Accenture is the world’s largest IT services company with $64.1 bn in FY’23 revenues and more than 730,000 employees across 50 countries. It is one of the most admired companies in the world with the strongest brand value amongst all IT services companies. The 1% growth of Q1 FY’24 (in sharp contrast to the 26% growth last year) is a clear indicator of the difficult year to come for the industry.
Accenture has a very strong local presence in BeLux with a long history, top notch client portfolio and more than 1300 local employees.
Accenture has done very well in both our squares this year. They had the maximum number of data points in our survey compared to other service providers with 27 contracts evaluated.
Accenture continues to be a Leader within our Applications & Digital square with the highest Market Impact score (together with TCS) and a strong CSAT of 3.70 (down from 3.8 last year). They have very strong capabilities across Systems Integration, Applications Management and Digital Transformation.
Thanks to its acquisition of Sentia, Accenture is now positioned strongly as a Challenger with amongst the highest market impact in this category. Sentia brings to Accenture a very strong hybrid cloud local capability in the BeNeLux with 400+ people. They have best in class capabilities in cloud control and optimisation backed up by a strong service catalogue. They specialize on Azure and AWS with 5 availability zones in BeNeLux. They also have a strong Digital Experience Monitoring capability. Accenture-Sentia will be a very strong fit for mid-tier clients who want local expertise. The challenge for Accenture will be to integrate this niche capability across their delivery centers and into their larger clients.
Accenture is praised by clients for its business understanding, transformation capabilities, and ability to bring and apply global knowledge for its clients. Despite its extensive size and global presence, it works as one integrated organization with a uniform way of working. While they always had a strong presence in Consulting and Applications, Accenture has recently won some large Cloud framework agreements at the EU and now have a good cloud footprint with Sentia.
Main Sectors
-
Large & Medium enterprises
# Contracts
25+
APPLICATIONS
MANAGEMENT
✓
SYSTEMS
INTEGRATION
✓
DATACENTER /
CLOUD
✓
End User
Services
POSITIVES
-
Deep business understanding
-
Consulting / transformation orientation
-
Strong local capability and workforce
NEGATIVES
-
Contracting and negotiation is more difficult
-
Strong culture does not fit with all clients
Atos here refers to Tech Foundations, which is a global technology services firm that manages, operates and modernizes business critical operations in the cloud continuum (from edge to the public cloud). They provide services for cloud, datacenters, mainframes and networks. They operate digital business platforms for data analytics and AI, mission critical communication, and major sports events such as the Olympics. They also have a strong digital workplace offering.
Atos has 49,000 people across 69 countries and €5.4 bn in revenues. The main challenge for Atos will be to return to growth and profitability as deal sizes for pure infrastructure deals have been shrinking over time. This is made more difficult with the uncertain business environment for IT companies in general and the protracted sale of the Tech Foundations business.
In Belgium, they continue to be plagued by a low CSAT for a second year. If not for their low CSAT, they would be placed as one of the Leaders given their strong revenues, client base and capabilities in the Infrastructure and Cloud services sector.
The European Institutions and public sector form a large portion of Atos clients.
Main Sectors
-
Large & Medium enterprises
-
Government / EU
# Contracts
10+
APPLICATIONS
MANAGEMENT
SYSTEMS
INTEGRATION
DATACENTER /
CLOUD
✓
End User
Services
✓
POSITIVES
-
Strong track record and capabilities in Infrastructure and Cloud
-
Strong digital platforms capability
-
Deep understanding of EU / public domains
NEGATIVES
-
Still in recovery mode with a long drawn company split
-
Low client satisfaction
Capgemini had a fantastic FY’22 closing the last fiscal year with €22 bn in revenues and a 16.6% growth in constant currency. Since then, it has grown 10.7%, 7.9% and 2.3% in the last three quarters. It is strongly committed to environmental sustainability and net zero commitments and made a strong evolution in 2023.
They have a strong focus on Europe (60% of its revenues) and Belux. Their 3 main service lines are: Strategy & Transformation (8%), Applications and Technology (63%) and Operations & Engineering (29%). The core Applications and Technology business grew 18% in FY’22.
Capgemini is one of the few companies with strong capabilities in both applications and infrastructure, though infrastructure/cloud services is under represented in Belgium compared to the group. Under the leadership of Aiman Eizzat, Capgemini has consolidated its group companies under 4 brands - Capgemini, Capgemini Invent (consulting), Capgemini Sogeti (testing and capacity services) & Capgemini Engineering (Altran).
While it has the global scale and delivery capabilities with more than 360,000 people, it also has a strong local capability with close to 2000 people in Belgium. Capgemini is able to seamlessly blend its offshore capability for support and operations, with its local workforce for consulting and transformation projects.
They have strong capabilities in SAP and are a leader in S/4 HANA transformations across Europe. With Capgemini Engineering, they are one of the leaders in product engineering.
They remain a Leader Square for Application & Digital Services in our Belux Square with a very strong CSAT score of 3.76 (3.6 last year). This assessment comes on back of the strength of their local business, maturity and completeness of service offering and high customer satisfaction scores. They have also been able to leverage group capabilities from Invent to drive transformations for clients. We also consider them to be a leader for Managed Security Services in Belgium.
