The KPMG Global Decarbonization Hub supports the organization’s ESG agenda by bringing skills, partnerships, tools, and data and analytics solutions that further enhance KPMG’s advisory-led value proposition.
In mid-February, TBR met with EY-Nottingham Spirk Innovation Hub leaders and learned further details about the goals and operations of the relatively new center. The EY team included Greg Sarafin, EY’s Global Alliance and Ecosystem leader; Jerry Gootee, EY’s Global Advanced Manufacturing Sector leader; and John Nottingham, cofounder and copresident of Nottingham Spirk. Three weeks later, Gil Forer, EY’s Digital and Business Disruption leader; Woody Driggs, EY’s Americas Consulting Digital Transformation wavespace leader; and Shubhra Kathuria, Metaverse, NFT and Foundry Leader at EY wavespace, walked TBR through how EY has been delivering wavespace sessions in the metaverse. On the surface, EY presented approaches with stark contrasts between “not much that can’t be made here” and “mapping a client’s journey to the metaverse.”
Since TBR’s visit to the grand opening of the EY-Nottingham Spirk Innovation Hub in October 2021, the pace of engagements has stayed consistent with EY’s expectations, steadily increasing as the firm’s leadership, technology partners and clients appreciate the potential for taking innovation straight through to commercialization at scale. According to Gootee and Nottingham, many industrial clients have come to the Innovation Hub looking for both a strategy reset and guidance on how to innovate differently. Nottingham said manufacturing clients, in particular, have been “firefighting” through the current market due to supply and demand imbalances and a generally turbulent environment. Even while focused on operational challenges, these clients continue to be interested in looking to the future and understanding emerging opportunities. Gootee reinforced that EY’s role remains convening a value chain that can drive innovation for clients.
Both the EY and Nottingham Spirk professionals remain committed to commercialization at speed and scale, as well as strategies and business model transformations, product innovation and immersion, and the future of technologies and markets. Gootee, in particular, re-emphasized many of the priorities and characteristics described in detail in October. TBR asked specifically about the role of EY-Nottingham Spirk’s technology partners, such as Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) and SAP (NYSE: SAP), which led Gootee to note that ideally three-quarters of the clients coming to the Innovation Hub will be led through by EY, while the remaining quarter will be shepherded by technology partners. In TBR’s analysis, no other IT services vendor or consultancy has a similarly tightly intertwined engagement structure, which allows and even encourages technology vendors to lead clients through this kind of digital transformation and innovation space.
Over the last seven or eight years, TBR has visited more than 30 innovation and transformation centers, soaking in the immersive experiences and trying out the funky chairs. The COVID-19 pandemic forced IT services vendors and consultancies to shift to entirely virtual engagements, and TBR has been predicting an evolution toward hybrid sessions since the start of 2021. Over the last year, TBR has attended some virtual analyst sessions, which included avatars and kind-of-still-beta versions of the metaverse. Just as the EY-Nottingham Spirk Innovation Hub broke new ground in innovation and transformation centers, EY’s wavespace metaverse is breaking new ground in an entirely new space.
In mid-February, TBR met with leaders from PwC’s core Products team for EMEA, including David Padwick, PwC EMEA Consulting chief operating officer; Ralf Jaspert, PwC Germany, Advisory Digital Products leader; and Nele Van Buggenhout, PwC UK Perform Plus Leader, to discuss TBR’s observations, based on multiple interviews with current and former PwC professionals as well as with PwC clients, that PwC Products has not been adopted as enthusiastically across Europe as it has been in the U.S. Not surprisingly, the PwC leaders told a more complete and nuanced story about Products in EMEA, the emerging role of software and managed services sales, and expectations for near-term growth, describing in detail to TBR how the firm expects the next few waves of PwC Products to play out.
Drawing contrasts between PwC US and PwC EMEA, Padwick noted that while PwC EMEA adheres to the firm’s global advisory strategy, at least two differences stand out. First, the PwC brand in the U.S., according to Padwick, is more technology-centric than the PwC brand in Europe, which influences how PwC EMEA consultants tailor their go-to-market messages in the region. Given the technology-centric nature of engagements in the region, combined with a higher volume of services, PwC EMEA’s sales structure has not been able to pivot to support business development through products and solutions. Second, PwC EMEA has focused on developing software assets to expedite the delivery of consulting solutions to clients and has not been designing them specifically to be sold, independent of traditional consulting engagements.
