digital business – solutions · and the insurance industry are responsible for about two thirds...

January 2020

A research report comparing provider strengths, challenges and competitive differentiators

QuadrantReport

Digital Business – Solutions and Service PartnersGermany 2019-20

Section Name

22© 2020 Information Services Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

ISG Provider Lens™ delivers leading-edge and actionable research studies, reports

and consulting services focused on technology and service providers’ strengths and

weaknesses and how they are positioned relative to their peers in the market. These

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ISG Provider Lens™ Quadrant Report | January 2020

Information Services Group, Inc. is solely responsible for the content of this report.

Unless otherwise cited, all content, including illustrations, research, conclusions,

assertions and positions contained in this report were developed by and are the sole

property of Information Services Group, Inc.

The research and analysis presented in this report includes research from the ISG

Provider Lens™ program, ongoing ISG Research programs, interviews with ISG advisors,

briefings with services providers and analysis of publicly available market information

from multiple sources. The data collected for this report represents information that

ISG believes to be current as of July 3, 2019 – Aug 19, 2019 for providers who actively

participated as well as for providers who did not. ISG recognizes that many mergers

and acquisitions have taken place since that time, but those changes are not reflected

in this report.

The lead author for this report is Heiko Henkes. The editors are Ambrosia Sabrina and

Grant Gross. The research analyst is Monica K and the data analyst is Vishal Kulkarni.

About this Report

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© 2020 Information Services Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior permission is strictly prohibited. Information contained in this report is based on the best available and reliable resources. Opinions expressed in this report reflect ISG’s judgment at the time of this report and are subject to change without notice. ISG has no liability for omissions, errors or completeness of information in this report. ISG Research™ and ISG Provider Lens™ are trademarks of Information Services Group, Inc.

1 Executive Summary

4 Introduction

14 Customer Journey Services

25 Digital Product Lifecycle Services

41 Digital Backbone Managed Services

59 Blockchain Services

69 Methodology

Section Name

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Executive SummaryExecutive SummaryDigital Customer JourneyThe market and thus the client companies grant full-service IT providers a greater opportunity in current contracts than is the case for more specialized agencies or boutiques. This could be due to the fact that boutiques often lack knowledge about important related topics of the customer journey. This includes, for example, cloud, IoT, analytics machine learning and AI competencies and the future workplace, which is also disrupted by the need to work quickly or in agile manner and close to the customer.

Vendors offer digital consulting, business model development, organizational consulting, data analytics, process optimization, system integration and change management. Expertise in data analytics, data sciences and thus, ML/AI is extremely important.

Data becomes information that enables a better personification for the application and creation of personas or for the adaptation of stereotypes. Some journeys can benefit so much from this that services are designed “on the fly” and, of course, have situational prices. This innovation, allowing mass data to be evaluated intelligently, provides options for personalization without having to process personal data. This also helps to work in compliance with GDPR and to comply with the regulations of various industries.

Customer experience is currently the sub-topic within the customer journey with which digital consulting units are entering the market; it is almost a “buzzword.” Basically, it is the creation of a positive customer experience that is as sustainable as possible, which is always accompanied by emotional ties between the user and a product or the company. All digital registers are used for this purpose. Data collected at so-called touchpoints is particularly important here in order to ensure dynamic pricing within digital marketing automation.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

CEOs and chief digital officers must understand that artificial intelligence, the internet of things, blockchain, open source and workplace experience (automation and collaboration) have a high influence on agility, costs and productivity increases. The public cloud has long been in the minds of decision makers and its benefits are beyond dispute.

In addition, companies of all kinds are more or less compelled to become software companies and hire developers or train employees to become developers, or to bring down the boundaries between development and applications, to bring developers into DevOps mode and to cooperate more closely with users. End users and employees are therefore well advised to think like developers and need to look for ways to create and implement digital solutions quickly and without programming skills, using low-code platforms.

Digital services are hosted in the backbone and increasingly developed in digital or virtual test labs — sometimes fully automatically — and tracked using internal or external sensors or compatible touchpoints during delivery and use (after sales) to identify preferences and dislikes in real-time. Mass data analyses and sophisticated or self-learning algorithms increasingly enable personalization of customer journeys or products and services without collecting real personal data. New mass data is created, the synthetic data.

© 2020 Information Services Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.



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ISG Provider Lens™ Quadrant Report | Juni 2019


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ISG Provider Lens™ Quadrant Report | January 2020 Executive Summary

Digital Product Lifecycle ManagementDigital transformation allows the entire market, functions and sectors to grow together further and accelerates decision-making processes as well as their implementation. Processes must become more dynamic, both in terms of content and convenience, and primarily in terms of experience, resulting in smarter and ultimately end-user-centric products/services. Rigid and non-personalized products/services are increasingly noticed and are being replaced by new ones by the customer. For companies, rigid products result in stagnating, and ultimately, falling sales.

Companies concentrated on digitization and customer focus can expect a 20 percent increase in efficiency during development, a 15 percent reduction in time-to-market and a 10 percent reduction in costs in terms of product/service development and thus can ensure that they stay in the market and do not lose touch.

However, all this requires a major change which, depending on the level of maturity of the company and, above all, the knowledge of the employees, can take time and costs that professional service providers can drastically reduce. They support customers to get into the necessary mode to enable co-creation, process simulation, data analytics/AI, prototyping/agile development/digital twins and, of course, social listening.

An agile, product-driven IT operation and, above all, a business model that integrates DevOps, lean development and automation into the DNA of a continuous provision of business software, is necessary for a “continuous everything” mentality. The customer and partner-oriented flow of data and information is the overriding step and more than an

accelerator on the way to an optimized user experience. Becoming a data-centric company and ensuring information flow within and outside the company has long since become decisive for the success of IT-based products, services and ultimately business models.

In order to become successful in the field of digital product lifecycle management, service providers should have as many skills as possible. This also includes the request on the customer end to have a partner at their side that can operate the digital backbone. IT providers must increasingly become partners and prepare companies above all for cross-border data exchange within and outside the company. This also means that IT providers must be willing to take risks and not leave customers alone with all the risks. Contracts in DevOps mode with story point-based contract terms nearly require and encourage such collaboration. Compliance guidelines and the mindset prevent such collaboration in most cases. Thus, the customer’s buying center must improve further, just as providers need to further improve their offerings. In addition, service providers are required to incorporate function-oriented processing of requirements in the organization for customers. A cross-departmental, central product lifecycle management-oriented data lab with a digital backbone that is often based on a public cloud is therefore an imperative and the key to success. Process management and the immensely important collaboration with departmental stakeholders, partners and, above all, customers are further disciplines in which client companies must address transparency, quality and sustainability over the entire product lifecycle. Active change management is indispensable in this case, since client companies usually stumble over the requirements of the specialist areas and their diverse data exchange in the area of internal collaboration, thus slowing down the DevOps mode and the resulting agility.

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33

Executive Summary

Digital Backbone ServicesIT services or managed services, hosting, colocation and ultimately IT outsourcing are important markets worth billions of euros. The market for managed hosting in Germany represents approximately 10 percent of total IT expenses, which is equivalent to about 125 billion euros and continues to grow slowly at a high level of 2 to 3 percent per year. The situation is similar with outsourcing services, which continue to be in demand despite the trend towards “as-a-service.”

Hybrid cloud readiness includes not only a close VMware or Microsoft partnership in on-premise or private-cloud area, but also a close partnership with the three most important public cloud providers, AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform (GCP ) as well as with the Chinese service provider Alibaba. Public cloud providers are charac-terized by their eagerness to work on dedicated hardware and software partnerships for the integration of enterprise environments or private and hybrid clouds. More and more often, related topics such as IoT and thus edge computing play a role here.

The range of services includes security, governance, monitoring, storage, networking as well as container lifecycle management and container orchestration. Service providers can differentiate themselves by certifications, for example, Kubernetes, and by DevOps or DevSecOps expertise and the application portfolio. This now also includes IT or container management or app lifecycle management and therefore continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) for the necessary agility and innovation or release capability.

Blockchain ServicesIf you look through the hype and focus on the essentials, blockchain is a technology that will change society and the economy and will lead to radically opening up new revenue sources in three to five years from simplifying the digital business . On average, the number of active customers for blockchain service providers has almost tripled in the last 12 months. Examples from the economy show that banks, financial service providers and the insurance industry are responsible for about two thirds of the revenues from blockchain services and are therefore among the pioneers. In finance, for example, there are areas such as trade financing, foreign exchange, capital market securitization, OTC trading, digital mortgage approval, “electronic know your customer” (eKYC) for identification, due diligence and, last but not least, risk assessment procedures that are used in connection with blockchain.

But the insurance sector is also aware of the added value. Some interesting and currently tested use cases are the automated payment of loss, usage-dependent insurance, funeral insurance, flight insurance and many other cases, such as insurance brokers and networks that make use of automated authentication. The use in the retail sector is about counterfeit management, loyalty management, digital provenance, the digital identity of consumer and warranty management. In manufacturing, projects in the areas of returns authorization, asset tracking and traceability, logistics management, invoice matching, supplier contract management, fraud management and catalog and inventory management are very popular.

Service providers should be members of a blockchain consortium in order to know the latest trends and be able to advise customers adequately. This goes hand in hand with consulting expertise to develop sustainable blockchain solutions. Customers also value use cases and examples of POCs that have already been created and tested or even implemented, as well as experts who not only advise, but also manage the transfer of existing business and can ultimately operate the solution.

44

Introduction



Introduction

Definition Digital technologies now cover all aspects of traditional companies.

Using information technology to change the customer journey, improve business agility

or provide digital products leads to a disruptive digital “revolution” across all business

processes, including sales, retail, production, supply chain, product design and human

resource management.

Corporate agility involves much more than software development; it also involves

the question of how companies can adapt business, development and operational

processes to survive and succeed in a constantly changing competitive landscape and customer

requirements. This adaptation and the speed with which it takes place are relevant to increase the

company value.

This year, ISG has introduced the ISG Digital Cube™, an interactive model of business functions

required for digital transformation. The ISG Digital Cube highlights the six capabilities that every

company must have to fully realize its digital ambitions: digital backbone, new technologies on

demand, agility, digital ecosystems, insights and business model innovations.


Definition (cont.)

ISG Digital Cube™ will be ISG’s most important reference model for supporting

customer’s digital transformation initiatives in the future. This ISG Provider Lens™

study focuses on identification of service providers, who can support customers in

the implementation of these digital options.

Such service providers understand the full range of digital services and can

constantly deliver innovations that improve user-friendliness, accelerate business

performance and integrate intelligent solutions. They work with leading technology

service providers and can formulate the use of cognitive computing and learning

systems to digitalize any customer organization.

Introduction

The ISG Provider Lens™ study offers the following advantages to IT decision-makers:

� Transparent presentation of the strengths and weaknesses of relevant service providers;

� Differentiated positioning of the service provider according to the segments;

� Focusing on various markets, including the U.S., Great Britain, Germany, Brazil and Scandinavia.



Definition (cont.)

The 2019-20 Digital Business Solutions & Service Partners report

is designed to assist buyers in reviewing their digital business

strategy and selecting solutions and service providers. Enterprise

customers will also benefit from the study since it is based on ISG’s

extensive experience as a sourcing contract consultant worldwide,

ISG’s knowledge and information from relevant contract databases,

regional market research and expertise in technological ecosystems

and innovation.

Introduction

Scope of the Report


Simplified illustration

Digital Business – Solutions and Service Partners

Customer Journey Services

Digital Product

Lifecycle Services

Digital Backbone Managed Services

Blockchain Services

Source: ISG 2019


Introduction

The ISG Provider Lens™ quadrants were created using an evaluation matrix containing four segments, where the providers are positioned accordingly.

Leader

The “leaders” among the vendors/

providers have a highly attractive

product and service offering and a

very strong market and competitive

position; they fulfill all requirements

for successful market cultivation.

They can be regarded as opinion

leaders, providing strategic

impulses to the market. They also

ensure innovative strength

and stability.

Product Challenger

The “product challengers” offer a

product and service portfolio that

provides an above-average cover-

age of corporate requirements, but

are not able to provide the same

resources and strengths as the

leaders regarding the individual

market cultivation categories. Often,

this is due to the respective vendor’s

size or their weak footprint within

the respective target segment.

Market Challenger

“Market challengers” are also

very competitive, but there is still

significant portfolio potential and

they clearly lag behind the “leaders.”

Often, the market challengers

are established vendors that

are somewhat slow to address

new trends, due to their size and

company structure, and have

therefore still some potential to

optimize their portfolio and increase

their attractiveness.

Contender

“Contenders” are still lacking mature

products and services or sufficient

depth and breadth of their offering,

while also showing some strengths

and improvement potentials in their

market cultivation efforts. These

vendors are often generalists or

niche players.

Provider Classifications


88

Introduction

Rising Star

Rising stars are mostly product challengers with high future potential. When receiving the “rising stars” award, such companies have a promis-ing portfolio, including the required roadmap and an adequate focus on key market trends and customer requirements. Also, the “rising stars” has an excellent management and understanding of the local market. This award is only given to vendors or service providers that have made extreme progress towards their goals within the last 12 months and are on a good way to reach the leader quadrant within the next 12-24 months, due to their above-average impact and innovative strength.

Each ISG Provider Lens™ quadrant may include a service provider(s) who ISG believes has a strong potential to move into the leader’s quadrant.