They sit in the Challengers category for Cloud and Infrastructure services with a CSAT of 3.09 (up from 3.0 last year).
Main Sectors
-
Large & Medium enterprises
-
All sectors
# Contracts
15+
APPLICATIONS
MANAGEMENT
✓
SYSTEMS
INTEGRATION
✓
DATACENTER /
CLOUD
✓
End User
Services
✓
POSITIVES
-
Global reach with local presence offering good cultural fit
-
Strong capabilities across strategy, transformation, digital and cloud, and security
NEGATIVES
-
Cloud practice underrepresented in Belgium
Cegeka is a European IT services company with €877mn in annual revenues and 6000 employees in 10 countries. They have a strong local presence in Belgium and strong nearshore delivery capabilities in Romania and Moldova. With the recent acquisition of CTG, Cegeka has now expanded its business to North America and delivery capabilities in India and Colombia. Combined with CTG, the new business shall have a turnover of €1.4 bn and a workforce of close to 10,000 employees. This year they have improved their Market Impact score and moved up on the vertical scale for both Applications and Infrastructure squares.
Cegeka’s core business spans software development (primarily Java and .Net), hybrid cloud (they own two datacenters), networking and security, data analysis and AI (through Cegeka Data Solutions), and Digital platforms (e.g. nexushealth and Smartschool).
Cegeka is betting on the trinity of 5G, AI and cloud to drive their growth for the next decade. Having completed 30 years, this family owned business has grown both organically and through acquisitions. Recent acquisitions include KPN Consulting, SecurIT and Azure specialist DexMach.
Belgium represents close to half of the total revenues with the Netherlands being another 30%. They have a balanced portfolio across infrastructure and applications services. In Belgium, the business is split 40-40-20 across infrastructure services, application services and professional services (capacity services).
Cegeka is particularly active in the mid market and lower end of the upper market. Public/Social and Healthcare are their two biggest areas. They also have strong market share with the smaller banks and insurance companies. Through their Digital Platforms like Smartschool and mynexushealth, they impact the daily life of millions of citizens. They are a partner for Digital Flanders for both Digital Workplace and Applications services.
Cegeka are a strong player in infrastructure/cloud services. They have a complete portfolio across datacenter, workplace, service desk and cloud transformation services. Within applications, they are mostly active in custom development and portal development largely within the government and healthcare sectors. They have a Business Solutions offering based on Microsoft technology.
Cegeka differentiates itself from its competition on proximity & cultural fit. A family owned company “in close cooperation” with their clients. This is recognized by their clients, who give them satisfaction scores of 3.43 (up from 3.3) for Applications and Digital and a vastly improved score of 3.53 for Cloud/Infrastructure (up from 3 last year).
Main Sectors
-
Medium & small enterprises
-
Public-Social, Healthcare
# Contracts
15+
APPLICATIONS
MANAGEMENT
✓
SYSTEMS
INTEGRATION
✓
DATACENTER /
CLOUD
✓
End User
Services
✓
POSITIVES
-
Strong local presence and cultural fit
-
Strong Infra practice with good cloud transformation capabilities
-
Building vertical solutions leveraging new technologies
-
DexMach acquisition strengthens cloud capabilities
NEGATIVES
-
Limited offshore / global capability
-
Applications capabilities are not at par with the leaders
CGI is a Montreal headquartered global IT and business consulting firm with 92,000 people and €10bn in revenues (growing 8% over the last year). Their business is almost equally split into operations (both IT and business process) and business consulting and systems integration. They offer advanced analytics, cloud and IT modernisation, cybersecurity and digital transformation services. CGI also has a portfolio of industry specific solutions such as the CGI Retail suite or Trade360.
They have a large footprint in Europe with more than 45% of revenues generated here. Belgium is still small compared to the other geographies such as France, Netherlands or Scandinavia.
Public services represents the biggest portion (40%) of their revenues. Financial services and Manufacturing, Retail & Consumer dome next at about 20% each.
CGI marks its debut on our Applications & Digital square this year. Even though they do have a global scale and presence, they come across as very niche and local. Clients have praised CGI personnel for their deep technical competence and business understanding. It is much more about expertise and people – rather than the scale of a global delivery model. They also offer services that are more solution based or platform based. We frequently hear about the 'special' CGI experience working with strong, competent local individuals as opposed to a factory model. The main challenge for CGI is now to leverage this high CSAT and existing global capabilities to a broader client portfolio.
Main Sectors
-
EU, Manufacturing, Telecom, Utilities
# Contracts
5-10
APPLICATIONS
MANAGEMENT
✓
SYSTEMS
INTEGRATION
✓
DATACENTER /
CLOUD
✓
End User
Services
✓
POSITIVES
-
Strong business understanding & consulting capabilities
-
Platform based and solution based approach
-
Very competent local teams
NEGATIVES
-
Limited presence and impact in Belgium
-
Smaller scale globally compared to the leaders
Cognizant is a global IT services and digital transformation company with 350,000 employees and annual revenues of $19.4 bn. Born as the IT development and maintenance arm of Dun and Bradstreet in 1994, it was spun off as an independent company and since then has grown in size to be many times its original parent. While they were traditionally strong in Financial Services and Healthcare, over time it has developed a more balanced portfolio with growth in Products & Resources and CMT. Cognizant works for 29 of the top 30 pharma companies and 9 of the top 10 European banks.