Padwick stressed that PwC EMEA contains “plenty of creativity, even without the scale” of the U.S. and that the various EMEA member firms and professionals have developed a “long list of [software assets] with applicability … and [PwC EMEA is] getting better at prioritizing.” While this initial characterization painted a picture of PwC EMEA trailing the U.S. to a significant degree, Padwick and his colleagues explained that the longer incubation periods and slower sales cycles do not preclude PwC EMEA from having a strong position with Products.
The PwC EMEA team walked TBR through a couple of specific offerings developed organically within the firm’s Europe practices. As far back as 2016, PwC had been working with financial institutions on stress-testing their risk and asset management systems, an effort Jaspert said had been codeveloped with clients, lending the resultant solution greater applicability and credibility in the market. This stress-testing solution as a product was a start and is now one of 47 consulting-centric products that PwC EMEA clients license directly from the firm.
Another solution, as described by Van Buggenhout, started with a 12-week coaching program encompassing a wide array of enterprise activities, such as sales and product development. Urged on by clients, PwC EMEA built a digital solution, Perform Plus, to capture daily performance information and ideas and employee well-being, enhancing clients’ internal teamwork. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated PwC’s efforts behind the Perform Plus platform, which the firm has now deployed with 25 clients across EMEA, as well as the U.S. and Canada. Perform Plus is built on Google Cloud with a standard API that allows integration with other technology enabling it to handle a variety of platforms, including a recent large-scale deployment integrating a client’s daily Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) data.
For TBR, PwC EMEA’s decision to codevelop solutions with clients and let the consulting engagements drive the technology solutions (not the other way around) reflects the global firm’s lessons learned from the last 10 years as emerging technologies have permeated nearly every consulting engagement and clients have come to expect a technology-enabled solution to their business problems. In previous discussions with PwC professionals in Europe, TBR repeatedly heard comments indicating that clients do not perceive PwC to be a software company, but the European clients that have recently purchased PwC Products have become excellent use cases and reliable references for other European clients. The firm’s brand perception may be slow to change, but the quiet reality is that PwC is steadily increasing revenues tied to Products.
In mid-February, TBR met with senior leaders from PwC’s U.S. Cybersecurity, Risk & Regulatory practice, including Vikas Agarwal, the firm’s Financial Crimes Unit leader, and Arlene Laungayan, a director in the firm’s Cyber Risk & Regulatory practice. The PwC team brought TBR up to speed on developments across the firm’s range of offerings, focusing on the Risk Management Portfolio. PwC’s risk management strategy is driven by the firm’s Cyber, Risk & Regulatory leader Sean Joyce and his managing partner John Sabatini under consulting and firm leadership. The following reflects both the mid-February briefing and TBR’s ongoing analysis of PwC within the larger management consulting space.
After setting the stage with an update on organizational changes and a description of some recent client engagements, including timely advice provided to clients on the secondary and tertiary effects of economic sanctions imposed against Russia over the invasion of Ukraine, Agarwal commented that while PwC has collaborated closely with the largest technology vendors, the professional services firm does not aim to “be a tech company.” PwC instead aspires to be “the best knowledge company, well equipped to merge knowledge with technology.”
In the context of risk and regulations, PwC is capable of helping clients understand key issues and challenges, develop meaningful content, and deliver services through a solution. Not surprisingly, Agarwal led the discussion with PwC’s The New Equation, and his description of PwC’s value and how it is delivered dovetailed well with both The New Equation and TBR’s evolving view of PwC as a firm. Risk and compliance may be one of the oldest service lines offered by PwC and its Big Four peers, so successfully pulling technology through to the heart of risk offerings requires balancing speed, efficiency and evolving client expectations for the tried-and-true characteristics of risk and compliance (consider that one of The New Equation’s founding principles, according to PwC, is that “when our better selves and the greatest aspects of technology are brought together, there is no opportunity too great for us to achieve.”).