Provider Classifications (cont.)

Not In

This service provider or vendor was not included in this quadrant as ISG could not obtain enough information to position them. This omission does not imply that the service provider or vendor does not provide this service.



99

Introduction


Digital Business – Solutions and Service Partners - Quadrant Provider Listing 1 of 4


Customer Journey Services Digital Product Lifecycle Services

Digital Backbone Managed Services Blockchain Services

Accenture 4 Leader 4 Leader 4 Leader 4 Leader

Arvato Systems 4 Contender 4 Not In 4 Leader 4 Not In

Atos 4 Leader 4 Leader 4 Leader 4 Leader

Axians 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Leader 4 Not In

BCG 4 Market Challenger 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Not In

Bearing Point 4 Not In 4 Market Challenger 4 Not In 4 Not In

Bechtle 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Market Challenger 4 Not In

BT 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Contender 4 Not In

CANCOM 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Leader 4 Not In

Capgemini 4 Leader 4 Leader 4 Leader 4 Market Challenger

CenturyLink 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Contender 4 Not In

CGI 4 Leader 4 Not In 4 Market Challenger 4 Not In

Cocus 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Contender

codecentric 4 Not In 4 Contender 4 Not In 4 Not In

1010

Introduction






Cognizant 4 Product Challenger 4 Leader 4 Product Challenger 4 Leader

Computacenter 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Product Challenger 4 Not In

Deloitte 4 Not In 4 Leader 4 Not In 4 Contender

Deloitte Digital 4 Market Challenger 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Not In

Deutsche Telekom BCSC 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Leader

Devoteam 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Market Challenger 4 Not In

doubeSlash 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Contender

DXC 4 Leader 4 Leader 4 Leader 4 Contender

ec4u 4 Rising Star 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Not In

eccelerate 4 Not In 4 Contender 4 Not In 4 Not In

EY 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Market Challenger

Fujitsu 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Leader 4 Not In

HCL 4 Not In 4 Contender 4 Contender 4 Product Challenger

Hexaware 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Not In


1111


IntroductionISG Provider Lens™ Quadrant Report | January 2020



IBM 4 Leader 4 Leader 4 Leader 4 Leader

Infosys 4 Product Challenger 4 Rising Star 4 Product Challenger 4 Leader

KPMG 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Market Challenger

LTI 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Product Challenger

MaibornWolff 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Rising Star

Mindtree 4 Contender 4 Contender 4 Not In 4 Product Challenger

Mphasis 4 Product Challenger 4 Product Challenger 4 Not In 4 Product Challenger

MUUUH! 4 Contender 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Not In

NTT 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Product Challenger 4 Product Challenger

PIA (UDG) 4 Market Challenger 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Not In

Plusserver 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Market Challenger 4 Not In

Publicis Sapient 4 Leader 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Not In

PWC 4 Not In 4 Leader 4 Not In 4 Not In

QSC 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Product Challenger 4 Not In


1212


IntroductionISG Provider Lens™ Quadrant Report | January 2020



Reply 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Rising Star 4 Contender

SAP 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Not In

Softtek 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Not In

Sopra Steria 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Contender

TCS 4 Contender 4 Product Challenger 4 Product Challenger 4 Not In

Tech Mahindra 4 Contender 4 Leader 4 Contender 4 Product Challenger

Tieto 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Contender 4 Not In

T-Systems 4 Product Challenger 4 Not In 4 Leader 4 Not In

Unisys 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Contender 4 Not In

Valtech 4 Product Challenger 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Not In

Vodafone 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Contender 4 Not In

Wipro 4 Not In 4 Product Challenger 4 Product Challenger 4 Product Challenger

Zauberware 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Contender

Zensar 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Not In 4 Contender

Digital Business – Solutions and Service Partners Quadrants


1414

CUSTOMER JOURNEY SERVICES

The customer journey services quadrant evaluates the portfolio and

capabilities of service providers to contribute to their customers’

business model innovation and to enable companies to differentiate

themselves in today’s digital economy.

Through customer journey design, companies are radically changing the

organization of their marketing, sales, delivery and post-sales processes,

including all customer-related business processes. This is a customer-

centric approach.

The customer journey differentiates digital companies from their

competitors. New customer journeys create new business models and

require new technological and business ecosystems.

The customer journey design revolves around how an ideal customer

(or persona) interacts with a product and a brand. The design process

involves technology experts, sales and marketing, designers and

customers in a collaborative process. Methodologies such as design

Definition




Definition (cont) Eligibility Criteria

thinking and lean development are often used. Leading companies use

analytics to obtain insights from user data. Cognitive computing is used

to pull data from conversations, texts and social media. The experience

is measured based on simple A/B tests as well as complex sentiment

analyses from customer interactions.

Customer journey is not a project or an event. Daily monitoring and

measurement of the customer experience changes the journey,

underlying technology and business processes. The customer journey

team continuously changes digital businesses, delivers business model

innovations and enables businesses to differentiate themselves from

the competition in today’s digital economy.

� Included are consulting companies, service providers and digital agencies with a focus on user

experience, who develop apps, products and services based on an omni-channel approach.

� Participating service providers use design thinking or similar methodologies to involve the customer in

the design of products and services.

� The provider offers services with local expertise in the respective region or country.




1616


Observations � Accenture is a leader in the design and implementation of trend-

setting customer journeys and all related facets of organizational

development, branding, marketing and technology skills.

� Atos is a leader that attracts customers with the CX Lab and

collaborative prototyping approaches as well as a human-centric and

AI philosophy and high technical expertise.

� Capgemini Invent is a state-of-the-art creative agency as well as

an IT technology specialist and strategy consultant with extensive

industry knowledge and an impressive customer engagement

portfolio, which is led and lived by an interdisciplinary and

complementary team.

� CGI is a global leader that can operate clever multi-data

management, that scales globally and at the same time, brings along

in-depth local industry expertise to an individual customer journey.

� DXC Technology is a leading customer experience and customer journey technology and strategy

specialist for the conception and management of digital customer dialogue platforms and offers

comprehensive consulting services as well as applications and use cases that customers can experience

at the Digital Transformation Center (DTC) in Germany.

� EC4u is a rising star with an extremely attractive portfolio based on many years of expertise in sales

and marketing support that has been enhanced in the right places, for example, by business intelli-

gence specialists and partnerships in the areas of cloud CRM, cloud marketing and data analytics tools/

platforms.

� IBM is both a creative IT consultant and an agency and is one of the leaders, since it has design thinking

in its DNA and also has one of the strongest portfolios and many exciting reference customers.

� Publicis Sapient is a leading consulting company in customer journey for problem solving strategies,

outstanding partnerships and the ability to merge design and technology.




1717

ACCENTURE


CautionAccenture constantly integrates new and agile agencies in marketing and customer experience. As a result, these formerly independent companies can no longer move and develop as freely and agilely as they did before the acquisition. Although a clean integration leads to the development of a harmonized portfolio and synchronization with the market and customers, the boutique nature of these customer experience innovation centers could be inhibited in the long run. The outwardly portrayed independence of some of the subsidiary agencies in turn means that not all reference customers and stories within the large Accenture network can be assigned to Accenture.

Accenture is a globally operating, independent full-service provider based in Dublin. Accenture employs 459,000 people and in 2018 generated sales of $39.6 billion. Its range of services includes strategy, consulting and integration services for various IT services, platforms and technologies. In Germany, SinnerSchrader is part of “Accenture Interactive,” the digital agency of Accenture, with offices in Berlin, Frankfurt/Main, Hamburg and Munich as well as an office in Prague. Accenture itself operates 30 design studios and competence centers worldwide, as well as innovation centers, labs and venture capital initiatives to evaluate digital technologies and collaborate with customers on relevant application scenarios. In this context, Accenture offers marketing strategies, campaign and content management as well as service design.

Overview

StrengthsDedicated contact points for customer experience: The customer experience center opened in Stuttgart by subsidiary Mackevision impressively demonstrates the commitment Accenture has for digital customer journey. Customers experience a perfect interaction of digital content, physical product examples and new product solutions. They experience state-of-the-art technologies and new ways of customer interaction in digital and mixed reality, a promising market segment for almost every customer journey that hardly any other competitor can address so well. Here, Accenture is setting up a sustainable USP .

Combined expertise: As part of the digital customer journey, Accenture combines existing organizational development skills with the branding and marketing technology skills of its subsidiary SinnerSchrader. SinnerSchrader also contributes its own implementation expertise for the digital customer journey, which is supported by highly interesting and very innovative references.

End-to-end service spectrum: Accenture is a true strategist in dealing with customers by always first analyzing the current situation in order to include and transfer existing processes and applications. In addition, ideas are prioritized and provided with financial resources according to the evaluation. Primarily, Accenture helps customers to place new products or services sustainably in the market and to generate awareness.

Accenture effortlessly deals with current and future trends in the market and always provides customers

with a competitive advantage thanks to first-class customer experience expertise.

2020 ISG Provider Lens™ Leader



1818

ATOS

Atos supports many major brands in their customer journey and stands out with regard to the customer experience and the customer journey in almost all

areas of consulting and implementation.

CautionAlthough Atos invests tens of millions in customer experience, it does not appear to have a dedicated customer experience (CX) unit. In fact, dedicated experts for customer journey services work in various business divisions of Atos, which could limit the effectiveness of CX services and customers can hardly be advised in the context of the often-changing mindset far away from the technology. The image of the boutique or digital agency, which customers often look for in the sourcing process, is completely missing at Atos. Strategic acquisitions could accelerate here.

Atos is a France-based and globally active IT service provider of digital services that aims to strengthen its customer focus through a reinforced vertical go-to-market approach. Atos employs 120,000 people in 73 countries and generated revenues of €12.3 billion in 2018, of which €2.1 billion were generated in Germany. In the branding and brand management services area, Atos does not provide its own services, but relies on partners to meet specific customer requirements.

Overview

StrengthsIterative approaches: In the CX Lab, Atos relies on a modern prototyping of the customer journey in order to intensify collaboration with customers and other stakeholders. The concept follows the three elements define, design and deliver in order to include the right data in the analysis, to integrate new ideas into existing and new designs of prototypes and to map the important testing including the necessary integration for the go live. Atos covers the following paths: strategy definition (StratHacks), self-assessment (positioning) or added value generation (value creation) as well as hackathons, vision alignment and even technical and DevOps workshops or blueprinting support.

Human-centered AI pillar: Atos is a technology specialist that is well versed with databases, automation, data intelligence and cybersecurity in order to provide customers with top-class advice on their digital crown jewels. Atos contributes first-class knowledge to the partnership in order to design, store, integrate, read out and secure any data-related task for the optimization of the customer journey or for the use of any arising data.

Atos innovation center: As a platform specialist, Atos relies on well-known research tools, software and cloud partnerships and assets such as the business technology innovation center recently opened up in Munich, in order to accompany the management or the specialist departments on the required journey.

ISG Provider Lens™ Quadrant Report | January 2020 Customer Journey Services



1919

CAPGEMINI

Capgemini is an IT technology specialist, strategy consultant and digital agency all in one

– the portfolio leaves nothing to be desired.


CautionCapgemini could take up and more actively market the differentiation option, humanity and digital ethics, which is appropriate for the brand, as part of the digital customer journey. Capgemini would thus be a strategic step ahead of many digital agencies in particular. in addition, it would also help Capgemini to differentiate itself more strongly from its competitors, such as Accenture and the major Indian service providers.

Capgemini Invent is organized by industry, but many disruptive digital developments are based on functionality and thinking across sectors. This needs to be overcome. In addition, Capgemini can use the industry approach to shape thought leadership in terms of new KPIs and success factors and establish a lead.

The former Capgemini-internal name, DCX, offers a certain risk of confusion with the IT service provider DXC and should be reconsidered.

Capgemini is a global IT service provider and integrator with 210,000 employees and headquarters in Paris, France. In 2018, the company generated sales of €13.2 billion (a grow of 8.1 percent) in more than 40 countries. Capgemini Invent, the new business unit of Capgemini, is responsible for digital consulting with 6,000 employees and brings together strategy, technology, data science and creative design. Various subsidiaries such as LiquidHub, Fahrenheit 212, Idean and others are permanently integrated under this umbrella. The multinational teams operate in 15 countries in 30 branches.

Overview

StrengthsDefined customer engagement portfolio: Capgemini offers customers experience management, journey mapping and loyalty services, as well as advice on new business models and their placement in an omni-channel approach, and advice on new sales strategies, after-sales and marketing campaigns. What Capgemini cannot cover is solved by partners such as Hyve or Appinio.

Interdisciplinary and complementary digital team: Capgemini Invent unites strategy and transformation consultants, creative designers, emerging technology experts and data specialists. This innovative and trendsetting team enables Capgemini to understand, analyze and optimize any customer requirement of the modern, digital go-to-market in less than no time and lead it to success step by step using agile methods.

Industry expertise: Capgemini is a process and industry expert that continues to make acquisitions in order to use companies with industry sweet spots such as Altran in manufacturing or Konexus for the energy industry to integrate functioning business units with an industry focus. This guarantees the vertical expertise that is increasingly required, to which Capgemini can add horizontal and standardized (platform) services.

Creative studios: Capgemini contributes in-depth architectural expertise, UI/UX design expertise and an industry-specific business understanding to customer relationships and always acts as a cooperative partner on equal terms with the customer – regardless of the addressee or buying center.