North America still represents a large portion of their revenues at 75% with Europe being just under 20%. Cognizant declined by 0.2% as of Q3-2023 with Q4 guidance a decline of between 1-4%. Voluntary attrition declined to 16.2% in Q3-23 compared to 29% a year ago. Cognizant had a new CEO Ravi Kumar, which has been followed by a lot of other leadership changes and strong focus on stablization and margin improvement. Cognizant recently acquired Thirdera, one of the largest independent pure-play ServiceNow companies, effectively doubling its ServiceNow practice and adding local capabilities and know-how including in the Netherlands.
In Belgium, Cognizant has a strong presence in Banking, Healthcare and Telco sectors and a growing presence in Industry. They have strong local leadership in Belgium focusing on account management and delivery, with 500 local associates and a strong global delivery network.
We see them as particularly strong in applications management and digital transformation. CSAT levels for Applications and Digital services were at 3.61 (up from 3.4).
Main Sectors
-
Large & Medium enterprises
-
Banking, Telecom, Lifesciences
# Contracts
15+
APPLICATIONS
MANAGEMENT
✓
SYSTEMS
INTEGRATION
✓
DATACENTER /
CLOUD
✓
End User
Services
POSITIVES
-
Strong domain expertise in Banking and Healthcare
-
Strong growth in and focus on the local geography
NEGATIVES
-
Lack of a strong infrastructure and cloud footprint in Belgium
Founded in 1991, the Cronos group has grown to 9000 individuals and €1.1bn in revenues serving 5000+ customers in BeNeLux. The group strategy is to select technologies, actively form competence centers and encourage technically-oriented entrepreneurs to pursue the technology in question. In this way Cronos has already started more than 650 companies. They cover all possible technology domains: applications (ERP, CRM, front-end development, cloud native development), cloud, data & insights, AI, cybersecurity, digital marketing, etc. The group is also an early stage investor, incubator, integrator and venture capital firm.
The group itself keeps a low profile but some of their brands like Flexso and Cloudar are well known. They also have some interesting company names such as Sidekick and Three Headed Giant. The combined entity is the largest IT services company in Belgium, a phenomenal achievement.
Cronos has been typically more active in the small and medium enterprises. However in recent years we see several large organizations (particularly in the public sector) contracting Cronos as one of their strategic partners. A common feedback about Cronos is “somehow through their network, they are able the find the exact niche skill that we needed”. Their “knowledgeable and likeable” employees are praised by many clients.
The strength of the model (many deeply skilled and entrepreneurial competence centers) comes also with a weakness: Cronos does not have the structure to come with integrated value propositions that combine forces across different Cronos entities. But the clients do not seem to be too bothered by that, appreciating the many deep pockets of skills. In Public sector Cronos is starting to focus more on that integration at a client level.
Customer feedback for Cronos has been very positive with a score of 3.85 (up from 3.3 last year) for Applications & Digital services. Cronos are a true challenger that will grow also in the bigger clieng organizations with their local skill-base, and complement nicely the global service providers.
Main Sectors
-
Small and Mid-tier clients
-
Public Sector
# Contracts
15+
APPLICATIONS
MANAGEMENT
✓
SYSTEMS
INTEGRATION
✓
DATACENTER /
CLOUD
✓
End User
Services
POSITIVES
-
Strong technical competencies in most of the new technologies
-
Local workforce of 7000+ skilled employees in Belgium
-
Good cultural fit: local, easy to work with, deep skills
-
Very high client satisfaction scores
NEGATIVES
-
Loosely coupled set of companies unable to leverage wider capabilities
-
Lack of a global delivery model or global capabilities
Delaware is a Belgium based technology services company that is focused on the mid-market segment. They have revenues of $500mn+ globally with exceptional growth in the last few years. They have presence in Europe, US and Asia, and Belgium represents about half of their global business.
Delaware has an employee strength of around 4700 people globally. They have both offshore (China, Malaysia, Philippines, Brazil) and nearshore (Brazil, Hungary) capabilities. In 2023 Delaware has extended their global delivery capabilities by establishing delivery centers in India and Morocco.
Delaware has recently established a management consulting practice in Belgium under the banner “Connected Transformation”. They have competences in the areas of Finance, Supply Chain, HR and Digital solutions.
Delaware are one of the largest players within the applications and digital domain in Belgium with 1200 local employees and longstanding relationships with their clients. While SAP (global Platinum partner) and Microsoft (Partner of the year 2023 in Luxembourg) have been the major focus areas for Delaware, they have recently added Salesforce as a third pillar. They have a team of 70 people expected on Salesforce which is rapidly growing. They are also expanding their capabilities in OpenText and Mendix (low code platform). 80% of their business is project based – though they start to expand on managed services. With its strong local presence Delaware provides good service and cultural fit for Belgian Customers.
Delaware has large number of customers in Belgium, they have been able to deploy skilled consultants who are delivery good performance. Satisfaction score in Applications is at 3.71 (up from from 3.4 last year) and this year they also make their debut for the Infrastructure square with an above median score of 3.76. They have a good Azure practice and a very strong O365 team.
