&A activity and its resource management strategy, anticipating similar growth results and performance.

Monday: In our full report on T-Systems for this quarter, we will note that strict execution of efforts to become an efficient organization will sustain the company’s slightly improved performance. New offerings in cloud shift T-Systems’ portfolio away from traditional IT services and increase its opportunities in a segment with growth potential.

Coming in the next few weeks: the Management Consulting Benchmark and 2019 IT Services Predictions.

Services Weekly Preview: November 19-21

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Before we celebrate Thanksgiving on Thursday and recover from all that food on Friday, we will publish some of our periodic analysis of IT services vendors, management consulting profiles, and special reports. Here’s what’s coming:

Monday: TBR’s 3Q18 Booz Allen Hamilton full report will provide analysis on one of the federal market’s most forward-thinking and risk-taking services providers. While peers struggle to cultivate a relevant data science workforce, BAH aims to cement its advantage by leading the charge around data science standardization. Its fast-mover advantage enables BAH to set the rules and challenges competitors to fall in line. Such efforts support scalability of more mature capabilities while BAH continues to evolve by exploring new business models, investing in IP and delving into emerging technologies such as blockchain, artificial intelligence and directed energy.

Wednesday:

  • TBR’s 3Q18 CACI full report examines how a traditional defense-led federal services contractor is adjusting to the incursion of commercial IT best practices into its core market areas. The report analyzes how these market disruptors can work to the advantage of a company like CACI, which is investing in software-defined open architecture systems in high-end defense technologies, such as electronic warfare and signals intelligence, to disrupt traditional military suppliers rooted in old procurement models focused on hardware-defined, proprietary and bespoke solutions.
  • In June we described BCG in our Management Consulting Benchmark as the best-positioned for acceleration among immediate peers, including McKinsey and Bain. Our new profile on the firm furthers that assessment, with a caveat the firm will need to retain talent, especially in emerging technology areas, to remain competitive, particularly with Big Four firms like PwC and EY.
  • Last week in Dallas we heard directly from Atos and the new Atos-Syntel leadership about the strategy and expectations for this multibillion-dollar, North America-centric acquisition. Our special report will detail why we think Atos’ renewed approach to the U.S. market will have a substantial impact on the company’s performance in the near term.

Services Weekly Preview: Nov. 11-16, 2018

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As we build toward the middle of the quarter, we’re wrapping up our periodic assessments of IT services vendors. Like last week, we also have some semiannual analysis on vendors in the management consulting space.

Monday: 

  • KPMG’s risk-averse culture pressured its performance, causing the firm to drop a spot in terms of revenue size among peers in the latest assessment of the management consulting practice. A potential KPMG and Bain marriage, however, could be a way for the firm to catch up with rivals and disrupt the management consulting space.
  • Continued expansion of its onshore presence, including the recent build-out of its co-innovation center in London, improves HCLT’s value proposition by enabling it to work alongside its clients to create larger-scale transformation engagements. However, HCLT faces some challenges in recruiting talent to support new centers, spurring the implementation of employee development programs.

Tuesday: Although Atos will grow revenues at a slower rate in 2018, the expansion of the company’s Digital Transformation Factory portfolio and recently announced acquisition of SIX Payment Services, which is expected to close in 4Q18, will enable the company to accelerate revenue growth in 2019. TBR’s 3Q18 Atos report analyzes the implications from Atos’ ongoing activities, such as the Syntel acquisition and investments artificial intelligence (AI) and security solutions and capabilities.

Wednesday:

  • Senior Analyst Jen Hamel examines EY’s strategy to provide clients with technological enablement of business transformation in her profile on the firm for our Fall 2018 Management Consulting Benchmark. One key takeaway: Increasing its investment in technology-enabled services, including those involving blockchain and AI, by $1 billion over the next two years will improve EY’s competitiveness with solutions-led peers IBM and Accenture.
  • We continue looking for signs Wipro will see improved performance, as its India-centric peers have, to align with its digital transformation strategy and expanded portfolio and capabilities. In this latest assessment, we’re still searching.
  • Capgemini has made changes to its portfolio, organizational structure and sales model to address rising demand from clients’ business side, rather than their technology side. In TBR’s 3Q18 Capgemini report, we will dive deeper into topics such as AI, digital marketing, and Capgemini Invent, the new global business line Capgemini launched in September.
  • In TBR’s 3Q18 Perspecta Initial Response, we will provide an overview of Perspecta’s second quarter as an independent company. Made up of Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s former U.S. Public Sector business, Vencore and KeyPoint Government Solutions, Perspecta faces some challenging financial and resource-related issues as it works to find its footing as a stand-alone company.  