2020

CGI

CGI has extensive experience in providing secure, company-wide customer experience

and customer journey solutions for any sector in Germany and globally.

CautionCGI is committed to providing solutions for almost every sector and therefore needs more reference customers and real cases that support the skills that are definitely present, also with reference to communication and building of trust among customers.

CGI is a Canadian, global IT service provider specializing in management and technology consulting, systems integration, infrastructure and business process outsourcing and application management. The company employs 73,000 people and generates sales of almost US$8.8 billion. The company operates with 400 branches in 40 countries. In Germany, CGI employs 2,500 people at seven locations.

Overview

StrengthsComplete portfolio: CGI covers a large proportion of important components in the field of digital customer experience design, including personas and customer segmentation, empathy mapping, customer profiling, future experience envisioning, customer-centric operations model design, solution ideas workshops, channel mapping, experience mapping, next best action and value proposition.

Multi-data management: CGI is aware of the increasing complexity of analytics and the importance of integrating insights from sources such as mobile, social and geo-information that enhance the digital customer journey with traditional transactional data records and derive from them to improve the efficiency of business processes and create customer benefit.

Industry knowledge: CGI is an industry and process expert; thus, customer journey consulting and implementation also takes into account the specific requirements in sectors such as retail, transport, automotive, travel, financial services, utilities, healthcare, smart cities, telecommunications and media, public sector, manufacturing and oil and gas.




2121

DXC TECHNOLOGY

DXC is a digital pioneer with great technology and strategy expertise for digital platforms as the

foundation of modern customer journeys.

CautionDXC is in many places agile and responsive to DevOps teams and no longer comparable to HP and CSC or management practices – DXC is a fresh company and fundamentally modern. Nevertheless, DXC still seems too slow and not agile enough for some customers. This is in particular important in this competitive environment, in order to remain at the leading edge of the service providers.

DXC has only limited marketing and branding expertise and has not yet acquired a marketing agency or marketing network or initiated any significant partnerships – only the Luxsoft acquisition based in Switzerland and another boutique firm from the U.S. can be mentioned. However, these only count to a limited extent in the environment of UX/CX design and the necessary increase in DXC visibility in the marketing and product development departments of the customers.

DXC Technology is a global IT service provider with headquarters in Virginia. Total sales in fiscal 2018 was US $20.7 billion. The company is represented in more than 70 countries and employs 130,000 people. DXC has over 20 branches in Germany formerly managed by HPE and CSC. The service provider focuses on strategy and transformation consulting, customer experience and technology consulting. For marketing and branding tasks, partners are consulted as far as possible.

Overview

StrengthsDistinctive consulting services: DXC provides customers with first-class support in customer journey definition, testing and implementation of new strategies – DXC always focuses on increasing sales, customer loyalty and cost reduction. With local strength for Germany, DXC as a global service provider can contribute global teams of experts to every customer relationship and scale irrespective of the task of strategy consulting, concept development or platform management.

Digital technology expert: DXC provides customers with services to shape and improve the immersive digital cultural experience by connecting customers with efficient, multidisciplinary teams to get the maximum success out of ideas and data or the service catalogue using state-of-the-art tools and platforms such as DXC Bionix. DXC also relies on modern methods such as design thinking and business model generation in a co-creation approach.

Digital Transformation Center (DTC) in Germany: The opening of the center once again demonstrates DXC’s commitment to providing customers with a local contact point for design and innovation as part of the digital customer journey. Customers from Northern and Central Europe benefit from the new DTC in Germany, in which the portfolio areas of applications, cloud computing, cyber security, data analytics and intelligent automation are incorporated and included in every solution.




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IBM

IBM is in the midst of a turnaround, not least due to acquisitions, as in the Red Hat case, but primarily due to the lean and attractive agencies that provide customers with profound ideas and agile methods in the areas of

design thinking and user experience.

CautionIBM and IBM iX’s agency network is sometimes confusing and customers do not always know whom to contact first. aperto and ecx.io continue to be independent agencies with their own presence and portfolio, some of which overlap. The same applies to Bluewolf, where the boutiques can grow within the IBM ecosystem, since IBM does not necessarily integrate the companies and thus ruins them , as is the case with many other companies. Thus, the agencies retain their boutique nature and charm as well as the necessary agility and specialization and can rely on the IBM expert network if required. However, customers look for contact persons for more complex projects.

IBM itself is driving the digital customer journey issue primarily in the context of analytics. A broader focus would be expected in marketing.

IBM is a global IT hardware and software service provider. IBM is one of the largest consulting firms and, as a full-service provider, holds relevant market shares in all market segments. The company currently employs 350,000 people worldwide. IBM Germany employs approximately13,000 people at 40 locations, who are responsible for revenues of about €1.7 billion. IBM iX, IBM’s digital agency, consists of IBM-owned studios and boutiques; in Germany, aperto and ecx.io are added for market access in the midmarket segment.

Overview

StrengthsPortfolio from A to Z: Together with IBM iX, IBM can effectively address both IT-related issues and marketing issues such as UX, thus covering the entire digital customer journey. IBM iX also integrates agencies such as Bluewolf and vivant to cover additional geographies. Many partnerships with renowned technology service providers complete the portfolio. IBM is well known for its thought leadership and provides clients with first-class support in areas such as business strategy development, digital process redesign, business and talent transformation and the development of responsive operating models, which are increasingly also AI-supported.

Reference customers: IBM and IBM iX stand out with numerous reference customers for support of customer journeys. Hardly any other service provider has more references and cases that are publicly accessible via the purchased network of digital agencies and marketing experts.

Focus on the cloud and AI: IBM focuses strongly on cloud computing and is one of the world’s and Germany’s leading service providers of artificial intelligence and data analytics. With Watson Marketing, IBM integrates its Watson AI capabilities into its digital customer journey offering, including campaign automation, personalization functionalities, market insights, cognitive tagging and many more. Other offerings address topics such as blockchain, IoT and IT infrastructure backbones. IBM Watson now also runs on other prominent public clouds and leads customers into lower lock-in scenarios.




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PUBLICIS SAPIENT

Publicis Sapient is an expert in merging design and technology to agilely modify and

strategically lead the digital customer journey.

CautionThe agency is very innovative and difficult to grasp for classic buying centers. The company would do well to deal with modern or disruptive issues in terms of market access and communication.

Publicis Sapient lacks local customer stories in German, which can be included in the local marketing for Germany in order to convince even skeptical customers – primarily from the midmarket – that the company is a trustworthy full-service provider.

With approximately 77,500 employees and global sales of €9.6 billion, Publicis is one of the largest agency networks worldwide. Services for digital transformation are provided by Publicis Sapient. Publicis is present in Germany with two agencies: SapientRazorfish, the largest German digital agency active worldwide, and Pixelpark. with a focus on consulting. Publicis.Sapient is a merger of SapientRazorfish and Sapient Consulting and Pixelpark is part of the Publicis Communication Hub. This is not really transparent for the customers; hence, we have rated Publicis' overall offering in this study. Publicis Sapient sees itself as a service provider for real digital transformation and a continuous digital customer journey, which is reflected in the company’s overall presence. In addition to the consulting unit, SapientRazorfish offers offshore capacity with approximately 10,000 employees in India.

Overview

StrengthsUnderstanding customer requirements: Publicis Sapient provides world-class digital experience design capabilities as a core element of its transformation solution model with result-oriented contracts with focus on customer success.

Comprehensive problem-solving expertise: Customers experience a start-up mentality and modern methods, as well as profound strategy consulting with agile engineering and problem-solving creativity and thus support in the transfer of knowledge and skills from the market and customers to the employees.

Outstanding partnerships: AWS, Microsoft, Google, Salesforce, blueprism, uipath, IBM Watson and other renowned IT service provider partnerships demonstrate the expertise in handling data or its use as an integral part of a functioning and sustainable customer journey analysis. With Adobe, Hybris, Oracle, Demandware, IBM, Oracle, Samsung and Microsoft, customers have strategic partners for the digital customer journey at your side.




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RISING STAR: EC4U

EC4u has been a CRM expert for many years and is very well positioned in sales and

marketing. EC4u is very active as thought leadership in the area of customer journey.

CautionEC4u must continue to work on awareness and perception in the environment of agile agencies and usability as well as customer experience and journey design specialists. EC4u has to be on the shortlist more frequently in order to prove its skills.

EC4u should think about further strategic acquisitions for inorganic growth and, if necessary, concentrate on niches or emerging markets that have seldom been occupied so far in order to make faster progress compared to other competitors.

EC4u is a customer journey expert in the DACH region with 18 years of experience in customer management topics. EC4u focuses on consulting and integration services in IT-related topics of digital customer relationship management. With approximately 300 employees, EC4u addresses customers from all over Europe and from small to large.

Overview

StrengthsImportant partnerships: EC4u maintains strategically important partnerships with ISVs and analytics providers that are relevant for digital and efficient customer relationship management and customer journey. These include Oracle, Microsoft and Salesforce, with whom EC4u maintains very close and highly accredited relationships. With Marketo, Adobe, Talent and Tableau, as well as other partners, EC4u impressively demonstrates how well it is technologically positioned to advise and supply customers accordingly. Cloud environments are not a challenge for EC4u. In addition to the first-class partner concept, EC4u also acquired business intelligence experts to further strengthen the topic of data analysis and primarily evaluation for improved control of journeys.

Expertise in marketing, sales and service: EC4u offers the necessary expertise for marketing campaign automation, professional and digital lead management, customer lifecycle management and significant content marketing via the omni-channel approach. EC4u is also an expert for active performance management and optimized service portals for modern and thus digital and mobile customer interaction.

ISG Provider Lens™ Quadrant Report | January 2020 Rising Star: Customer Journey Services

2020 ISG Provider Lens™ Rising Star


Manufacturing Virtualization Solutions

The digital product lifecycle services quadrant evaluates how well

service providers are able to adapt their delivery model to each digital

product quickly enough to enable agile and adaptive operating models

for customer companies. The portfolio includes agile methodologies,

testing and DevSecOps to quickly provide or transform products and

services according to market changes.

Service providers organize their personnel into squads with multifunc-

tional teams; design thinking, real-time analyses, product and service

performance data, benchmarking, feedback from social networks, agile

development and many special tools are used to modify products and

services within the shortest possible time in such a way that they can be

provided almost immediately. Release cycles of just two to four weeks

are often targeted. This also requires continuous integration, continu-

ous testing and DevSecOps for continuous delivery capacity. All these

processes require discipline, governance and automation; otherwise

the delivery process becomes expensive, inefficient and slow.

Definition


DIGITAL PRODUCT LIFECYCLE SERVICES

Eligibility Criteria


Digital Product Lifecycle Services

Participating service providers work with development platforms to

seamlessly provide applications across multiple clouds. Running an

application consistently across multiple clouds improves its availability,

security and operational continuity while reducing costs at the same

time compared to outdated clustering and disaster recovery methods.

Definition (cont.) � The service provider’s delivery model includes agile and DevOps methods; organizationally, these are

so-called “squads” in which many developers and the customer’s product managers work together.

� The participating service providers offer an organizational change program to transform the customer’s

development process for its products and services.

� Technologies such as automation and platforms for continuous development are used, including

code repository, version control, release management, automated testing and automated build and

deploy tools.

� The concerned service providers have specialist personnel with CloudFoundry or OpenShift

qualifications.

� Quality assurance methodologies are also evaluated to rank the participating service providers.





� Accenture acts as a digital enabler for customers and is a leading

service provider that generates significant competitive advantages

for customers through product lifecycle management (PLM)

optimizations using data-driven models.

� Atos is a distinguished expert in digital tools and platforms

with an integrated digital product development platform, design

thinking approaches and a Business Technology Innovation Center

(BTIC) in Munich.

� The leader Capgemini offers an applied innovation center for

Germany and maintains significant partnerships that use existing

knowledge to provide a 360-degree view for fast, integrated and

future-oriented product lifecycle management.

� Cognizant is growing and is one of the leading service providers of

digital PLM based on the DevOps and organizational change man-

agement (OCM) as well as design and business process expertise

that digital PLM requires.

Observations � Deloitte’s approach as a leader can be described as sophisticated yet very lean and agile. ITs full PLM

consulting service is combined with a smart analytics approach, always keeping the business case in

view, complemented by intelligent software.

� DXC Technology is one of the leaders with complete digital PLM building blocks, the necessary agility

and understanding for customer trainings, which can also be individually designed using the industry

knowledge.

� IBM is an service oriented architecture expert and digital philosophies in PLM are not a new

challenge for the company. Its many years of project knowledge pay off and ensure a leading

position in Germany.

� Infosys is a top-class rising star due to its very attractive portfolio and management, which relies on

DevOps-centered consulting and co-creation as an imperative via site reliability engineering philosophy

in the context of DevOps.

� PwC is a leading service provider in digital PLM thanks to its world-class security expertise, integrity, but

also change skills and offerings for agile development and digital co-creation.

� Tech Mahindra is a leading digital PLM service provider due to its superior skills for a customized

digital IT supply chain and its relevance to innovative PLM design, which helps the company succeed

through next-gen technologies and methodologies.




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ACCENTURE

Accenture is a “digital hero” in PLM design and sustainable implementation

for a competitive advantage.

CautionAccenture is very innovative and advanced in terms of customer services, but could be more transparent and publish its own PLM processes and also failed attempts to explore new solutions and methods to make them even more authentic and tangible and possibly also use customer feedback to optimize its own methods thanks to the possibilities of swarm intelligence.