Main Sectors
-
Medium & Small enterprises
-
Manufacturing, Utilities
# Contracts
15+
APPLICATIONS
MANAGEMENT
SYSTEMS
INTEGRATION
✓
DATACENTER /
CLOUD
✓
End User
Services
POSITIVES
-
Strong on SAP and Microsoft with deep technical skills
-
Good local presence driving strong relationship at customers
-
Fractional FTE model works well for the small to medium sized customers
NEGATIVES
-
Scale and global reach is an issue for large, multinational customers
-
Onshore rates can be expensive because of local resources
Deloitte is a global Tax, Audit, Business Consulting and IT services organization with revenues of $64.9bn in FY2023 (up 14.9%). They have 456,000 people worldwide and work with 90% of the Fortune Global 500 companies. Brand Finance has recognized Deloitte as the strongest and most valuable commercial services brand in the world for the 4th year running. Close to half of their workforce is under 30 years of age and also women represent close to half (48%) of the workforce in EMEA.
Deloitte is the largest professional services firm in Belgium. They grew 11.3% in FY’23 to close the year at €786mn. Consulting represented €270mn across technology and management consulting. Deloitte has strong capabilities in SAP, Salesforce and digital transformation. In addition, they have strong teams in finance and supply chain / network operations.
Deloitte had a score of 3.36 (down from 3.6) for Applications and Digital services. Deloitte is praised for its business acumen, consulting and transformation mindset, ability to take the customer together on the journey and very positive relations with the business. They are seen as thought leaders and strategic partners.
Deloitte is not a company but a global network of independent firms. This is often reflected in practice – their ability to coordinate across countries sometimes seems challenging for large client projects.
Main Sectors
-
Large & Medium enterprises
-
All sectors
# Contracts
5-10
APPLICATIONS
MANAGEMENT
✓
SYSTEMS
INTEGRATION
✓
DATACENTER /
CLOUD
✓
End User
Services
POSITIVES
-
Strong consulting mindset and business understanding
-
Their business model still affords the right attention to Belgium
-
Ability to engage and drive both business and IT stakeholders
NEGATIVES
-
Weaker global delivery model and ability to act as one global company
-
Limited portfolio of IT services
DXC is a global applications, digital transformation and infrastructure/cloud services company with $14.4bn in revenues and 130,000 employees. They are one of the few companies active on both applications and infrastructure business.
DXC is organized along two major service lines. Global Business Services (GBS) which comprises of Analytics & Engineering, Applications and Business Process Services. And Global Infrastructure Services (GIS) which comprises of Cloud & Security, IT Outsourcing and Modern Workplace. The story of DXC is a story of two contrasting themes – a growing and more profitable GBS business ($7bn) and a shrinking and less profitable GIS business ($7.5bn). This is reflective of the wider market trend whereby the Infrastructure service revenues of the service providers are declining as increasing loads move to the public cloud. DXC wants to focus on building modern applications on a secure cloud platform. They are proving that in BeLux with innovative solutions for their customers leveraging the newest technologies.
In BeLux GBS already represents 75% of the business. They have close to 1000 people in Belgium and are a key player particularly within the government sector where they have a lot of strong credentials around Digital Transformation for public services and for the citizen: front-end, back-end and organizational change management. Their relationship with the Flemish Government celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2023. DXC is also strong in the Insurance sector where they have their own insurance platform and provide not only IT but also business process services.
They continue to have an outstanding satisfaction scores on Applications 3.89 (up from 3.6) and a score of 3.58 (3.6 last year) for Infrastructure and Cloud.
DXC CEO and Chairman Mile Salvino has been replaced in December and an interim CEO has been put in place.
Main Sectors
-
Large & Medium enterprises
-
Government
# Contracts
15+
APPLICATIONS
MANAGEMENT
✓
SYSTEMS
INTEGRATION
✓
DATACENTER /
CLOUD
✓
End User
Services
✓
POSITIVES
-
Strong digital transformation skills
-
Balanced portfolio across applications and infrastructure
-
Strong in custom applications development and digital transformation
-
Very strong in the government sector
NEGATIVES
-
Limited presence outside of the public sector
-
Global revenues still shrinking
An offshoot of French IT giant Atos, Eviden is positioned as the next generation tech leader in cloud, big data and cybersecurity. Eviden focusses to be the digital transformation partner of choice for its customer by leveraging its strength in big data, security, cloud and SAP S/4 HANA.
Eviden has revenues of $5 billion and 59,000 employees at the time of split. They expect to grow the business at +5% year on year from here onwards. They want to leverage their access to proprietary technologies and patents to enable this growth. Their portfolio is spread across application development, transformation, advance computing, security and cloud. They have a strong data analytics practice building data driven ecosystems. AI is also a strong focus area where they are building sector specific GenAI and have already executed some projects in the government sector. Their Poland nearshore center is particularly praised by clients.
With 9000+ security consultants, Eviden standout as a leader in cyber security services both globally and locally. It offers end to end security services including tailored solutions for digital identity, cloud security, IoT security, ADR and data privacy. Eviden has a mature managed service offering with state of the art SOCs. Further it continues to expand it security capabilities by acquisitions such as Motiv (an ICT Security provider from Netherlands). Based on its offers, breadth of capability and experienced security resources, S-Square ranks Eviden as a leader in Managed Security Services.