While internal change continues to drive PwC’s evolution, Agarwal and his colleagues did note the importance of changing client demands, particularly as the total number of chief compliance officers has increased in recent years, particularly within the Fortune 500. CEOs and CFOs, in Agarwal’s telling, have become “sick of chasing the issues” and have looked to chief compliance offices to “solve risks in silos, but [to] tell the story at the top [and to] understand and communicate” to the full enterprise the criticality of risk and compliance to the overall business.
Dealing with multiple people within an organization around risk issues could be a winning strategy in two ways. First, the more people and personas PwC interacts with, the more the firm’s value becomes clear to its clients. Conversely, consulting on risk only with a chief compliance officer and a limited risk team potentially places restrictions on PwC’s overall relationship with the client. Second, maturity, with respect to risk, will vary across an organization, providing an opening for PwC to serve clients with appropriate solutions for their needs. Of course, being able to serve multiple stakeholders within a client and at various maturity levels requires a robust set of risk and compliance offerings.
Less than two weeks into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, TBR’s assessment of the effects on the ICT market remains necessarily constrained. The majority of the largest ICT vendors TBR covers do not have tremendous local market and/or client exposure to Russia or Ukraine, so the impact of the war on ICT companies, if the conflict remains limited to those two countries, will be marginal — not insignificant, but marginal — with some exceptions, such as Ericsson (Nasdaq: ERIC), Nokia (NYSE: NOK) and SAP (NYSE: SAP). Longer term, absent either a miraculously positive or an existentially negative development (peace blooms or mushroom clouds), TBR expects the pressures detailed below will force IT services, cloud and software, data center and infrastructure, and telecom vendors to adjust their strategies and their business models.
Digital transformations slow, opening new opportunities
Already stressed supply chains will experience additional sand in the gears, slowing down deliveries of essential hardware and delaying build-outs of data centers, enterprises’ IT infrastructures, and even the physical towers needed for telecommunications. While IT services vendors and consultancies have sold digital transformation (DT) as a method of addressing business problems through agile application of emerging technologies, enterprises and their technology suppliers need the actual physical components to make the “digital” part of digital transformation work. A slowdown in hardware availability will convert into a slowdown in enabled applications and soon everything around DT will become slower and more expensive.
In this DT winter, consultancies advising on supply chain issues and global systems integrators (GSIs) and their technology partners enabling hybrid cloud while bolstering on-premises enhancements will flourish. Chip manufacturing investors will receive government backing and may find technology vendors across the entire ecosystem willing to make long-term commitments to mitigate the risks they are facing now. In a reversal of fortune from the last few years in IT, third-party maintenance specialists — the very boring techies who are keeping the old systems running while the young geeks play with AI and the metaverse — may see a boom as a constrained chip supply and slowed digital transformations make keeping the current technology operational increasingly important.
Cybersecurity commands center stage (hopefully, for real this time)
In every survey TBR has conducted around IT services and digital transformation, buyers have prioritized cybersecurity as a top three — and frequently No. 1 — concern. And yet, enterprises underinvest and remain vulnerable, humans fail to take precautions and fall prey to ransomware attacks and worse, and cybersecurity remains more talked about than acted upon. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will change that. While pre-invasion predictions anticipated an aggressive Russian cyber campaign, the first week of fighting featured exclusively kinetic military action, with limited, negligible cyber strikes. Analysis conducted in the middle of combat rarely survives intact once the smoke clears, but TBR believes a couple of scenarios could account for Russia’s relative cyber silence. The most encouraging one is that Ukraine’s defenses worked. While NATO, particularly the U.S., shared near-real-time intelligence in the lead-up to the invasion as a means of applying diplomatic pressure and denying Putin a war narrative suited to Russia’s needs, the West and Ukraine would be less likely to share cybersecurity victories in the same way military successes have been touted and with the same divulgence of critical intelligence. A less-encouraging scenario would be that Russia is saving its cyber strikes for an anticipated second stage of the war, when the shooting slows and economic and political wills are tested. Cyberattacks that take critical energy infrastructure offline in Western Europe would be damaging now but would have a greater effect on NATO countries’ populations during a prolonged economic slowdown tied to a standoff in Ukraine. In either scenario, consultancies, GSIs and technology vendors providing cybersecurity services and infrastructure will benefit from renewed concentration in the C-suite on cyber risks, provided those vendors have invested in country-specific, locally sourced, certified talent.