Accenture is a globally operating, independent full-service provider based in Dublin. Accenture employs 459,000 people, and in 2018, generated sales of $39.6 billion. The range of services includes consulting and integration services for cloud services, platforms and technologies as part of the “journey to the cloud” offering. In Germany, Accenture has offices in Kronenberg near Frankfurt, Munich, Düsseldorf, Berlin, Hamburg, Kaiserslautern and Stuttgart as well as in other cities.

Overview

StrengthsData-driven PLM approaches: Accenture is a pioneer in digital backbones and data management as well as customer journey with all facets and technologies to support customers implement a data-driven approach to product development and its continuous improvement, according to the market and customer. In Germany, for example Accenture has impressively succeeded in doing this at Adidas.

Tools and methods: Accenture has mature toolsets to support SaaS implementations such as the Accenture Innovation Architecture approach, the SaaS Proof of Value Accelerator or the Accenture Cloud Application Factory, which are supported by collaborations such as the Accenture AWS Business Group. Accenture understands the requirements of modern UIs as well as UX requirements and site operations up to localization measures like no other in the market and also helps customers to calculate ROI and sales forecasts.

Digital PLM just a few steps away: In numerous innovation forums and centers in German metropolitan areas, technology and application scenarios are presented to the customer in order to include the most diverse effects and demonstrate the diversity of solutions.

Accenture pursues a cross-sector service approach: Accenture has a profound understanding of the industry segments addressed. Learning from all projects help customers in specific sectors to make their corporate structures and processes more efficient.

ISG Provider Lens™ Quadrant Report | January 2020 Digital Product Lifecycle Services



ATOS

Business Technology Innovation Center (BTIC): Atos impressively demonstrates the commitment and customers with which state-of-the-art technological achievements are used to develop products/services and, primarily to continuously improve them thanks to advanced technologies. At the opening of the BTIC in Munich, for example, Atos showed a mixed reality solution that combines 3D recordings with PLM data in real-time. This provides customers with optimized decisions and shortened product development cycles. Networking of global supply chains also shows how arrival times can be precisely determined using advanced analytics, taking into account framework conditions. Customers include Siemens, Nestlé, BMW, Karstadt and Telefónica.

Integrated digital product development platform: Atos contributes platforms and tools to the partnership with the customer. Notable examples are Atos Managed OpenShift Platform (AMOS) and Atos Hybrid Orchestrated Cloud, which provides a lean, iterative and structured approach to research, test and transform ideas into practical product solutions and enables digital twins for testing. Certified consultants for low-code development work can also be provided to enable customers to work more independently and implement innovations themselves.

Design thinking: Atos relies on a combination of mind mapping, StratHacks, empathic design, persona sketching and storytelling tools and techniques. These are developed across the broad range of technology, domain and innovation experts in a co-creating approach with customers in design workshops. Atos provides strategies and methods for the sustainable implementation of digital and thus necessarily agile practices.

Atos is a France-based and globally active IT service provider of digital services that aims to strengthen its customer focus through a reinforced vertical go-to-market approach. Atos employs 120,000 people in 73 countries and generated €12.3 billion in 2018, of which €2.1 billion were generated in Germany.

Overview Strengths



ATOS

Atos is a digital tool and platform specialist, which assists the customer in creating a

robust and innovative transformation plan that enables bottom-up execution.

CautionAtos has little awareness of the topic of digital product lifecycle management and related disciplines, including UI and UX, and marketing does not directly take into account this topic with customer scenarios. Special knowledge, for example, in manufacturing is known, but this expertise and in particular tools and platforms need to be scaled and marketing for other sectors needs to be initiated. Atos does an outstanding job in necessary customer interactions such as near offshore SAFe implementations and brings Atos specialists to customer locations to work together with the customer and not just virtually. This philosophy is not sufficiently known in the market and should be more strongly communicated to the outside world.

As a cloud, big data, cybersecurity and workplace expert, Atos could easily rely on its USP in the PLM area in the context of existing and known strengths. This would not be easy to copy in a solution context. Digital PLM is synonymous with the continuous further development of products/services that are hosted and developed in clouds, are based on data, need to be protected against cybercrime and unauthorized access and, above all, are developed by service provider teams in workplace environments.




CAPGEMINI

Extensive PLM offering: Capgemini offers digital engineering services and expertise, consulting for the digital PLM strategy and its transformation, the necessary implementation services and enterprise integration, cloud services, process workflow solutions and management services for any PLM-related and included application.

Partnerships of relevance: Capgemini is not only certified for many top hyperscale public cloud providers and is in close contact with them with regard to their services for modern product and software development, but also cooperates with Dassault Systèmes, Siemens PLM Software, PTC, Aras, SAP, Oracle and other PLM software providers, through which a heterogeneous range of solutions can be offered to customers and ultimately operated professionally.

Applied innovation from the Munich innovation lab: The Applied Innovation Exchange (AIE) in Munich offers customers an ideal space for design thinking activities. Facilities such as smart boards, video conferencing, creative whiteboarding and live streaming enable smooth participation of customer and Capgemini employees around the world. Capgemini relies on diverse teams from Invent and Sogeti to contribute to industry-specific expertise, promote agility, assist with activities such as performance and load testing and to ensure that the solution scales globally. On the basis of many years of experience, Capgemini provides quality metrics, indicators and scorecards as accelerators as well as cognitive QA services for continuous testing in the context of DevOps procedures and state-of-the-art automation including fully digital data management.

Capgemini is a global IT service provider and integrator with 210,000 employees and headquarters in Paris, France. In 2018, the company generated sales of €13.2 billion (an 8.1 percent increase). Capgemini develops and delivers business, technology and digital solutions for customers to increase their innovation rate and thus their competitiveness. Capgemini, a deeply multicultural company, has developed its own way of working, the collaborative business experience, and relies on Rightshore, its global delivery model. Capgemini Invent, the new business unit of Capgemini, brings together strategy, technology, data science and creative design and also and above all integrates consulting services.

Overview


Strengths



CAPGEMINI

Capgemini offers customers a 360-degree view for fast, integrated and

future-oriented PLM management.

Capgemini Invent, the new brand for Capgemini’s innovative consulting unit specializing in digital business, is focused on customer experience and misses the opportunity to take up existing strengths and primarily industry-specific expertise for digital PLM activities and communicate them to the market as portfolio components. Customer experience and digital PLM are closely related. The addition of AI as a new input channel for further development and market adaptation is also missing in Capgemini’s marketing approach, although Capgemini is well aware of the options.

Capgemini is a large company and must be in a position to include internal expertise and innovative strength with local reference and in the national language in its marketing in the future in a better way. This is where Capgemini, as a European but globally supplying digital partner, can easily but profoundly differentiate itself with customers and demonstrate the existing proximity to the market and customers.


Caution




COGNIZANT

Cognizant provides customers with a holistic approach for digital PLM and concentrates

on the end customer who is in focus.

CautionTransparency about its experts by technology must be further increased in order to be able to seamlessly document in tenders how top-class employees have come on board, trained and certified, not least through strategic acquisitions.

Local customer stories and marketing cases would be desirable and would help Cognizant to build up more trust among customers from Germany.

Cognizant is a globally active Indian IT service provider with 260,000 employees and sales of almost $15 billion. Cognizant offers solutions for a wide range of applications in various industries and relies on a network of 2,800 product, design and engineering professionals in 27 studios, in 11 countries and on five continents. In all, the IT service provider employs more than 53,000 people with PLM capabilities worldwide. The sales with PLM-related services in Europe amounted to approximately $600 million in 2018.

Overview

StrengthsScaling: Cognizant offers end-to-end services with a broad and in-depth spectrum, starting with agile readiness and maturity assessments and engineering and DevOps assessments and including the agile delivery mode for managed services, coaching and also the important mentoring of all those involved in the process. In addition, Cognizant offers a center of excellence for the adaptation of agile lifecycle management methods and also supports customers in the change of project management in the context of DevOps and as part of a holistic organizational change management (OCM).Technology, design and business understanding: As a technology specialist, Cognizant knows how to provide customers with first-class advice in order to incorporate the wishes and unique skills of customers and employees into product lifecycle management. For this purpose, business processes are also redesigned as per requirement and linked to new working methods and integrated on the IT side. By means of business value streams, Cognizant works with customers to measure and optimize values and influences on services and products. In doing so, Cognizant also focuses on securing and modernizing the IT infrastructure and integrates the necessary applications. Inorganic growth to strengthen competitiveness: Cognizant made numerous strategic acquisitions or takeovers, such as Softvision, Hedera, Zone, Netcentric, Measure, Brilliant Service and Mirabeau BV, in order to improve key software product development functions. In addition, ReD Associates, Idea Couture, Mirabeau, Brilliant Services, Adaptra, Netcentric, Zone and Hedera were acquired to further strengthen PLM and engineering services and expertise in the discrete and process-oriented manufacturing industry.




DELOITTE

Deloitte’s digital PLM approach is sophisticated and lean and agile at the same time!


CautionDeloitte still has room to improve its recognition as a digital partner and thought leader for agile development, DevOps, public cloud and analytics as well as customer experience/journey to align CI/CD with the customer. Marketing must continue to learn to navigate between Deloitte’s core market and the new areas that are generating sales and growth and are becoming more relevant for audits.

In this market, Deloitte is fighting against more agile companies and primarily technology-focused IT service providers that have incorporated important disciplines of modern digital product lifecycle management in their DNA.

The adaptation of new trends for digital PLM is still very new for Deloitte, so is it not fully ensured that the staff will scale at a high level, which customers expect from Deloitte.

Deloitte provides auditing, risk advisory, tax consulting, financial advisory and increasingly also digital consulting services to customers from all sectors of the economy. The company also provides legal advice in Germany through Deloitte Legal. The international network of companies with 286,000 employees generated a sales of almost $44 billion in 2018 in over 150 countries. In the past three years, Deloitte has almost doubled its sales and massively increased the share of digital consulting services. In Germany, Deloitte has a sales of €1.47 billion, of which €827 million comes from the advisory category.

Overview

StrengthsComprehensive PLM consulting and analytics approach: Deloitte has a multi-stage and comprehensive approach to set up a modern PLM, uses it to generate added value in the long term. PLM data migration for a transformation always includes migration risks and challenges under Deloitte’s management, not only to minimize risks but also to increase efficiency, innovation and productivity. Deloitte offers special tools and methods for moving data into and out of databases in order not to lose focus.

PLM transformation of the customer with business cases: Deloitte helps customers to define visions and evaluate existing assets in order to set up precisely fitting KPIs in the digital context. Deloitte also provides customers with tools to check actual and target performance and to adjust the roadmap according to improvement opportunities and future influences.

Software solution: Deloitte’s digital PLM is an “out-of-the-box” pre-configured software solution that uses Deloitte’s many years of experience in lean development. The model is based on an engineering-focused process design, certified technology capability, knowledge about necessary and organizational changes to be implemented and robust program management. Readiness assessments, dashboards and various training materials including minimal viable product (MVP) strategies and pilot strategies are offered, which always take into account the mindset and the required change in behavior on the customer side.



DXC TECHNOLOGY

DXC is a process and industry expert for comprehensive PLM management

in the context of digital transformation.


CautionKnowledge of interdepartmental interaction and the soft skills required for this, including change management, are topics that DXC should push more strongly and ultimately include in the existing marketing campaigns. After the opening of the digital transformation center in 2018 in Düsseldorf, things have calmed down. DXC should get into conversation more frequently with comprehensible customer references and prototypes. Strengths in related disciplines such as the development and provision of virtual desktop infrastructures, consolidated engineering data management and centralized management systems for license applications are significant assets that DXC should emphasize more. In addition, the topic does not seem to be addressed directly by marketing, but disappears among industry solutions.DXC must continue to work on the awareness as an agile and uncomplicated next-gen service provider. For this purpose, projects and their marketing communication must be streamlined considerably.

DXC Technology is a global IT service provider with headquarters in Virginia. Total sales in fiscal 2018 were $20.7 billion. The company is represented in more than 70 countries and employs 130,000 people. DXC has over 20 branches in Germany formerly managed by HPE and CSC. The service provider focuses on strategy and transformation consulting, customer experience and technology consulting.

Overview

StrengthsExtensive portfolio: DXC offers consulting services such as value planning, project management and business case development in addition to related tools or infrastructure services. In addition, customers receive an experienced consultant with comprehensive digital PLM building blocks, who supports them in application architecture design, software customization and ultimately information security and platform integration. DXC also offers workplace and mobility services, including expertise in edge and IoT applications.

Process expertise across sectors: DXC is well versed in analyzing and implementing corporate processes across internal departments, business units or geographic locations, and always includes external suppliers, partners as well as business and technical alliances in digital PLM strategies. DXC is active in the manufacturing, automotive, aviation and defense, chemical and energy sectors and has extensive knowledge of basic technologies including hardware, software and infrastructure.

Agility and training: DXC offers a wide range of training and best practices to accelerate customers and is itself agile and focused on providing customers or DevOps teams with rapid working environments to develop products/services in a short time or to keep them continuously up-to-date and thus align them with customer requirements. DXC considerably shortens the go-to-market time for customers.



IBM

Thanks to service-oriented architecture expertise, cross-departmental digital PLM is not a new discipline for IBM. Customers can rely on long-standing experts and project knowledge.