In Belgium, Eviden partners with major European institutions delivering application and digital services. It continues to strengthen its business in SAP, Microsoft, Cloud Transformation and Application modernization. Eviden comes with a satisfaction score of 3.28 (down from 3.5 last year) in our Applications and Digital square. With the completion of spin-off we expect renewed customer focus on their core offerings.
Eviden is particularly strong in the public sector and the European institutions. The main challenge for their Belgian management will be to grow the brand recognition and replicate this success in the other sectors.
Main Sectors
-
European institutions
-
Government
# Contracts
10+
APPLICATIONS
MANAGEMENT
✓
SYSTEMS
INTEGRATION
✓
DATACENTER /
CLOUD
End User
Services
POSITIVES
-
Strong capability and offering in Cyber Security
-
Strong local capability with very an exceptionally strong nearshore capability
-
Strong presence and understanding of the public sector and European institutions
NEGATIVES
-
Transformation and project delivery capabilities to be strengthened further
-
Limited presence outside of the European Institutions and public sector
Fujitsu is a global technology services company that has 124,000 employees. Its revenue from global services business for FY23 is projected to be around $14bn. While 60% of their revenues come from Japan, they are truly global with a presence in over 180 countries. Sustainability is high on their agenda with their global mission being to make the world more sustainable by building trust in society through innovation.
Fujitsu’s is organized around 4 verticals – Sustainable Manufacturing, Consumer Experience (Retail, Banking), Healthy Living (Pharma, Healthcare) and Trusted Society (Public Sector). In industries such as Retail and Healthcare, Fujitsu offers end to end solutions spanning applications, hardware and devices.
In Belgium, they are one of the key player for Infrastructure and cloud services. Fujitsu has 650 people in Belgium and another 700 working from global delivery centres for Belgian clients. They offer cloud, infra services (including data centers, workplace and service desk) and system integration services.
This year, they make their debut on the Applications and Digital square. Their application expertise in Belgium is centered around two key capabilities – blockchain and ServiceNow. They have a global blockchain CoE in Belgium with several projects for European and global clients. They also has a very strong ServiceNow practice locally with 60 consultants.
Almost half of Fujitsu’s business comes from the European institutions and government sector. We believe that with their mature delivery capabilities and flexible model, they are a very strong fit for mid-market clients where they have a strong cultural fit. Within the industry, while we see them often in the European arm of large Japanese conglomerates.
Fujitsu is praised by clients for their delivery capability, flexibility and ability to adapt to different client situations and requirements. Amidst the Ukraine war, Fujitsu migrated its Kazan delivery center in Russia to India. This transition did lead to some issues at a few clients, now that the transition is complete Fujitsu is focused on delivering stable operations. India center is highly industrialized and relies on standardized tooling and automation to deliver value to customer. The Cloud & Infra client satisfaction score for Fujitsu is 3.35 (compared to 3.1 last year) while the Apps & Digital client satisfaction score is 3.56.
Main Sectors
-
Medium & Small enterprises
-
EU, Government, Industry
# Contracts
20+
APPLICATIONS
MANAGEMENT
SYSTEMS
INTEGRATION
DATACENTER /
CLOUD
✓
End User
Services
✓
POSITIVES
-
Mature service portfolio and flexible client centric approach
-
Very strong fit for mid-market clients
-
Ability to offer end to end digital solutions
NEGATIVES
-
Needs strengthen its capabilities further on innovation and transformation projects
-
Weak presence outside of European institutions and Japanese companies
Hexaware is a $1.2bn IT consulting and services firm that is owned by The Carlyle group. They have 30,000 employees with offices in 19 countries. Hexaware grew 23% in their last fiscal, also the first time that they crossed $1bn in revenue. Europe represents 20% of their revenues and grew 33% last year. They have 4 service lines: Digital & Software (build/modernise digital platforms), Transformation (cloud, application modernization and Data/AI), Business Process services, and Digital IT Operations.
While they offer services for all major industry sectors – their two most important verticals are Banking & Financial services and Healthcare & Insurance which together form 60% of their revenues. In Belgium, Hexaware is particularly active in the Insurance sector where they work for all the major insurance companies.
While Hexaware offers a full service portfolio across applications services and cloud. Infrastructure, We find them particularly strong in RPA / automation and testing services. In some sectors like banking, they have even developed sector specific solutions such as PaymatiX – a banking specific DWH offering. They have assets such as Amaze which is their platform for cloud migration and transformation.
This year marks the debut of Hexaware in our Applications and Digital square. They had a particularly high client satisfaction score of 3.98 and were amongst the top three companies in this regard.
Main Sectors
-
Insurance
# Contracts
5-10
APPLICATIONS
MANAGEMENT
✓
SYSTEMS
INTEGRATION
✓
DATACENTER /
CLOUD
✓
End User
Services
POSITIVES
-
High client satisfaction
-
Very strong presence in the Insurance sector
-
Good feedback on RPA and Testing
NEGATIVES
-
Smaller scale compared to the larger providers
-
Need to grow the business outside of Insurance
HCLTech is a global IT services company with revenues of $12.5 billion and 225,000 employees. Their business grew by 13.7% last year. HCLTech is organized into the following business segments: IT & Business services (72%), Engineering & R&D services (16%), and Products & Platforms (12%).