We expect cloud vendors to experience limited financial and operational disruption as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Most cloud and software vendors generate a small percentage of their revenue from the two countries combined and maintain limited direct investment, partly due to Russian business regulations. The larger potential impact, in terms of the cloud market, is a slowdown in adoption and investment. The effects of the invasion on the global economy, COVID-19 recovery, and energy markets are all still uncertain.
During the last prolonged economic downturn in 2008, the cloud market was still very early in its development and still quite a small part of most customers’ IT environments. That challenging economic environment was a boon for cloud adoption, largely due to the cost reduction and capital expense avoidance benefits it could provide to customers. The general perception and value of cloud have evolved since then to be more focused on agility and innovation rather than just cost savings, a change we believe may again benefit the cloud market.
In times of uncertainty, cloud’s ability to help customers change business processes, gain greater insight into data, and ensure IT services are available regardless of geolocation have proved invaluable. While prolonged economic uncertainty could pressure IT budgets, we expect cloud to remain a priority given the value customers have realized especially during challenging times. The cloud space may not directly benefit from this invasion as it did with COVID-19, but we expect its growth will continue.
The most obvious and direct impact of the war is the disruption of revenue streams for cloud vendors with business and footprints in Ukraine and Russia. Especially in Ukraine, business operations have been all but halted as citizens flee, protect their families, and defend their nation from the Russian military.
While the magnitude is not overly significant to most cloud vendors due to the relatively small size of Ukraine in population, economy and overall cloud adoption, certain global vendors, specifically Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), have a sizable presence and generate revenue streams within the country. Microsoft announced a partnership with the Ukrainian government for cloud services and security in 2014 and in 2020 was discussing plans to invest up to $500 million, including two new data centers, to service the Ukrainian market. That investment has not yet come to fruition, but Microsoft’s relationship with the Ukrainian government has intensified as it works to thwart cybersecurity threats arising from the war.
Russia is certainly a larger economy, but also should not lead to material pressures for cloud vendors during the war and its aftermath. As the aggressor, Russia does not face security threats like Ukraine does, but sanctions have wreaked havoc on Russia’s economy. With the ruble plummeting, Moscow Stock Exchange closed, and financial systems facing chaos, the IT and cloud spaces are impacted along with every other industry in Russia. The effects are mitigated by the fact that cloud adoption has been quite low in the country. Europe in general lagged the U.S. in the acceptance and implementation of cloud solutions, and Russia is even farther behind.
According to industry estimates, 5% or less of IT spend in Russia is cloud related, well below worldwide rates in the 25% range, which means that Russia accounts for less than 1% of the total cloud market opportunity. For the U.S.-based cloud leaders, the revenue effects are mitigated even further by the regulatory challenges of competing in the country. Similar to China, Russia’s laws prevent direct operations by foreign firms. Local providers like Yandex, SberCloud and Mail.ru control a majority of the market. Microsoft and Amazon Web Services (AWS) (Nasdaq: AMZN) have partnered with some of these local providers to participate in Russia, but we do not believe those relationships have grown into significant revenue streams. The war will mean cloud revenue will be delayed further for AWS, Microsoft and other leading global cloud providers, and some vendors might opt to shutter their operations in the country.
The 2022 Lumen Global Analyst and Consultant Forum showcased Lumen Technologies’ (NYSE: LUMN) ambition to transform from a traditional telco to a technology company. Lumen’s capabilities in hybrid networking, edge computing, connected security, unified communications and more will help support clients’ transition to a distributed workforce while bolstering Industry 4.0 initiatives across multiple verticals.
“The Platform for Amazing Things” was the central theme of the forum and highlighted Lumen’s strategy of leveraging its vast global network footprint (450,000 global route miles of fiber and over 60 planned global edge computing nodes) and robust enterprise portfolio to serve as an enabler of digital transformation for clients.
Lumen will continue to face challenges such as diminishing demand for its legacy solutions, competition from 5G wireless providers, Comcast Business’ (Nasdaq: CMCSA) growing footing in the midmarket and international markets via its recent Masergy acquisition, and disruption from hyperscalers’ growing pursuit of private network opportunities. However, the vendor will benefit from its willingness to collaborate with the broader technology industry, including with hyperscalers and other telecom operators such as T-Mobile (NasdaqGS: TMUS), as well as its strengthening capabilities in consulting, implementation and managed services as Lumen becomes better versed in supporting IT solutions from a broader array of providers.