CautionIBM stumbled during the modernization and digitalization of its own software and should therefore continue to work on its credibility, so that its own application and proven success as a service provider is recognized and rewarded by the customer. Announced cooperations with SAP, in order to offer a market-leading mixture of expertise that are important for PLM, do not yet show any clear applications.

IBM is missing the opportunity to position a dedicated offering in the market that goes beyond IoT and engineering practices and demonstrates the extent to which IBM has the expertise to be able to contribute to the customer all essential aspects of consulting and management of digital products and services and their lifecycle management. Thus, IBM accepts that customers look for other partners in such prestigious and extensive projects.

IBM is a global IT hardware and software service provider and IT service provider. IBM is one of the largest consulting firms and, as a full-service provider, holds relevant market shares in all market segments. The company currently employs 350,000 people worldwide. IBM Germany employs approximately 13,000 people at 40 locations, with sales of approximately €1.7 billion. IBM iX, the IBM digital agency, can effectively address both IT topics and marketing issues and incorporate them into digital PLM consulting.

Overview

StrengthsAllrounder with a deep dive: Internally, IBM has many focused and accomplished experts in content, development and agility andDevOps and has proven strengths in operations. This puts IBM in an outstanding position in particular in this interdisciplinary discipline of digital PLM support.

Large, innovative portfolio at attractive prices: IBM stands for open source and openness with the greatest possible use of the innovative power of distributed and agile teams, which help customers to create uniquely sustainable digital services and continuously adapt to changes in the market through community feedback. The PLM portfolio is versatile and offers customers strategy consulting, software and tools or cloud platforms and managed services.

IBM cloud, Watson, cloud foundry and thought leadership: IBM is easily able to offer the entire value chain for digital PLM from a single source and at the same time incorporate the necessary openness in the form of technology agnostic services and open source in order to serve customers sustainably.



PWC

PwC is always looking for the big picture and offers customers a future-oriented

solution concept with first-class security in the area of digital PLM consulting.

CautionPwC is a digital strategist that stands out in theory and in many respects features professional consulting. Although it is still possible to accompany the implementation, it is not possible to provide the integration necessary for functional and sustainable PLM in a scaling model. Therefore, PwC needs partners that can also be included in the go-to-market strategy. This would lead to even more success in the market, since it would ultimately be more authentic. Eventually, it is, above all, the high reputation of the company that makes customers communicate with PwC, and the large partner ecosystem, including DXC and the Information Lab partnership in the field of data science, does not have to be hidden. Digital success nowadays requires good partnerships.

PwC is a leading auditing and consulting firm on the way to the digital age. Customers rely on interdisciplinary expertise, global networking and high integrity. PwC offers IT-related services from strategy to implementation. The PwC network includes more than 250,000 employees in 158 countries worldwide. In Germany, PwC employs more than 11,000 people with sales of €2.2 billion in 2017/2018.

Overview

StrengthsBlueprinting: PwC offers customers access to strategy and digital PLM experts. The understanding of digital PLM, based on state-of-the-art tools and methods such as data analytics, AI, agile development and digital co-creation is exemplary.

Change management: PwC supports customers in the important topic of change management and helps them to recognize established and traditional processes and behavioral patterns as well as outdated software solutions or service and support approaches. PwC is always based on the pillars of technology and people or relationship mentality in order to advise the customer holistically.

Multi-channel strategies: PwC is well-versed in highly industrialized and automated or scaling business ideas that require modern PLM, but always includes the feedback component from the market and customer perspective in the form of a well-thought-out multi-channel strategy across the entire ecosystem in the solution design.




TECH MAHINDRA

Expertise: TM relies on a large number of certified experts in the areas of RPA, analytics, AI, mobile apps, IoT, cloud and other trends. This mix of various digital trend topics and expertise carriers guarantees customers high-quality PLM support that extends far beyond traditional models and perspectives.

Innovations thanks to next-gen technologies and methods: Tech Mahindra offers customers a highly innovative product development including the continuous provision of updates, which the company’s “next-generation platform services” guarantee in combination with the experience in handling essential tools and DevOps procedures. This is achieved by using outstanding development, testing and quality assurance methods that rely on modern AI and integrate established methods for streamlining and improving operations and management and continuous delivery models.

Transparent pricing model and flexibility: TM plays and open hand toward customers and offers many contract and payment models, which are discussed and executed together with customers.

Tech Mahindra (TM) is an Indian IT service provider with 120,000 employees and sales of $4.9 billion in 2018. The company has branches in 60 countries. The PLM business in Germany accounts for approximately $34 million dollars. Local customers rely on a team of almost 500 experts.

Overview Strengths



TECH MAHINDRACaution

Some experts, such as those for SAS (certified scientist) or Google Analytics IQ, are not yet at a sufficient level to be able to serve all customer requests at the highest level. But the necessary global and also local scaling is already available in essential disciplines and is above the sector average.

TM needs to work even further on German translation and local demonstration of knowledge and skills to the market and customers in order to quickly monetize existing knowledge. TM must continue to gain footprint in Germany and increase local awareness and sales. On the customer end, TM would score with German-speaking experts to ensure the necessary scaling.

Reference customers are currently still looking for local or German customers. Tech Mahindra marketing would make a major contribution to future business success in DACH or Germany if existing customer projects were better used to build convincing case studies.


Tech Mahindra is a technology specialist that supports the entire digital IT supply chain on the

basis of modern IT trend building blocks.



RISING STAR: INFOSYS

Infosys is ahead of its time in many respects and extremely innovative. Customers experience a very predictive and accelerated PLM consulting

approach to digital transformation.


CautionRPA, AI, SAS, Google Analytics and other experts are not yet available or trained at a sufficient level for the necessary worldwide scaling, but are still far above the average in the sector; many competitors are still way behind and have to catch up with Infosys.

Infosys is a large IT outsourcing service provider based in Bangalore, India. The company generated sales of $12 billion in 2018 and is present in more than 46 countries worldwide. Infosys currently employs 229,000 people worldwide. Infosys was a pioneer of the global delivery model and the first IT company from India to be listed on the NASDAQ.

Overview

StrengthsComplete portfolio: Infosys offers consulting for business cases or the strategy roadmap as well as a modern tool and technology selection for agile training and coaching, process workflows and metric design and implementation, also based on the SAFe methodology to enable scalability and to manage the three key parameters (time, scope and costs) efficiently. Infosys also offers a DevOps automation solution for design and implementation, including an E2E pipeline across the entire application technology stack, tool migration and support, software release management and change management. Customers also benefit from a DevOps dashboard to control management, quality assurance and governance.

DevOps-centric consulting and co-creation: Through its partnerships with AWS and Azure, Infosys focuses on developing solutions that use Infosys’ intellectual property (IP) and incorporate partner technologies and services to create value for customers. Infosys works closely and according to plan with customers in projects based on story points.

DevOps and site reliability engineering: Infosys is extremely innovative and, ahead of most competitors, focuses on “site reliability engineering” in order to build this up as a strategic offering. For this purpose, it has already initiated the design and development of POVs/POCs for business case studies and has expanded the framework to include cloud and data analytics.

ISG Provider Lens™ Quadrant Report | January 2020 Rising Star: Digital Product Lifecycle Services


Manufacturing Connectivity Solutions

The digital backbone managed services quadrant evaluates service

providers of robust, secure and reliable microservice and API-based

operational services in a hybrid or cloud-only platform, along with other

digital solutions such as mobile apps, IoT platforms and data services.

These providers offer consulting services for transforming legacy

systems and moving to a cloud environment.

The cloud enables serverless computing, infrastructure as code, micro-

services, Kubernetes and containers for rapid horizontal expansion into

multiple geographies or vertical scaling of operations. All these are key

elements in reducing time to market and responding quickly to chang-

ing needs. Service providers in this segment have robust platforms that

also integrate public cloud providers, and offer autonomous, AI-based

healing mechanisms, as well as optimized provisioning, autoscaling and

performance.

Definition


DIGITAL BACKBONE MANAGED SERVICES



� Consulting service providers and managed service providers that can make legacy applications

cloud-enabled. Simple lift and shift is not taken into account. Participating companies must show that

they can rewrite applications in such a way so as to incorporate APIs and microservices to enable

cloud-native services usage.

� Managed services include business process monitoring and digital product performance. Result-based

contracts are included in the evaluation, but are not mandatory.

� The service provider operates the digital platform to optimize business performance; this also includes

dynamic configuration changes to reduce costs and improve performance. AI-based tools are used to

automate the digital platform.

� The service provider offers support for digital product development including DevOps.

� Security is monitored and incidents or problems such as data protection violations and hacker attacks

are resolved accordingly. Furthermore, security and compliance consulting are offered.

Leading competitors in this market guarantee failure-free operation.

They monitor the usage and transaction volume of digital products

in real-time and dynamically adjust backbone capacity to optimize

business efficiency. They take the responsibility for API and

microservices response time and availability, data access speed,

connectivity and application performance. Result-based contracts are

offered as an option.

Definition (cont.) Eligibility Criteria




4343


� Axians is a managed services and migration expert who, as a backbone specialist, knows how

to please customers through consulting, integration and operational tasks for hybrid clouds and

IoT/edge scenarios.

� CANCOM is a leader that integrates and provides solutions at the touch of a button – customers

experience high-performance and integrative XaaS backbone services that extend far beyond

classic system house services and are standardized on the one hand, but can also be customized

in many places.

� Capgemini is a leader because of its public, private and hybrid cloud expertise, cloud gover-

nance and app modernization expertise and its large partner network, which offers customers

freedom of choice in solution design.

� Deutsche Telekom (TSI) is an outstanding leader for almost all relevant sectors and offers data

security and data protection via End2End connectivity and in-depth consulting expertise.

� Accenture does not aim to become a hosting specialist, but is

one of the leading service providers for complex digital backbone

service projects, which it offers with its own management platform,

above-average data analytics and AI expertise and attractive

conditions.

� Arvato Systems is a local leader that operates internationally and

offers innovative platform services including strategy consulting and

managed services on equal terms with mid-sized customers as well

as global corporations.

� As a leader, Atos offers highly innovative backbone services using

the canopy orchestrated cloud as the basis for the comprehensive

Atos services, which are completed by cloud security and gover-

nance and an industrialized approach.

Observations




4444


� DXC Technology is a data analytics and security specialist and also

has many years of hosting and managed backbone experience,

which is now becoming a differentiating factor and contributes to

the leader position.

� Fujitsu is a leader thanks to platforms that offer customers integrat-

ed overall systems instead of isolated stand-alone solutions and are

suitable for hybrid or multi-cloud scenarios.

� IBM is a leading service provider because of its broad and innova-

tive portfolio and its expertise as an infrastructure, platform and

software expert that automates digital backbones for customers and

provides flexibility through many partnerships.

� Reply is a rising star thanks to its seamless portfolio, above-average

growth, innovative strength and vertical expertise in professional

backbone services.

Observations (cont.)




4545

ACCENTURE

Accenture is equipped to advise on and operate advanced digital backbones; the more complex the

IT landscape, the more likely it is that Accenture can make use of existing strengths.

CautionThe broad range of services in combination with a large number of best-of-breed partnerships and strategic business groups with public cloud service providers must be maintained, actively driven and sustainably filled with life. Primarily, Accenture should pay attention to the consistency of processes through innovative trainings for employees to ensure high customer satisfaction.

Accenture is a very large, complex service company and is required to reduce this complexity while ensuring the necessary transparency, speed and innovation at the same time. Customers are overwhelmed by the many offers and options.

Accenture is a globally operating, independent full-service provider based in Dublin. Accenture employs 459,000 people and in 2018 generated sales of $39.6 billion. The range of services includes consulting and integration services for cloud services, platforms and technologies as part of the “journey to the cloud” offering. Accenture provides customers with over 70,000 cloud experts worldwide. In Germany, Accenture has offices in Kronenberg near Frankfurt, Munich, Düsseldorf, Berlin, Hamburg, Kaiserslautern and Stuttgart as well as in other cities.

Overview

StrengthsOwn management platform: Accenture provides platform-agnostic consulting and managed services for any infrastructure or platform landscape with a high degree of automation and intensive use of AIOps to accelerate standard processes and to securely integrate diverse or hybrid cloud systems. The top-class public cloud expertise and the sophisticated management are provided either by code or via the company’s own Accenture Cloud Platform (ACP).

Data analytics and AI expertise: More and more customer projects benefit from Accenture’s comprehensive expertise in handling data and information. Accenture ensures a comprehensive approach through the “applied intelligence” approach with a clear data-based consulting and management strategy, which has the main goal of generating competitive advantages for customers in different business areas.

Near and offshoring with high SLAs: Scaling is not a challenge for Accenture, since it can rely on a wide range of delivery centers to ensure quality and at the same time speed and scalability. Accenture also holds the highest number of industry and solution-specific competency certifications from AWS, Microsoft Azure and GCP. Accenture customers benefit from structured delivery conditions and story points regulated by SLAs along a variety of contract and pricing models, which ensure the clean delivery of services in accordance with contractual obligations.

ISG Provider Lens™ Quadrant Report | January 2020 Digital Backbone Managed Services



4646

ARVATO SYSTEMSStrengths

Innovative platform services: Arvato Systems focuses on acquisitions and inorganic growth, API development, public cloud governance and AI expertise, coupled with years of accumulated industry and sector expertise (commerce, media, utilities and e-health).