While their portfolio of IT and Business services comprises of Applications, Cloud/Infrastructure and BPO services with sizeable business in each of these areas, in Belgium we seem them playing a very strong role in Cloud/Infrastructure services. They have a small number of high-profile clients. HCLTech offers comprehensive cloud migration, cloud operations and cloud native development capabilities.
Their platform solutions such as HCL Notes, Domino, Unica provide certain stickiness with their customers. They also have a strong digital workplace offering. Clients appreciate HCLTech for their knowledge, service delivery, flexibility and willingness to work together with a positive mindset.
While HCLTech does not have the market share of a Kyndryl, NTT or Atos in Belgium, they have a small number of clients who are top names within their industry. They have a public cloud first mindset. They have an agreement with Proximus’ Enterprise Business Unit to focus on the small and mid tier market for the provision of hybrid cloud services.
This year they had a client satisfaction score of 3.13 (a drop from 3.6 last year).
Main Sectors
-
Large & Medium enterprises
-
All sectors except Public
# Contracts
5-10
APPLICATIONS
MANAGEMENT
✓
SYSTEMS
INTEGRATION
✓
DATACENTER /
CLOUD
✓
End User
Services
✓
POSITIVES
-
Strong cloud transformation capabilities with cloud first mindset
NEGATIVES
-
Limited local credentials for Applications services
-
Lack of local workforce and presence on the ground
IBM is a global consulting services and technology solutions & platforms company with $60.5 bn in revenues and 258,000 people across 175 countries in the world. They have grown 3.5% in the last quarter with a declining infrastructure business but a faster growing consulting and software business.
IBM consulting spans business transformation, experience design, technology consulting and applications operations. It represents about 30% of the global business ($189n in 2021) with 150,000+ people across 150+ countries helping clients in their digital transformation, build open hybrid cloud architectures, manage and deploy applications and provide business operations services. This is a healthy growing business, with a 15% increase last year. They have a strong book to bill and are particularly strong in the Financial sector.
This shows that the strategy of spinning off Kyndryl (which is returning to growth independently) is paying off, IBM having reversing several years of decline and returning both entities to growth. With the spin off, IBM is betting big on AI and open hybrid cloud driven by their Red Hat platform to drive future growth.
In Belgium IBM is particularly focussed on financial services and public/EU – which together represent 85% of its business. They are focussed on the larger deals and clients that have a significant transformation aspect.
This year IBM had a vastly improved CSAT score of 3.21 (up from 2.5 last year).
Main Sectors
-
Large enterprises
-
Financial Services, Government / EU
# Contracts
5-10
APPLICATIONS
MANAGEMENT
✓
SYSTEMS
INTEGRATION
✓
DATACENTER /
CLOUD
End User
Services
POSITIVES
-
Strong open hybrid cloud offering based on Redhat
-
Significant R&D investment and innovation globally
-
Strategic relationships and traction at large clients
NEGATIVES
-
Large and complex organization with low flexibility
-
Not always able to bring its global expertise and innovation to local clients
Infosys is a global technology services and digital transformation company with $18.2 bn revenues (FY23) and 350,000 employees. They operate in 56 countries and have grown 4.2% and 2.5% in the last two quarters (15.4% in the last fiscal). They have a healthy operating margin of 21%. Infosys has emerged as the 3rd most valuable IT services brand in the Brand Finance report 2023.
Their solutions are divided into ‘Digital’ (62% of their business) driven by data analytics, digital and cloud transformation; and ‘Core’ that focusses on management and modernization of client legacy systems. Europe represents 25% of their overall revenues.
Infosys has a strong products and platform offering with several industry leading offerings such as Finacle (digital banking platform), Equinox (ecommerce and digital marketing platform), Panaya (cloud based test management and change intelligence) and Stater (mortgage processing market leader in BeNeLux).
In Belgium, Infosys is particularly strong in the telco and manufacturing sectors where they long have a long history and truly strategic relationships. Across BeNeLux, Infosys has is a clear leader in Financial Services and Telco while they have a strong European footprint for Manufacturing.
Infosys had a client satisfaction score of 3.33 (consistent with 3.3 last year).
Main Sectors
-
Large enterprises
-
Telecom, Manufacturing
# Contracts
10+
APPLICATIONS
MANAGEMENT
✓
SYSTEMS
INTEGRATION
✓
DATACENTER /
CLOUD
✓
End User
Services
✓
POSITIVES
-
Long established client relationships in Belgium
-
Deep industry knowledge and capability
-
Strong products and platform based delivery
NEGATIVES
-
Lack of a country focus
-
Limited participation on new competitive deals in Belgium
Kyndryl is the world’s largest provider of infrastructure services. With 4000+ customers including 75% of the Fortune 100, Kyndryl continues to be the partner of choice for the most complex transformation projects and engagements. They operate more than half of the world’s mainframe systems.
Kyndryl closed last year with revenues of $17bn (down from $19bn two years ago). The revenues continue to decline (by 5% and 1% in the last two quarters). However, there has been a substantial improvement in EBIT – something that is expected to continue with new signings. Kyndryl focusses on its three As – Alliances (leading hyperscaler alliances and certifications), Advanced Delivery (expect to hear about Kyndryl Bridge – their open innovation and automation platform) and Accounts (focus on key accounts and improving profitability).