Lumen will transition into a leaner and more profitable company over the next several years as it divests nonstrategic assets, including its Latin America business and ILEC (incumbent local exchange carrier) operations in 20 states. The divestments will enable Lumen to increase focus on its Industry 4.0 initiatives. Additionally, they will allow the company to concentrate on its more viable remaining ILEC operations in 16 states, which have higher fiber penetration, population density and enterprise demand than the pending divested markets. The divestments will also enable Lumen to target investments toward growth areas including fiber and enterprise portfolio expansion.
Business services revenue, which is experiencing persistent declines due to lower demand for legacy solutions and elongated sales cycles amid the pandemic, will account for a higher proportion of Lumen’s total revenue following the divestment of the company’s ILEC assets. To improve business services revenue, Lumen will increase investment in strategic IT solutions such as edge computing, security and managed services as clients modernize infrastructure and implement advanced use cases to improve operational efficiency.
Returning to top-line growth is a priority for Lumen, though the company expects revenue will continue to decline in 2022 despite growth in certain strategic services, such as edge computing. Lumen is targeting a return to revenue growth within two years as Industry 4.0 initiatives begin to offset legacy solution declines and Lumen’s consumer segment benefits from the expansion of its residential Quantum Fiber services to reach a total addressable market of 12 million locations over the next several years.
2022 Lumen Global Industry Analyst and Consultant Forum: A select group of industry analysts and consultants were invited to hear from Lumen Technologies leadership about the company’s business, technology and go-to-market strategies and goals. The event included sessions focused on technologies such as edge computing, cloud, SD-WAN and SASE, unified communications, and cybersecurity as well as customer case studies in verticals including manufacturing, the public sector, retail, education, food service and sports.
On Feb. 28, 2022, Tech Mahindra announced the launch of its new practice, TechMVerse, a metaverse-oriented business unit that will focus on developing immersive and digital experiences for clients. According to the company’s press release, the practice will combine Tech Mahindra’s network and IT infrastructure expertise with AI, blockchain, 5G, augmented reality (AR)/VR and quantum computing capabilities to build metaverse use cases, such as DealerVerse (a metaverse-based car dealership), Middlemist (a non-fungible token [NFT] marketplace), Meta Bank (a virtual bank), and a gaming center. While currently at about 100 employees, according to The Economic Times, Tech Mahindra announced that it plans to train 1,000 engineers in the coming years to support the practice’s growth.
Tech Mahindra’s historical strengths as a telecom-oriented IT services firm help guide its future path. Today’s Tech Mahindra was born from a 2013 merger with Mahindra Satyam, which helped the company diversify into new verticals outside of its core telecommunications market, such as banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI). As such, telecom infrastructure, network and IT services are Tech Mahindra’s bread and butter, accounting for approximately 40% of total revenue. And the company has continued to invest in 5G, network and software-defined architecture services, giving Tech Mahindra strong capabilities in the next-gen wireless technology that will help power many of the data-intensive metaverse use cases.
A recent example includes a collaboration with Nokia (NYSE: NOK) that will enable Tech Mahindra to leverage Nokia’s private wireless Digital Automation Cloud solution for customers and support 5G private wireless network automation and management through an “as a Service” model. Verizon’s (NYSE: VZ) “H1DD3N” AR/VR treasure hunt in September 2021 to promote its 5G network across several large U.S. markets and Apple’s (Nasdaq: AAPL) new iPhone lineup reflects 5G’s role in supporting metaverse use cases, and Tech Mahindra’s 5G private wireless network capabilities can make similar events and 5G speeds possible for its enterprise clients.
Two components of Tech Mahindra’s investments related to the metaverse stand out to TBR, particularly around NFTs and gaming. As blockchain data and analysis firm Chainalysis stated in its 2021 NFT market report, “In 2021, users have sent at least $44.2 billion worth of cryptocurrency to … two types of Ethereum smart contracts associated with NFT marketplaces and collections.” Tech Mahindra is aiming to capitalize on the commercialization of new products related to this NFT spending. Specifically, the company plans to offer digital and professional experience services around design and content through TechMVerse and will also offer low-code NFT and blockchain platforms for enterprise clients.