Broad spectrum: Arvato Systems offers a broad spectrum of IT outsourcing and infrastructure solutions including consulting and managed services as well as corresponding application management. In hosting, it is primarily multi-cloud management, network operations, desktop services, communication services and expertise in a large number of customer applications that differentiate Arvato Systems.

Strategy consulting and managed services: Arvato Systems increasingly stands out through the inclusion of modern methods and tools, but also through its expertise in Microsoft and SAP with regard to migration and service procedures. Multi-cloud or increasingly public cloud expertise in addition to expertise in traditional system environments is what customers from various industries receive and appreciate from Arvato Systems.

Arvato Systems is part of the Bertelsmann Group and the services division Arvato with € 4.1 billion in sales (an increase of 4.1 percent), of which approx. 39 percent comes from Germany. Arvato Systems has over 2,500 employees who provide IT and cloud services for the internal group and for external companies in 20 countries worldwide. With a sales of almost €400 million in 2018, the majority coming from Germany, Arvato Systems offers technical expertise, industry expertise and a clear focus on digital and innovative topics. Arvato Systems is ISO-certified in many cases.

Overview



4747

ARVATO SYSTEMS

Arvato Systems is a specialist for digitization, acting on equal terms with midmarket and corporations and offering innovative capabilities based on partnership.

Arvato Systems is a structured and contract-compliant service provider that can further develop in terms of contract and pricing modalities to meet a wide range of buying center needs. The maximum service availability of 99.5 percent may also be a hurdle or an indication of the lack of digital failover systems and system redundancy in the design concept of the digital backbone for critical customers.

Awareness as a digital service provider or backbone specialist still has room for improvement. Arvato Systems already masters individual disciplines very well and has a high visibility for customers in Germany; however, digital backbone services require a complex interaction of different IT disciplines such as analytics, security and other topics. Arvato Systems can therefore still improve in terms of knowledge and awareness as a solution provider and primarily show customers the added value of an Arvato Systems solution based on excellent industry skills.

Caution




4848

ATOS

Atos provides a digital backbone with all horizontal and vertical services that include

company applications and business processes of customers in an industrialized approach.

CautionAtos is not only a security expert, but also an edge and analytics specialist. However, awareness in these disciplines can still be improved by showing more local customer examples.

Expertise for AWS are not yet at the same level as for Microsoft Azure, and in case of Google, Atos still needs to work on certification and knowledge transfer of employees between divisions and regions. The ability to scale the AWS knowledge in Germany is not yet with 100 percent certainty and should be further promoted.

Atos is a France-based and globally active IT service provider of digital services that aims to strengthen its customer focus through a reinforced vertical go-to-market approach. Atos employs 120,000 people in 73 countries and generated €12.3 billion of revenue in 2018, of which €2.1 billion were generated in Germany. With its end-to-end cloud services – consulting, implementation and operation of private, hybrid and public cloud services – Atos offers a very broad yet in-depth range of services. Atos has a pool of more than 1,000 certified engineers for the top public cloud service providers and more than 3,000 cloud and 4,500 security experts. Atos Canopy is the flagship portfolio that includes public and hybrid cloud services.

Overview

StrengthsInnovative services: The range of services includes managed private cloud, application and data services, multi cloud automation and management, managed public cloud and application transformation and migration. The Atos Canopy Orchestrated Hybrid Cloud is the basis of Atos services, which uses all the strengths of the group and the expertise of the partner ecosystem. Customer applications and infrastructures are transformed and orchestrated using a highly industrialized end-to-end approach.

Cloud security and governance: Atos is a security expert and offers customers an extremely comprehensive and in-depth portfolio of managed security and cloud governance services. So-called accelerators are offered in the form of best practices for almost all cloud platforms. Atos always ensures that corporate data governance standards are adhered to and cross-platform monitoring and alerting is implemented using policy-based management, workflow and approval functions.

Global and local delivery model: Atos has more than 100 data centers in 30 countries on five continents. Atos’ global delivery model consolidates locations worldwide into five major global delivery center (GDC) hubs in India, Poland, Romania, Malaysia and Morocco. The integration of infrastructure, network and security services supports end-to-end customer infrastructure evaluation and has more than 3,300 cloud and IoT experts worldwide.




4949

AXIANS

Axians is a backbone specialist for consulting, integration and operational tasks of all kinds.


CautionAxians has only one data center in Germany, in Ulm; thus, in many cases it must serve customers through existing partnerships with Equinix in Frankfurt. However, some customers are also looking for infrastructure operators and owners in the end-to-end backbone services environment. Axians could therefore focus on its robust partner network to ensure that no questions remain unanswered regarding end-to-end operations. Axians as a brand is still in the process of being established and must be strongly promoted with peak marketing events, similar to the leading competitors. Axians must work on branding and the core message or differentiation. Customers are still not sufficiently aware of Axians even though such a powerful company is behind Axians. Individual competence units are barely visible and should be given priority in order to offer a seamless symbiosis of all experts in the context of digital backbone services.

Axians had €2.3 billion in sales in 2019, an increase of 15 percent, and has 10,000 employees in 22 countries. The associated IT services unit had €553 million in sales in 2018, up 9 percent, with more than 1,950 employees in 28 cities. Axians acts, on one hand, as the VINCI Energies Group’s internal IT department and, on the other hand, as an IT service provider in the external market for midmarket professional end users and much more. Its solution portfolio includes IT infrastructures, IT solutions, industry software, IT operations and services.

Overview

StrengthsInnovations paired with infrastructure knowledge: Axians offers customers many added benefits in the area of managed hosting for the industrial sector and thus also for edge computing and cybersecurity. Axians’s strengths lie in its expertise in cybersecurity issues and governance topics as well as analysis and evaluation of potentials for improvement. An IT and operational technology specialist and solution integrator and managed service provider from Germany, Axians supplies complete cloud services, in particular to medium-sized manufacturing customers. Axians offers customers several solutions and added values in a network of experts from the Axians Group.

Scope of portfolio: Axians offers a broad range of managed hosting services, which start with classic hardware-software server monitoring and management and extend to complex database migration and data center transformation services. It also offers services for cloud license management and multi-vendor service aggregation, which provides differentiation for complex digital backbone services.

Managed services and migration: The services includes knowledge of workload migration, application and, of course, infrastructure monitoring, patch management and generic AIOps components for the necessary automation of the operational process, continuous improvement of the infrastructure (lifecycle management) and protection against hacker attacks.



5050

CANCOM

Everything from a single (innovative) source: CANCOM provides customers with highly standardized and efficient digital backbone services, from infrastructure, databases and PaaS to API management and workplace services. In addition, access services are offered using its own equipment in major European centers, resulting in low latency times and high security. Thanks to continuous acquisition activities, CANCOM ensures excellent services with best-of-breed solutions with great customer proximity and service quality from Germany and other neighboring European countries to the U.S. Critical customers are offered consistent support on any security-related issue or on the topic of cloud governance.

Comprehensive public and even multi-cloud expertise: CANCOM offers all kinds of managed services from both traditional and modern cloud-native perspectives. Be it DevOps methodologies and machine learning features via the CloudCheckr platform or the numerous certifications of experts for AWS, Azure, GCP or IBM cloud, customer environments managed by CANCOM are always cloud-agnostic and can be operated via API. Customers therefore benefit from lean architectures and also from the cloud marketplace connection with a smart user interface (UI).

High security: CANCOM offers midmarket and larger customers an extensive portfolio, from planning and implementation to managed services. The services each address a complete range of technology. CANCOM has continued to expand its services extensively over the past 12 months, with a strong focus on expansion and development of cyber defense services as well as agile transformation and container expertise.

CANCOM is a German-based IT solution integrator, managed service provider as well as host and consultant from the system house market . CANCOM offers business-oriented IT solutions for numerous sectors. The managed cloud service offering is aimed at midmarket and beyond. CANCOM has more than 30 branches with over 3,500 employees in Germany (an addition of more than 500 compared to the previous year) and neighboring countries of the EU as well as the U.S. and generates sales of almost €1.4 billion euros (an increase of 18.7 percent). The increasingly international company group is listed on tecDAX and MDAX as CANCOM SE.

Overview


Strengths



5151

CANCOM

CANCOM is on its way to becoming one of the leading European IT service providers, delivering high-

performance and integrative XaaS backbone services that extend far beyond classic system house services.

Despite existing integration competence and expertise in the management of highly complex IT environments, CANCOM as a solution integrator focuses largely on the management of standardized system environments. Complex and non-standardized projects can, however, also have a lighthouse nature and lead to very intensive customer relationships with lasting positive effect.

As a security specialist, CANCOM currently does not offer any dedicated DevSecOps portfolio and therefore has to work on the portfolio presentation on the one hand and on awareness on the other hand. As a backbone operator, CANCOM is not well known as a network and software defined WAN service provider.

Agile service competencies have been obtained through acquisitions and must now be properly integrated and internally demonstrated as best practice. Furthermore, it would be of great advantage for CANCOM to have their VMware knowledge certified to support the hybrid IT story.


Caution




5252

CAPGEMINI

Through a balanced and well-selected partner network, Capgemini can play to its strengths and provide customers

with high quality digital backbone services.


CautionBackbone services are provided by Capgemini through an excellent partner network. However, some customers also accept operators and owners of infrastructures in the environment of end-to-end backbone services, with a software-defined WAN (SDWAN) to establish connectivity with various data pools. Capgemini would therefore do well to emphasize the added value and business strategy including the partner network more clearly in order to avoid any doubts about the high quality and complete monitoring of the services.

Capgemini is well positioned technologically as well as in the area of business process and application analysis; the security operations center also offers corresponding protection, but could be equipped with further AI/ML technologies. A dedicated DevSecOps offering and the inclusion of AIOps would put Capgemini in a good position in comparison with the leaders.

Capgemini is a global IT service provider and integrator with 210,000 employees and headquarters in Paris, France. In 2018, the company generated sales of €13.2 billion, an increase of8.1 percent. Capgemini focuses on management and IT consulting, technology services and digital transformation. As an industry insider, it offers a complex range of services from strategy development to business operations.

Overview

StrengthsCloud expertise: As a multi-cloud and hybrid cloud provider, Capgemini offers customers high partner certifications (AWS Premier Consulting Partner; Gold Azure Partner) and employs more than 5,000 people working to deliver cloud services as a digital backbone foundation. Customers benefit specifically from Capgemini’s proprietary digital management platform and expertise in cloud-native development, API management and clean service integration, DevOps consulting and implementation, and container management for the application stack.

Security: The Capgemini Global Security Operations Center (GSOC) provides 24-by-7 defense against hacker attacks and proactively secures critical systems. The continuous improvement of ML/AI competencies, which are also used in the area of customer journey and experience, also help Capgemini to detect and eliminate anomalies in backbone management at an early stage.

Freedom of choice and best-of-breed approach: Capgemini offers hosting services for legacy and traditional environments as well as private, public and hybrid cloud environments based on hyper-converged infrastructures and a software-defined data center, which also functions as a self-service interface with numerous orchestration options, enabling customers to set up and use IT infrastructures and perform change management for computing, storage and network. Capgemini is always looking for the strongest and most innovative partner solutions.



5353

DXC TECHNOLOGY

Infrastructure services with differentiation: DXC offers a full range of managed services for the optimization, hosting, monitoring and management of IT infrastructures, middleware and company applications. DXC is also one of the few specialists for managed mainframe services and provides 24-by-7 support for IBM z/Series operations, which DXC operates in the case of dedicated customer installations or in the case of hybrid and shared infrastructures. DXC also handles the connection and operation of AWS, Azure, Google and VMware platforms with the help of 2,500 public cloud experts. SAP practice and ServiceNow partnership, which count for many enterprise customers, are also added.

Data analytics and security expertise: With more than a hundred data scientists, DXC has a large pool of resources to handle and scale even complex projects in due time or quickly. With more than 18 years of average analytics experience, the company is one of the most experienced players in the market and can cover both industry-specific and function-specific requirements. In addition, DXC has more than 4,000 employees in the security division worldwide and numerous globally distributed security operations centers (SOC), including one in Germany.

Automated and scaling platforms: DXC Bionix and EMMA Services provide automated deployment, management and governance of cloud infrastructures; DevOps pipelines in software development lifecycle (SDLC) deployment environments are also part of the solution. When considered in detail, the most important features include the seamless integration into service catalogs and approval workflows as well as budget and cost management in conjunction with ServiceNow, in addition to machine learning components. EMMA also relies on self-learning algorithms and always proposes profound solutions.

DXC Technology is a global IT service provider with headquarters in Virginia. Total sales in fiscal 2018 was $20.7 billion. The company is represented in more than 70 countries and employs 130,000 people. DXC now relies on more than 6,000 employees who are certified for the top public cloud platforms. The company has more than 800 managed services customers worldwide. The service provider’s managed service and transformation portfolio focuses on large companies and the public sector. DXC has over 20 branches in Germany formerly managed by HPE and CSC.

Overview


Strengths



5454

DXC TECHNOLOGY

In case of digital backbone services, DXC can combine the expertise carriers transferred to them with new knowledge carriers in the field

of analytics and public cloud.


Not least because of the history of HP and CSC, backbone services can be provided by the partner network. However, some customers also look for operators and owners of the infrastructure in the environment of end-to-end backbone services. DXC would therefore do well to emphasize the added value and business strategy including the partner network more clearly in order to avoid any doubts about the high quality and complete monitoring of the services.