Thursday:

  • TBR’s 3Q18 Raytheon Intelligence, Information & Services (IIS) full report explores how the emerging geopolitical power struggle in space and cyberspace plays to Raytheon’s strengths in cyber hardening, computer network operations, advanced analytics and AI. The report examines how IIS was able to outgrow federal IT services competitors in 3Q18 and how its deep mission knowledge in the U.S. provides a strong foundation as it pursues riskier adjacent market opportunities in volatile markets such as the Middle East.
  • TBR’s 3Q18 Leidos full report examines the company’s first quarter of year-to-year organic revenue growth since it acquired Lockheed Martin’s IT services business in 2016. The report explains Leidos’ positioning across defense, health and civilian markets and how the company is adjusting to disruption amid the federal market’s shift from bespoke proprietary technology development to configurable commercial-off-the-shelf IT solutions.
  • In our 3Q18 results on Wednesday, TBR expects Cisco Services to continue to accelerate revenue growth during the rest of 2018 and in 2019, positively affected by Cisco’s ongoing portfolio investments in and acquisitions around next-generation and software-driven solutions that generate professional services opportunities. TBR expects Cisco’s recent acquisitions and partnerships in cloud, security and networking to generate increased professional and technical support services for Cisco Services during the coming quarters.

Friday:

  • The previous edition of TBR’s Management Consulting Benchmark Profile: PwC described the firm’s efforts to make its Business, Experience, Technology (BXT) framework a companywide endeavor. Six months later, we’ve seen signs the firm’s ambitions around BXT have evolved from aspirational to operational, with global examples of the framework becoming an on-the-ground reality in working with clients.
  • Partners enable Fujitsu to enhance its core services with cloud, software and digital capabilities, helping to ease clients’ transition into emerging areas while offsetting declines from traditional services. However, without expanding its client base outside of Japan, Fujitsu could face challenges in maintaining revenue growth.

Cloud repatriation follow-up: Do you really know the value proposition of cloud?

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A few weeks ago, I blogged my thoughts about cloud repatriation and how it feels like an over-emphasized trend. In my professional analysis amid researching various reports and interacting with data center vendors, one of the key pieces of the cloud repatriation narrative is that customers will move to cloud without a full picture of the costs and ultimately retreat to a more predictable environment. Seems like a reasonable hypothesis, but has this been tested? Also, is cost really the core decision driver?

A recent call with an enterprise IT buyer shone light on this topic, as much of their story about consuming IT didn’t align to the market generalizations. For starters:

  • The buyer is in the healthcare industry but is using cloud services, even migrating some critical applications like ERP to a SaaS-based solution. Generally, it’s thought that the industries with sensitive data will stay away from cloud solutions.
  • The company typically keep $500 million in the bank at any given time, meaning the perceived challenge of capex outlay associated with on-premises solutions isn’t much of an issue to drive it to adopt off-premises cloud solutions.
  • But the real kicker? The customer indicated its cloud-based solutions are at best cost-neutral and sometimes even more expensive than their on-premises counterparts.

This came as a bit of a surprise to me, as these elements are counter to the typical IT industry narrative. If an enterprise is investing in an off-premises solution already knowing they will pay the same or more than an on-premises solution, what’s the point?

Let’s look at this particular customer’s cloud journey. Their first foray into enterprise cloud was, like for many businesses, using Office 365 and products such as Exchange for email. Based on the value seen from this implementation, including reduced management overhead and end-user benefits, they started adopting cloud-based offerings in other areas of the IT stack.

When describing the organization’s process for making decisions around acquiring IT solutions, the buyer described a fairly complex, quantitative strategy for assessing the ROI of any given solution over a three-year period. The assessment includes four facets:

  1. Will it save time? This can include making IT employees more efficient or enabling business unit employees to improve their workflows.
  2. Will it save money? A detailed calculation considers elements like license costs, management overhead and how these will change over the three-year period.
  3. Will it make money? This particular buyer works for an organization that acquires other companies often. The buyer described a scenario where using cloud solutions helped integrate an acquisition target’s data within two weeks and enabled a new product to be launched within a month of the acquisition.
  4. Will it reduce risk? Risk can take many forms, from risk of an IT outage to risk of interrupted operations or compromised IT security.