Kyndryl’s core offerings are cloud (34%) and core enterprise and z-cloud (33%). They also offer services around Security & Resiliency (14%) Application, Data & AI (5%), Network & Edge (8%) and Digital Workplace (7%).
In Belgium they are one of the largest IT services companies. The size of their infrastructure services practice is double that of the nearest competitor. They have a large client base with financial services being more than 50% of their business, but also a large presence within manufacturing.
This year they had a solid client satisfaction score of 3.87 (up from 3.4 last year).
Main Sectors
-
Large enterprises
-
Financial Services, Government / EU, Manufacturing
# Contracts
10+
APPLICATIONS
MANAGEMENT
SYSTEMS
INTEGRATION
DATACENTER /
CLOUD
✓
End User
Services
✓
POSITIVES
-
Leader in complex infrastructure / mainframe services
-
Strong hybrid cloud capability with own datacenters with shared solutions
-
Strong outlook with alliances with best in class partners
NEGATIVES
-
Several scope dependencies on IBM in certain areas (particularly linked to consulting and applications)
NTT marks its debut on our square this year. We had the opportunity to interact closely with NTT over an opportunity this year and also visit their delivery centers in Europe and India. We were quite impressed with what we saw. Also impressive is the scale of their business in Belgium, the number of clients they have and their leading expertise in some niche areas such as Network and Telephony.
Part of the bigger $97bn NTT Group, NTT Ltd. is a $10.4bn IT infrastructure and services company. They have 35,000 employees across 20 countries. They serve clients in 55+ countries and operate 80 datacenters. This year will see NTT Ltd. merge with the bigger NTT Data, which is a $30bn company providing application services. This survey and article is focussed on NTT Ltd.
NTT works with a vast majority of Fortune 500 clients with manufacturing and financial services being the two largest verticals. They are one of the largest service companies in Belgium by revenue with a very impressive client portfolio across manufacturing, financial services, utilities, telecom and the European institutions.
This year they had a client satisfaction score of 3.16 across 8 clients interviewed. If this client satisfaction score improves to beyond 3.3, they will appear as a Leader on the Infrastructure and Cloud services square owing to the very high Market Impact score that NTT has.
For Network services and Customer Experience (both Cisco & Genesys), we believe they are the market leaders. In addition, they also offer collaboration, datacenter and cloud, edge services and security services. As a reseller and partner of several hardware and software vendors, they have some of the best relationships of any service provider with most of the large strategic global providers.
Main Sectors
-
Manufacturing, Financial Services, European Institutions
# Contracts
5-10
APPLICATIONS
MANAGEMENT
SYSTEMS
INTEGRATION
DATACENTER /
CLOUD
✓
End User
Services
✓
POSITIVES
-
Outstanding capability on Network and CX
-
Very strong relationships with leading hardware and software providers
NEGATIVES
-
Limited to mid-sized deals
-
Lower market visibility and perception (compared to capabilities)
-
Large variations in client satisfaction
PwC is one of the world’s leading professional services companies delivering Audit & Assurance, Advisory services, and Tax & Legal services. They service 87% of the Global Fortune 500 companies and had revenues of $53bn last year (up by 10%). PwC has over 364,000 people across 151 countries.
PwC has invested $2bn into expanding and scaling up its AI capabilities. PwC has collaborated with OpenAI to develop ChatPwC a conversational AI assistant has been trained on common tax and regulatory questions. The tool has been deployed internally and will be soon will be offered to its customers.
Advisory services represent about $22.7bn globally. This includes both business advisory (majority) and technology advisory. In terms of Technology capabilities, PwC offers technology strategy, business application services, cloud, data & analytics cybersecurity, and services on new technologies like AI.
PwC continues to grow its strength in Digital Transformation projects, which is confirmed by their high client satisfaction scores. Once again, they have had the highest client satisfaction score of 4.1 (down from 4.2) on the Applications and Digital square. They have strong capabilities in Salesforce and Workday transformation projects. Belgian clients appreciate PwC’s ability to bring together their expertise in business consulting and technology transformation. They have built a reputation of delivering projects in agile mode where customer requirements are fluid and evolving.
Recently have entered a partnership with Alteryx to stimulate digital transformation. PwC will use Alteryx Analytics Platform to deliver data driven insights for their customers using AI/ML modelling.
Main Sectors
-
Large & medium sized enterprises (cross-sector)
-
Government
# Contracts
5-10
APPLICATIONS
MANAGEMENT
SYSTEMS
INTEGRATION
✓
DATACENTER /
CLOUD
✓
End User
Services
POSITIVES
-
Best in class client satisfaction (“exceeding client expectations”)
-
Best in class talent in terms of content skills and mindset
-
Technology transformation with a strong business transformation angle
NEGATIVES
-
Smaller scale compared to the larger competition
Stefanini is small but global company with roots in South America but a presence across the world. They have $1.3bn+ in revenues with 30,000 people and a presence in 41 countries. They offer service desk, workplace and infrastructure services, application and digital services and cybersecurity services. While 20,000 of their people are in South America, they have 3200+ employees in Europe. They have a diverse client portfolio well split across different industries – the most important being financial services and manufacturing.