We see this as a key opportunity for Tech Mahindra, as organizations increasingly devote resources to exploring the connection between NFTs and the metaverse — such as JPMorgan’s Onyx Lounge in Decentraland, where one can buy virtual land with NFTs — yet may lack the required IT infrastructure, skills or impetus to build their own use cases from scratch. Tech Mahindra is also planning to collaborate with Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. to offer digital collectibles that will be listed and offered for sale through Tech Mahindra’s NFT Marketplace platform.
At the same time, the gaming industry is arguably the pioneer of the metaverse. From The Sims to Fortnite, consumers continue to spend real dollars on virtual things in virtual worlds. Hence, the metaverse is not a new concept, rather one that has already been quietly and successfully adopted by gaming companies, as new data from the Entertainment Software Association found that spending on gaming content reached $51.7 billion in 2021. While noting that it plans to develop use cases, Tech Mahindra also announced it is launching a new Cloud Gaming as a Service solution for telecommunications, cable and OEM companies in partnership with Ludium Labs, a firm that offers cloud adoption and interactive streaming of applications.
According to the press release, the 5G-powered, low-latency gaming solution will have a library of 150-plus AAA games stored in the cloud and will help these firms improve their customers’ access to compute-intensive games on any device, thereby eliminating the need for consoles and high-speed internet. The service mirrors Microsoft’s efforts to transform the gaming industry by bringing in subscription-based business models with the 3Q20 launch of Project xCloud.
According to TBR’s 4Q21 Microsoft Cloud report: “While Project xCloud — now called Xbox Cloud Gaming — was not the first subscription-based gaming service to be offered in the industry, TBR felt at the time of the launch that Microsoft’s ability to differentiate would be supported by the company’s expertise in operating subscription-based businesses and guide its gaming go-to-market efforts.” Tech Mahindra’s Cloud Gaming as a Service solution can open up similar opportunities to its core communications client base and enable telecom companies, cable companies and OEMs to compete with gaming incumbents, further expanding Tech Mahindra’s addressable market in the metaverse.
In February 2022 TBR spoke with Logicalis Group Chief Operating Officer Michael Chanter and Chief Technology Officer Toby Alock for an update on the company’s strategy as well as an overview of the company’s new Global Services Organization (GSO), including its solutions portfolio and road map. The conversation, which contained specific details on strategy, was a continuation of the journey Logicalis embarked on nearly two years ago when it appointed Bob Bailkoski as CEO.
In TBR’s special report Know-your-tech strategy could be invaluable as Logicalis aims to disrupt peers in cloud managed services, we wrote, “Logicalis’ efforts to optimize its legacy operations while doubling down on key growth areas such as cloud will largely depend on the company’s ability to develop integrated scale to ensure standardized service delivery.” The launch of Logicalis’ GSO highlighted these efforts and marked a new stage in the company’s ability to deploy practical solutions that build a foundation of trust with partners, employees and clients.
Logicalis Group’s executives understand the need to develop an ever-evolving strategy that allows the company to stay abreast of market trends. Pivoting from historically employing a regional focus to now building outcome-based solutions that are global in nature paves the way for Logicalis to build scale. Ensuring internal organizational silos are removed will be key, as clients expect vendors to deliver services locally through globally integrated operations.
At the same time, Logicalis realizes the importance of nurturing local relationships, ensuring its consultants and professional services organization continue to operate as close to the customer as possible. Developing a “modern managed services organization,” as Chanter describes the company’s transformation, is not an easy task, especially when executed at scale.
Accounting for the permeation of automation to drive efficiency and fine-tuning operations and business models to facilitate cloud-enabled sales, service delivery and support are among the key pillars of GSO. Continuing to provide existing clients with support also enables GSO to secure foundational revenues and maintain relevance, as often clients take time to move to the next phase of their digital transformation (DT) programs.
When TBR asked about the change management that typically comes with such evolution, especially due to the increased use of automation in service delivery, Chanter provided a strong use case for how the company is handling it. Starting with the appointment of an executive dedicated to overseeing transformation, the main focus then has been teaching staff how to be agile while also considering new compensation models in connection with cloud-enabled service delivery.