The go-to-market or portfolio presentation sometimes appears unstructured, since, for example, trend topic expertise such as cloud is mixed with common categories from service catalogs such as consulting and presented on one level. The service catalogue is also only available in English. DXC must definitely work on this point and also prepare local references and case studies and position them accordingly.

Awareness and customer references for Germany in the field of data analytics and security services, and for two key disciplines in the field of digital backbones services, can be further optimized in order to quickly convince even critical customers of its capabilities.

Caution




5555

FUJITSU

Fujitsu’s digital backbone services offer integrated overall systems instead of isolated stand-alone solutions, which are also tailored to individual

industry requirements from the customer’s perspective and still rely on automation.

CautionIn the area of backbones services, its own assets continue to be a component in demand from customers, in particular in the midmarket. Fujitsu has its own data centers in Germany, but tends to use partner data centers more. Data security and compliance with local conditions and industry requirements could be challenged in the future if the data center is sold.

The current portfolio and awareness of other elements in the area of cybersecurity and data analytics should be further improved. Digital backbones services benefit from a comprehensive portfolio that also includes services for managing and securing data.

Fujitsu is a Japanese information and telecommunications service provider with 132,000 employees and a sales of $36 billion in 2018. With its headquarters in Munich, Fujitsu Central Europe offers a portfolio of technology products, solutions and services ranging from terminal equipment and data center solutions to managed and maintenance services, cloud solutions and outsourcing. Fujitsu acts as an independent consultant for the major public cloud platforms, but also offers its own cloud infrastructure services from Germany in hybrid service models. Its global presence enables it to provide IT services worldwide.

Overview

StrengthsHybrid and multi-cloud competence: Fujitsu offers a large portfolio of partners to enable an innovative multi-cloud strategy nationally and globally. With partners such as ServiceNow, Salesforce, VMware, AWS, Microsoft Azure, Oracle, Citrix and SAP, extensive hybrid IT scenarios can be provided, which offer great flexibility, scalability and market advantages to large companies. Based on the transformation capabilities, a robust platform can be created that seamlessly connects old and new environments. Portfolio depth and width: Fujitsu covers a range of services from orchestration and application control to network management. In addition, Fujitsu develops its own mainframe and network solutions and innovations, which are highly valued by customers from many sectors such as insurance and finance. Portfolio for services in the public cloud: Fujitsu extends the cloud portfolio with the VMware Cloud Foundation Stack into the cloud from AWS and Microsoft Azure, providing a separate public cloud or combined hybrid cloud offering with consulting, transformation and acquisition services.




5656

IBM

IBM is an infrastructure, platform and software expert which automates digital backbones for

customers and can also provide customer-specific and cloud-agnostic consulting and operation.


CautionIn comparison to other leading digital backbone service providers, it is noticeable that IBM has high certifications for the top hyper scalers, but still too rarely includes consulting and management with regard to Azure/AWS/GCP in marketing. It is important for IBM to include the necessary openness for consulting and operation of partner networks and technologies faster and more intensively in order to participate in the large and rapidly growing sales in this area. This also includes identifying the internal expertise in handling data and possibilities for proactive security, which IBM plays into the hands, in particular with regard to the current openness for the operation of own AI or blockchain services on other clouds.

IBM is increasingly withdrawing from the infrastructure business and focusing on higher level services, but should not forget to communicate service continuity to customers in a transparent manner.

IBM is a global hardware and software service provider and IT service provider. IBM is one of the largest consulting firms and, as a full-service provider, holds relevant market shares in all market segments. The company currently employs 350,000 people worldwide. IBM Germany employs approximately 13,000 people at 40 locations, who are responsible for sales of approximately €1.7 billion. The company acquired Red Hat in 2018. IBM’s cloud sales in 2018 amounted to approximately $19 billion (an increase of 12 percent) worldwide.

Overview

StrengthsBroad and innovative portfolio: IBM has a broad range of knowledge on related topics that are of great importance for cloud transformation and the industrialized management of customer environments. This includes experience in areas such as data analytics, automation and artificial intelligence, as well as IoT scenarios with industrial relevance. IBM has developed its own methods, which support customers on their way to a data- and knowledge-based company in a structured way. The focus here is strongly on all common business analyses, which, paired with machine learning or AI methods, increase efficiency.

Cloud security and governance expertise: IBM consultants offer first-class consulting beyond technology, so that organizational and governance aspects are also covered effectively. IBM has excellent security and compliance expertise, as well as knowledge in topics such as user experience and business innovation. The managed security services from IBM are based on the efficient, in-house QRadar technology.

Close partnerships: IBM is focused on large customers and their requirements and therefore not only skilled in ServiceNow, but also Gold Microsoft Cloud Platform Partner and AWS Premier Consulting Partner and has ISV and SaaS provider certifications for Workday, Salesforce and SAP.



5757

T-SYSTEMS

T-Systems is a strong partner for its customers for all relevant ecosystems. Data security and data

protection is a core competence of T-Systems as a trustworthy German service provider.

CautionDespite the many platform partnerships, there is still a need to further develop and strengthen public cloud competencies on the one hand, and to improve awareness in this area of new digital ecosystems as part of backbone services on the other. In addition, partnerships with Splunk, New Relic and Adobe as well as Workday should be strengthened in order to offer customers even more comprehensive consulting and management services.

Thought leadership in forward-looking trend topics such as data analytics, AI and AIOps for highly efficient and automated backbone management should be further improved.

The Deutsche Telekom or T-Systems (TSI) primarily addresses large customers with telecommunications services and services for various IT trend topics. In 2018, T-Systems generated a sales of almost €7 billion and currently employs more than 37,460 people. Around 4,500 experts from T-Systems Multimedia Solutions, Detecon and T-Systems Global Systems Integration cover the entire digitization chain. In 2018, the company’s digital sector was again able to achieve double-digit growth rates in digital and innovative cloud business.

Overview

StrengthsEnd-to-end connectivity: Deutsche Telekom offers customers primarily added value through cloud connectivity and related network services for various hyperscaler offerings such as AWS, GCP, Azure, including 4G, 5G and NarrowBand IoT. T-Systems is expanding its existing product and service portfolio to include network security services from the cloud (IDS/IPS from the cloud, web application firewalling, customer dedicated web security), Cloud Access Security Broker 2.0 as well as automated service provision and operation, thus offering state-of-the-art backbone service connectivity.Consulting expertise: Customers receive strategic and even operational consulting for digital backbone managed services as well as training on modern DevOps methods. Customers also benefit from the cloudifier approach, which has been used for some time now to provide high-quality consulting and management for hybrid and multi-cloud environments and to implement them comparatively quickly. T-Systems, as the leading internal IT unit, is familiar with all customer IT landscapes, regardless of whether they can be classified as cloud-native, legacy or hybrid. The knowledge of many platforms (AWS, Azure, Red Hat, ServiceNow up to VMware and SAP) makes T-Systems stand out from the crowd. Cloudreach collaboration: T-Systems provides automated identification of customer infrastructure and applications through a cloud computing analysis platform (Cloudamize). The offering is based on a proven methodology and quickly provides companies with comprehensive assessment results, detailed case information and a customized overall cloud strategy for each application.




5858

RISING STAR: REPLY

Reply is a digital backbone service provider of the highest quality with an excellent feel for trendsetting technologies and management philosophies in the

context of agile backbone environments.


CautionReply offers its own brands and special teams for a wide range of ISV partnerships and IT landscapes, but the transparency and added value for customers is not always clear, which easily slows down success in the perception as a solution provider for complex major projects.

Reply undoubtedly has access to major customers and above all well-known customers of German and also international midmarket, but hardly ever takes the opportunity to show customer references and primarily to link them to existing competencies.

Reply is a group of companies specializing in consulting, system integration and digital services, with focus on the conception, design and development of solutions based on the new communication channels and digital media. With headquarters in Turin, Italy, the group maintains many individual brands that are active in Germany, in particular in the Gütersloh area, and also in Munich. The parent company has branches in Italy, the U.K., Germany, Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg. In all, the company generates over €1 billion with 7,600 employees.

Overview

StrengthsComplete and comprehensive portfolio: Reply offers the full range of modern digital services, which together extend far beyond the normal or standardized IT services for customers. Reply is also one of the most comprehensively certified public cloud service partners in Germany.

Strong growth and innovative strength: Reply is growing faster than the market at over 30 percent and is increasingly reaping the rewards of investments made in research and development and the continuous revision and further development of services that focus on both cloud-native and agile infrastructures and also include legacy system environments and complex SAP landscapes.

Vertical and security expertise: Reply focuses strongly on industry insights and thus special processes that are supported by the application of state-of-the-art and disruptive technologies or even developed from scratch to take account of digital transformation. The acquisitions of CSPI GmbH and MCG Systems AG strengthen the security and thus also the cloud governance portfolio, which is currently in high demand by customers.

ISG Provider Lens™ Quadrant Report | January 2020 Rising Star: Digital Backbone Managed Services


The blockchain services quadrant evaluates the competence of

service providers with respect to blockchain consulting, design,

deployment and operation.

Blockchain’s decentralized, open and cryptographic nature allows

peer-to-peer transactions to be executed without the need for

intermediaries. Even though the platform is backed by a company,

the technology offers complete transparency and sustainable

continuity thanks to open source. Each transaction is registered in

multiple databases and encrypted with a common hash code that

changes every few minutes; this creates a data block chained in

multiple databases. This means that one does not rely on a single

database as the “single source of truth” to ensure data integrity, but

validates each individual transaction across multiple sources.

Definition

Manufacturing Analytics Services


BLOCKCHAIN SERVICES


Blockchain Services

� Blockchain service providers are members of at least one block chain consortium.

� The service provider has developed consulting expertise for the design of feasible solutions.

� The participating companies have tested several blockchain use cases and offer a library that

accelerates new deployments.

� The service provider has qualified and trained specialists to deploy and operate the platform for its

customers.

� The service provider offers services with local expertise in the respective region or country.

Definition (cont.)Service providers have already proven the feasibility of blockchain for

many application scenarios. Banks, financial service providers and

insurance companies use blockchain to share information, increase

security and reduce transaction costs, for example, for money transfers.

In addition to banking, there are use cases in the segments supply

chain, tracking, payment services, document processing and contract

processing. According to ISG’s estimates, the global market value of

blockchain could already exceed $300 billion in 2025 and exceed the $2

trillion threshold in 2030.

Eligibility Criteria


BLOCKCHAIN SERVICES


6161

Blockchain Services

� Deutsche Telekom (TSI) is a leader who keeps trying and has a track record of many projects, which

have materialized due to the undisputed credibility, security and ultimately the image of the company.

� IBM is experienced and enjoys an exceptionally high reputation for blockchain solutions, some of which

are created and operated using its own assets and can be refined through partnerships.

� Infosys scores as a leader with its large partner ecosystem, diverse block-chain knowledge and

application scenarios as well as customer opinions, which certify Infosys to be a next-gen partner for

technological and strategic issues.

� The rising star for blockchain services is MaibornWolff, which is due to many real projects and

implementations with well-known customers, the thought leadership and the extremely intensive and

modern portfolio.

Observations � Accenture is a leader and customers are in safe hands; it is a service

provider with an extensive partner ecosystem, thought leadership

feel and real projects in addition to many cases and POCs.

� Atos is a leader in Germany, and it can develop and operate

business process consulting as well as technical implementation and

development at a high level and with above average security and

identity and access management expertise.

� Cognizant is a leading blockchain service expert with a proven track

record of many projects and customers from critical sectors, and is

known for its smart consulting, design, and collaboration approach.


BLOCKCHAIN SERVICES


6262

ACCENTURE

Within the blockchain ecosystem, Accenture is a thought leader and relies on a wealth of cases

and strategies. Customers are in safe hands here.

CautionSince 2016-17, Accenture has been emphasizing its thought leadership for blockchain for a comparatively long time and has a lot of content to offer as part of the digital customer journey that customers quickly lose track of new and old cases, ideas and real customer reports.

The integration of blockchain and operation are topics that Accenture should address more often. Accenture should also more strongly promote its partner ecosystem, with which any task can be covered in a scalable manner.

Accenture is a globally operating, independent full-service provider based in Dublin. Accenture employs 459,000 people and in 2018 generated sales of $39.6 billion. The range of services includes consulting and integration services for cloud services, platforms and technologies as part of the “journey to the cloud” offering. In Germany, Accenture has offices in Kronenberg near Frankfurt, Munich, Düsseldorf, Berlin, Hamburg, Kaiserslautern and Stuttgart as well as in other cities.

Overview

StrengthsLocal customers and cases: Accenture is a digitally focused technology and primarily consulting specialist with extensive industry expertise. With its long-standing ability to incorporate industry peculiarities and requirements into complex IT solutions and concepts, Accenture has gone beyond initial studies and proofs of concept (POCs), in particular in the field of logistics and insurance and can show good references for blockchain implementations.

Partner ecosystem: Accenture has an extremely broad and in-depth partner ecosystem and toolsets to support blockchain implementations, including close collaboration with AWS or Google or Azure as part of exclusive Accenture Business Groups.

Thought leadership: There is hardly any other service provider in the competitive environment that maintains such an intensive strategy for building knowledge and significant thought leadership via cases and white papers and many other formats that deal with the disruptive topic of blockchain.