Brussels is their European HQ and they have delivery centers in Romania and Poland. Locally they have 150 consultants in Belgium, whom together with the nearshore centers support clients in over 45 languages. Stefanini is growing at a fair pace in Belgium with the addition of customers like Radisson and Mazda. They are particularly strong in the Manufacturing sector.
Stefanini has been successful in bringing innovation and automation to customers that have helped improve employee engagement and productivity. “Sophie” the AI assistant with voice capability, “Chameleon” a self-adaptive portal that customizes itself based on end-user personas have been deployed successfully at customer sites. With their strong people, process and tools, we believe they are strongly positioned for Service Desk and Digital Workplace services.
Clients almost uniformly call out Stefanini for their customer focus, service delivery, cultural fit and flexibility. They have been quite successful in transitioning service a seamless manner. Their performance in field ops, deskside support and finance BPO is appreciated by the clients we have surveyed. Clients call out Stefanini’s ability to retain key staff members, which vital to deliver good service. They have extremely satisfied clients and continue to have a high satisfaction score of 4.35 (up from 4.0 last year).
Main Sectors
-
Small and medium enterprises
-
Manufacturing
# Contracts
5-10
APPLICATIONS
MANAGEMENT
✓
SYSTEMS
INTEGRATION
DATACENTER /
CLOUD
✓
End User
Services
✓
POSITIVES
-
Consistently top notch client feedback
-
Client focus and flexibility
-
Ability to transition/take over service on time
NEGATIVES
-
Credentials limited to Digital Workplace and Service Desk
-
Brand visibility needs improvement in Europe
Part of the Tata group, India's largest multinational business corporation, TCS is also the largest and most impactful of the Indian IT services companies. TCS has over 614,000+ consultants across 55 countries. With FY’23 revenues of $27.9 bn, TCS has seen a revenue growth of 8% globally. TCS’ operating margin of 24% in FY2023 is one of the best in the industry. They are also the most visible of the Indian IT services companies both globally and locally.
New CEO Krithivasan took over the reins of the company starting June this year after the surprise exit of Rajesh Gopinathan. Krithi is a 30 year TCS veteran who wants to double down on the TCS core values of ‘customer & people centricity’.
TCS has a long history in Belgium with a presence dating back to almost 30 years. They have close to 5000 people working for 35+ very satisfied Belgian customers.
TCS continues to perform very strongly in Belgium. They continue to remain as one of the Leaders within our Applications and Digital square, with a client satisfaction score of 3.62 (down from 4.0). This year, on the back of recent wins at Barry Callebaut and Bridgestone, TCS also makes their debut into our Cloud & Infrastructure square with a very impressive client satisfaction score of 4.0.
TCS continues to be one of the strongest player for Application Management services. Having built a portfolio of products and offerings TCS caters to every breadth of technology, they have products that help customer in their accelerating their digital journeys like MasterCraft (transformation & modernization) and Cognix (Intelligent Automation). Based on their very strong performance on projects, we have increased our assessment of their systems integration maturity – which brings them higher on the Market Impact dimension.
TCS has very strong delivery capabilities, a robust delivery network and wide technology coverage. They are seen as dependable and reliable partner that can deliver stable operations. TCS has setup an innovation center “Paceport” in Amsterdam – about which we have received positive feedback.
In terms of industry, they are well diversified in Belgium with a strong presence across financial services, manufacturing, retail and CPG, transportation and logistics and telecom.
Main Sectors
-
Large & Medium enterprises
-
All sectors
# Contracts
20+
APPLICATIONS
MANAGEMENT
✓
SYSTEMS
INTEGRATION
✓
DATACENTER /
CLOUD
✓
End User
Services
✓
POSITIVES
-
Client focused and reliable; Very high satisfaction scores
-
Proactive in driving continuous service improvements and automation
-
Vast coverage of technologies and skills, strong technical resources
NEGATIVES
-
Lack of consulting / transformation culture
Wipro is a global IT services and digital transformation company with last reported annual revenues of $11.2 billion and 245,000 people. Wipro has strong global capabilities on both Applications and Digital services and Cloud transformation. A recent geography focused reorganization and a European CEO has brought much more focus on the local market. They have been on the rise in Belgium with recent wins such as Solvay and Mazda and have done very well in the Netherlands as well.
They have strong capabilities on Salesforce through the 4C acquisition some years ago – for which there is very positive client feedback.
They have a very strong public cloud and digital workplace offering. They are able to serve customers out of their delivery centers in Eastern Europe or India. We expect Wipro to be a strong challenger for new deals in Belgium given their local focus and ambition. This year they had at median CSAT of 3.7 for Application services (up from 3.6 last year).
Main Sectors
-
Large & Medium enterprises
-
Public services for 4C
# Contracts
5-10
APPLICATIONS
MANAGEMENT
✓
SYSTEMS
INTEGRATION
✓
DATACENTER /
CLOUD
✓
End User
Services
POSITIVES
-
Good global capabilities across applications and cloud
-
Strong management attention to grow Benelux
-
Strong sense of CSR through the Wipro and Azim Premji foundation
NEGATIVES
-
Smaller footprint in Belgium compared to peers
-
Lack of consulting/ transformation mindset