This is one example from one enterprise, but it illustrates the point that cost is far from the only factor being weighed when making choices about how IT is going to be delivered. Or at the very least, cost is not simply what you pay for a solution; decision makers must consider the many risks and benefits that spider across an organization. A higher fee for an IT solution might be a small price to pay if it increases your time to market by three times or more. Moral of the story: Know what the actual criteria are for your customers’ decision making. You may be failing to sell to their most important buying points. Or, you may be sending the wrong message!

Atos expands reach in North America through the acquisition of Syntel

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On Oct. 9, Atos completed the acquisition of Syntel, adding close to $1 billion in revenues, 89% of which were generated in North America in 2017, as well as over 23,000 employees. This month, TBR analysts will travel to Dallas to hear further details on Atos’ plans with Syntel and further assess what this will mean for Atos and its competitors.

Syntel expands Atos’ transformational capabilities in North America

Syntel provides critical scale for Atos’ Business and Platform Solutions (B&PS) division in North America and enables Atos to expand its digital transformation activities in the region. As Syntel’s revenue is fully driven by B&PS activities, such as in digital, automation and robotics, the acquisition will enable Atos to diversify its revenue in North America, which has been largely reliant on Atos’ Infrastructure and Data Management (IDM) division. Selling Atos’ offerings in cybersecurity, big data and IDM to Syntel’s acquired client base as well as offering Syntel solutions to Atos’ global clients and pursuing large-scale holistic digital transformation projects will drive revenue growth for Atos through 2021.

Syntel’s intelligent automation tools enable Atos to deliver cost-effective solutions to clients

Atos expects to generate $120 million in cost synergies through the acquisition, which, together with the addition of Syntel’s efficient business model, will boost Atos’ profitability. While G&A rationalization, real estate management and procurement will drive cost synergies, the main lever will be the rollout of Syntel’s delivery model for Atos’ large B&PS accounts, which make up $1.3 billion in annual revenues and 36% of B&PS revenue. Notably, Atos plans to adopt Syntel’s delivery model and integrate its processes; tools, such as intelligent automation tools called SyntBots; metrics; and 18,000 employees in India to improve Atos’ cost base and augment B&PS operating margin, which was 7.4% in 1H18.

Atos increases cloud services opportunities

Reinforcing its cloud capabilities through the acquisition of Syntel enables Atos to expand client reach in North America and increase hybrid cloud orchestration activities. Atos has already rebranded Syntel to Atos Syntel, which is now a separate Atos brand, and Syntel’s Cloud Services offerings are being marketed to clients as Atos Syntel Cloud Services. Syntel provides Atos with added expertise from more than 50 cloud projects and cloud services offerings that better enable Atos’ enterprise IT solutions to deliver a “digital backbone” to clients. The Atos Syntel Cloud Services offerings are supported by Syntel’s IP-based accelerators and automation tools such as the SyntBots. TBR expects Atos will work toward a unified cloud services portfolio by integrating Atos Syntel Cloud Services with Atos’ existing cloud capabilities, such as Atos Canopy Orchestrated Hybrid Cloud.

Atos is an expert in integrating acquisitions, such as that of Syntel

Let’s look at Atos’ track record on acquisitions: Following its strategy to add digital technology capabilities and intellectual capital, and augment its position in e-payments, the company acquired seven companies during 2017 and announced three acquisitions in 2018, two of which — Syntel and Air-Lynx have closed — while SIX Payment Services is pending approval. The company has a history of successfully integrating acquisitions, some small and others large, such as Siemens IT Solutions and Services (SIS), which added approximately 28,000 people to Atos in 2011. SIS had experienced lingering revenue declines and low profitability levels; however, during the integration process, Atos was able to restructure SIS so that Atos’ profitability was not negatively affected and improved in the following years. TBR expects Syntel will have an overall positive affect for Atos in terms of client reach; expanded solutions capabilities, especially around digital, cloud and automation; and profitability. Syntel, which had an operating margin of 25% in 2017, driven by efficient and automated processes, will boost Atos’ profitability as Atos adopts Syntel’s model of operations in B&PS.