Providing support to external clients has been enabled by a three-part framework: Align, Transform, Scale. Logicalis first assesses where clients are in their DT journey compared to their desired outcome. The company then maps out the kind of support it can provide at different points in the journey, relying on its professional services organization to feed regional market nuances. With sales teams trained and certified before going to market, Logicalis also tries to align and close the feedback loop with staff at the Centers of Excellence (CoEs), which are typically responsible for the development and management of global solutions.
As Logicalis Group aims to increase its share of the managed services market, we believe the company will continue to work toward striking the right balance between developing automation-enabled services P&L and achieving integrated scale. Previously, TBR wrote, “Logicalis has begun to identify areas across geos, industry verticals and horizontal areas that can support its goal of expanding share of highly profitable ‘as a Service’ managed service sales, which currently garner about 25% of its global revenues. … As Logicalis works out the details around managing its partner ecosystem, Bailkoski and [Chief Customer Experience and Service Transformation Officer Vincent] DeLuca are also increasing the company’s investments in internal portfolio offerings that will not simply standardize global service delivery but also pave the way for an innovative approach to engaging with clients. Launched in June, we believe Logicalis’ AI-enabled Digital Service Platform (DSP) will be the center node of Logicalis’ solutions and services ecosystem, similar to how iTunes has helped Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) build a community of die-hard brand followers.”
Logicalis is on the right path to achieving its managed services goals, but like many of its peers, it needs to partner better and differently than it has in the past, especially as buyer expectations around managing partner ecosystems also evolve. Meanwhile, expanding its global footprint, similar to opening an engineering center in Portugal to house about 200 employees in support of the Agile, Transform, Scale framework, will continue to bolster Logicalis’ resource bench for building and delivering solutions at scale as clients seek support around migrating and transforming operations. Chanter noted that the new Portugal facility will “help transform clients quickly and help Logicalis transform.” TBR notes this dual-track approach has proved successful for other IT services vendors undergoing their own digital transformations.
Average revenue growth for vendors in TBR’s Cloud Components Benchmark increased 12.6% year-to-year in 3Q21, partly due to a favorable year-ago compare considering the economic impacts of COVID-19 in mid-2020. Further, with many vendors operating transactional-heavy business models, rebounding demand for license products supported revenue growth during the quarter, especially for software-centric vendors like Microsoft and VMware. COVID-19 is causing customers to reevaluate their digital transformation plans; this may include migrating completely to a cloud environment, which will erode opportunities for some vendors while others will expand their existing data center investments through solutions like hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI).
According to TBR’s 2H21 Cloud Infrastructure & Platforms Customer Research, 42% of respondents plan to keep most of their workloads inside the data center over the next three years. As COVID-19 accelerates customers’ cloud migration timelines, many enterprises turn to self-built private cloud environments as an intermediary step to a fully managed vendor-hosted private or public cloud model.
Further, many larger, established enterprises are looking to protect their existing investments in IT and find that their own data centers are a better fit for certain workloads, particularly those with stringent security or latency requirements. These customer trends present opportunities for hardware-centric vendors such as Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Dell EMC to capitalize on demand for cloud-like consumption services on premises in the coming years.
Many self-built private cloud customers adopt HCI solutions to modernize their legacy systems and consolidate their overall data center footprint, a trend brought on by cloud migrations and exacerbated by the pandemic. Colocation is emerging as a notable alternative to privately owned data centers in this model, as customers are offered a secure landing spot for their hardware while providing high proximity to major public cloud platforms. Recognizing this trend, OEMs are partnering with colocation providers to offer central management and governance capabilities that facilitate customers’ workloads.
The cloud components market is consolidating around select vendors, such as Microsoft and VMware, specifically in the virtualization space. However, on the hardware side, vendors are emphasizing their consumption-based pricing offerings, seeking differentiation by taking a workload-by-workload approach. While in general IBM has been lacking in consumption-based hardware, the company is expanding its investments in the area, evidenced by the release of the company’s Tailor Fit Pricing solution for hardware consumption, which applies a pay-as-you-go model to a highly scalable, premium solution like IBM Z.
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