ISG Provider Lens™ Quadrant Report | January 2020 Blockchain Services



6363

ATOS

Atos offers a strong unit for blockchain services, which can provide both business process consulting and technical implementation and development for

customers from any target segment.

CautionAtos would do well to show local customer cases to show the market the security and experience with regard to blockchain.

The service portfolio is still expandable. In terms of supplementary services, there is still scope to improve the offering. It is recommended to check to what extent the service portfolio can be supplemented in the area of supply chain integration.

Atos is a France-based and globally active IT service provider of digital services that aims to strengthen its customer focus through a reinforced vertical go-to-market approach. Atos employs 120,000 people in 73 countries and generated €12.3 billion in 2018, of which €2.1 billion were generated in Germany. With its end-to-end cloud services – consulting, implementation and operation of private, hybrid and public cloud services – Atos offers a very broad yet in-depth range of services. Atos has a pool of more than 1,000 certified engineers for the top public cloud service providers and more than 3,000 cloud and 4,500 security experts. Atos Canopy is the flagship portfolio that includes public and hybrid cloud services.

Overview

StrengthsFocus on security and identity and access management: Atos can rely on Evidian as part of the group and contribute to special skills in the context of blockchain for authentication of digital transactions. Atos has also developed a data protection and governance layer on the private blockchain Hyperledger, demonstrating Atos’s expertise in this ecosystem.

Data specialist: Atos is one of the data management experts which can provide high-quality support to help customers make more out of existing data pools, store them or make them accessible to other parties. Atos also benefits from its data science and AI expertise in blockchain services.

Industry expertise: Atos is an Industry 4.0 and IoT expert that can support customers scale and reduce costs in highly automated transactions of devices and things through blockchain services.




6464

DEUTSCHE TELEKOM

Deutsche Telekom, T-Systems and other business units are among the leading

blockchain experts in Germany.

CautionDeutsche Telekom could make great progress over the last year, bringing many minimum viable products and POCs into reality, and is at least one step ahead of many of its competitors. Only the financial sector has not yet been properly addressed and won as a customer; here, sustainable and long-term customer relationships with the No. 1 industry are missing. The innovative strength of T-Labs and the cooperation with universities is not sufficiently known to the market to see Deutsche Telekom or T-Systems as an agile and innovative partner on a par with global IT providers or start-ups. Here, it would again be good for the company to align the various units and contact points for customers within the digital customer journey in a better way.

The Deutsche Telekom or T-Systems (TSI) primarily addresses large customers with telecommunications services and services for various IT trend topics. In 2018, T-Systems generated a sales of almost €7 billion and currently employs more than 37,460 people. Around 4,500 experts from T-Systems Multimedia Solutions, Detecon and T-Systems Global Systems Integration cover the entire digitization chain. In 2018, the digital sector was again able to achieve double-digit growth rates in digital and innovative cloud business.

Overview

StrengthsIndependence: The USP of Deutsche Telekom or T-Systems and other units such as Detecon or T-Systems MMS is the status of an absolutely independent full-service provider. The interdisciplinary team is not only agile and innovative, it also offers customers a comparatively great depth and broad expertise in the area of blockchain and corresponding application scenarios.

Portfolio: Customers get comprehensive support from a single source, andthe portfolio includes strategy and business model consulting, co-creation methods and consortia formation, research and implementation, security and testing and also solutions from its own cloud environments in the form of BC-as-a-service offerings.

Digital freedom and security excellence: Customers can not only choose which platform/IaaS they want to use in the collaboration, they also benefit in the context of Magenta Security from an extremely comprehensive portfolio of security services, from consulting and implementation to managed services and cloud-based or cloud-focused security services. Deutsche Telekom also offers certificates and testing services.




6565

IBM

IBM is one of the major blockchain thought leaders and can refer to many customers and implementations

as well as technology offerings for enablement.


CautionIBM has a very extensive setup and offers not only consulting and integration services for blockchain scenarios, but also many tools and platforms. For customers, the search for a suitable transformation partner with strategy or consulting and implementation expertise is difficult; therefore, IBM should not only refer to its experts in one out of ten cases, but more often to the knowledge of the consultants.

With regard to highly technological topics such as blockchain, IBM offers nearly 100 percent global and standardized portfolio and go-to-market services. In some cases, local concerns and requirements are somewhat neglected. In particular in the area of governance and security, IBM’s specialty, IBM misses out on possible projects, In the midmarket; it is in the process of digitalization and always lags behind the major customers, for IBM’s sweet spot, in adapting disruptive trends. Opportunities lie particularly in the blockchain for automated transactions in the IoT and Industry 4.0 sectors.

IBM is a global IT hardware and software service provider and IT service provider. IBM is one of the largest consulting firms and, as a full-service provider, holds relevant market shares in all market segments. The company currently employs 350,000 people worldwide. The sales of IBM in 2018 was almost $80 billion worldwide. IBM Germany employs approximately 13,000 people at 40 locations, who are responsible for sales of approximately €1.7 billion.

Overview

StrengthsExperience and reputation: IBM counts on extensive experience in consulting, implementation, integration and operation of blockchain services. IBM primarily relies on its own tools and platforms, but also provides cloud-agnostic consulting and operates solutions in any cloud environment.

Industry skills: IBM has many industry insights and use cases from national and international implementations of productive solutions. IBM’s building blocks, consisting of various tools and platforms and accompanied by a growing ecosystem, help customers to automate business processes. The business model innovation in co-creation manner also takes place in IBM’s garages.

Own assets and partnerships as an advantage: The Red Hat acquisition helps IBM even more to operate or migrate the IBM blockchain platform in almost any (public) cloud; OpenShift is currently often discussed and is favored as a PaaS and container management solution. This freedom of choice is important for customers and will once again help to ensure that IBM’s methods and platforms are used for blockchain solutions. Blockchain has also used first by the financial industry, one of IBM’s main customer segments. IBM also works closely with Hyperledger, the best-known blockchain research initiative hosted by the Linux Foundation; IBM is always gaining insight ahead of many other providers.



6666

INFOSYS

Infosys guides the customers and takes them successfully forward; technologically

and strategically, Infosys is a leading service provider of blockchain services.

CautionInfosys is known for its intensive and strategic business through partners and close business relationships. Although Infosys focuses on key partners, platforms and ecosystems, participation in local initiatives such as the German blockchain ecosystem would be desirable in order to be closer to the local sensitivities and developments of the scene and to be able to advise customers even better.

Infosys Consulting GmbH in Germany is still known for its consulting expertise and can continue to add on to its reputation for integration services. The marketing for Germany is good, but narrates too few new stories and customer references.

Infosys is an Indian IT service provider offering corporate consulting, information technology and outsourcing services. Infosys is multinational and present in 46 countries worldwide. Infosys currently employs approximately 200,000 people and generated sales of $11.8 billion in 2018. Infosys was a pioneer of the global delivery model and the first IT company from India to be listed on the NASDAQ. Infosys provides blockchain services for banking and financial services, healthcare, government, insurance, manufacturing, high tech, retail and consumer packaged goods, agri-business, insurance, energy, communications and aerospace.

Overview

StrengthsPartnerships and knowledge: Infosys focuses on best-of-breed products and platforms such as Hyperledger, Ethereum, r3 etc. In addition, Infosys focuses on key partners and builds the right network with Microsoft, SAP or BiTA. Furthermore, Infosys is highly public-cloud certified and very close to the associated innovation network. Related disciplines such as data analytics, AI and IoT are also part of Infosys’s certified expertise.

Figures speak for themselves: Infosys offers customers 700 experts on a global level, and they have already developed 60 prototypes, defined 85 use cases and carried out almost 100 projects. Infosys is therefore well aware of the advantages, disadvantages, risks and opportunities of blockchain services in order to be able to provide perspective customers with fast and high-quality advice and lead projects to success in almost all industry segments.

Custom expertise: Infosys relies on proven methods, industrialized approaches, innovation labs and global research. Primarily, Infosys counts on an intelligent application platform for accelerated development of state-of-the-art applications such as smart factory, future of insurance and intelligent retail.




6767

COGNIZANT

Cognizant makes it into the leader quadrant with many use cases and customers from critical sectors and global market leaders

which rely on Cognizant.

CautionCognizant treats Germany almost identically to other countries and offers a global and standardized portfolio; in some cases, local concerns and requirements are somewhat neglected. In particular in the area of governance and security, Cognizant misses out on the opportunity to differentiate and localize its offering.

Cognizant is a globally active Indian IT service provider with 260,000 employees and sales of almost $15 billion. Cognizant offers solutions for various use cases in different sectors. Cognizant relies on a network of 2,800 product, design and engineering professionals in 27 studios, in 11 countries and on five continents.

Overview

StrengthsIndustry solutions and expertise: Cognizant offers solutions for insurance companies, banks, transport and logistics as well as the retail sector and can provide customer references and use cases, some of which are global. Cognizant has a large number of use case prototypes for a variety of sectors to enable solid and fast prototyping. These prototypes enable Cognizant to get started quickly with solutions that can be adapted to the customer’s requirements.

Technological competencies: Innovative and highly regarded consulting, design and cooperation processes are a strength of Cognizant. Cognizant combines clever methods with its own platforms for high-performance and sustainable enterprise blockchain solutions with high security.

Partnerships: Cognizant is a member and contributor of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, which connects Fortune 500 companies, start-ups, university graduates and technology service providers with Ethereum experts. Cognizant is also a board member of DCC, the world’s leading trade association for the promotion of blockchain technology. It stands out for its thought leadership, education, lobbying and close cooperation with the industry and other major players in the global blockchain market.




6868

RISING STAR: MAIBORNWOLFF

MaibornWolff advises, develops and tests, but still flies too often under the radar; the

market does not always know which projects MaibornWolff is able to handle.


CautionMaibornWolff relies heavily on technology and implementation; the service provider could focus even more on use cases and the change of business models including risks and opportunities for specific sectors and thus rely on thought leadership.

With additional or public reference customers and examples of successfully implemented blockchain projects, the market would appreciate MaibornWolff more strongly as one of the leading service providers.

MaibornWolff is an IT provider from Germany with almost 500 employees, sales of €40 million and a multinational pool of employees.

Overview

StrengthsAgility and consulting: The portfolio is extensive, human-centric and focused on IT consulting. IT strategy consulting elements are offered as well as software development and testing elements that help customers to quickly arrive at a marketable and sustainable solution. Solutions are always adapted to the company or individual situation and are based on standardized building blocks wherever possible. MaibornWolff offers briefings, workshops, a development school, prototyping, project implementation and auditing services.

Thought leadership and workshops: MaibornWolff shows many industry-specific scenarios and use cases and performs educational work in connection with blockchain and services in order to use the concept successfully; for this purpose, the company also cooperates with universities.

Software development: A competence of the company includes the capable developers who are familiar with the latest technologies and platforms to produce ad-hoc added value for customers.

ISG Provider Lens™ Quadrant Report | January 2020 Rising Star: Blockchain Services

Methodology

Methodology


The research study “ISG Provider Lens™ 2019-20 – Digital Business – Solutions

and Service Partners” analyzes the relevant software vendors/service providers

in the German market, based on a multi-phased research and analysis process. It

positions these providers based on the ISG Research methodology.

The study was divided into the following steps:

METHODOLOGY

1. Definition of Digital Business – Solutions and Service Partners market

2. Use of questionnaire-based surveys of service providers/vendor across all

trend topics

3. Interactive discussions with service providers/vendors on capabilities

& use cases

4. Leverage ISG’s internal databases & advisor knowledge & experience

(wherever applicable)

5. Detailed analysis & evaluation of services & service documentation based

on the facts & figures received from providers & other sources.

6. Use of the following key evaluation criteria:

− Strategy & vision

− Innovation

− Brand awareness and presence in the market

− Sales and partner landscape

− Breadth and depth of portfolio of services offered

− Technology advancements



Author


Heiko Henkes is a Director and Principal Analyst at ISG; in his role as Global IPL Content Lead, he is responsible for strategic business management and acts as thought leader of ISG’s team of research analysts. His core competencies are in the areas of defining derivations for all types of companies within their IT-based business model transformation. He builds the bridge between IT trend topics and acts as keynote speaker on current and future IT trends. Heiko has nearly 12 years’ experience in IT consulting, primary and secondary market research and provider GTM strategies.

Mr. Henkes holds a degree in economics with a major business informatics and marketing of the University of Kassel and is fluent in English.

His research Focus: Digital Business Transformation, Cloud and Edge Computing, Mobile Business, Change Management and Mixed Reality.

Heiko Henkes, Author Lead Author

ISG Provider Lens™ | Quadrant ReportJanuary 2020© 2020 Information Services Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved

ISG (Information Services Group) (Nasdaq: III) is a leading global technology research and advisory firm. A trusted business partner to more than 700 clients, including more than 70 of the top 100 enterprises in the world, ISG is committed to helping corporations, public sector organizations, and service and technology providers achieve operational excellence and faster growth. The firm special-izes in digital transformation services, including automation, cloud and data analytics; sourcing adviso-ry; managed governance and risk services; network carrier services; strategy and operations design; change management; market intelligence and technology research and analysis. Founded in 2006, and based in Stamford, Conn., ISG employs more than 1,300 digital-ready professionals operating in more than 20 countries—a global team known for its innovative thinking, market influence, deep industry and technology expertise, and world-class research and analytical capabilities based on the industry’s most comprehensive marketplace data. For more information, visit www.isg-one.com.

http://www.isg-one.com

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