NelsonHall recently attended Unisys’ Analyst and Advisor Event 2023 in New York. The tagline for the event was ‘Imagination to Realization’ and reflective of the new Unisys branding.

Mike Thomson, President, and COO, started the event with Unisys’ new NetZero Goal by 2030 and its vision to provide a single pane of glass for clients to manage their ESG and sustainability goals. The company supports ~11m end-users and claims a >90% renewal rate and an average tenure of ~20 years across its top 50 clients. Thomson highlighted Unisys’ focus on next-gen solutions across its four business units, including:

• Modern workplace experience
• Digital platforms and applications
• Specialized services and computing solutions, including IP SaaS-based product delivery 
• Micro market solutions.

Unisys aims to increase its mix of next-gen revenue to 45% by 2026 (as a percentage of ex-L&S revenue), up from ~35% in 2022, through alignment with high-growth markets (e.g., smart workplace, IaaS, app modernization, next-gen compute (inc Quantum AI), hyperautomation, and digital mortgage processing). Its traditional solution focus includes technology support services, infrastructure management, classical compute, and BPS.

In addition to targeting large-deal pursuits, Thomson highlighted that Unisys will also target the U.S. mid-market, focusing on enterprises with revenues of $2-5bn. The target industries in this mid-market include insurance, manufacturing, energy & utilities, travel and transport, and healthcare. Unisys sees an opportunity to expedite enterprises’ digital transformation initiatives, utilizing its industry expertise, partner ecosystem, SMEs, and focus on client intimacy.

Focusing on digital workplace 2.0

Joel Raper, SVP of Digital Workplace Services (who joined Unisys through the Unify Square acquisition in 2021), highlighted Unisys’ focus on automation, proactive monitoring, experience, and making their clients' employees more productive. Raper reiterated the foundational tenets across DWS, including:

• Workplace business insights
• Frontline services (inc. field technicians)
• Next-generation service desk
• Enhanced employee experience.

Unisys continues to invest in AI, automation, and analytics to support the modern workplace and the foundational tenets above. These include its PowerSuite (AI-powered data analytics and insights engine),  and through its PowerSuite Insights Center it applies real-time data insights to different scenarios, including driving correct automation or identifying which devices to remediate. Other use cases include RTO efficacy across hybrid, enabling remote and in-office employees to communicate in productive and collaborative ways. Another example includes Smart PC refresh and providing clients with intelligent guidance on PCs that matter, extending device lifecycle (also utilizing DEM tools to identify degradation), reducing cost, and addressing ESG and carbon reduction requirements.

Another key investment includes InteliServe vNext multi-platform automation library to drive the fastest means of issue resolution by identifying the most common automations across clients. It can expose automation through a self-serve chatbot, for example. More importantly, it can expose automation to L1 service desk agents, empowering them with the tools to enable remote endpoint troubleshooting and remediation. Key use cases include user onboarding experience, M365 service automation, and field service dispatch integration.

Expanding Experience Management Organization (XMO)

Unisys utilizes its XMO to support a data-driven workplace, enabling clients to move from reactive to proactive and then predictive workplace services. It allows a data-driven employee experience through XLAs that directly relate to the experience.

Unisys was awarded a contract to provide XM by a global manufacturer with a proactive approach to experience management focused on the client’s business goals and key personas within the organization critical to these goals. Unisys identified personas for the client R&D team, given their criticality to business goals. Results to date have included higher engineering output and a 15% NPS increase. Unisys also jointly developed an experience governance board (XGB) with the client to manage the lifecycle of XLAs. As XLAs plateau over time, Unisys uses the XGB to focus on the next XLAs and business imperatives to start addressing higher-priority issues and finding a fix.

Unisys is utilizing ML/AI to support predictive endpoint health, self-healing, persona insights, and hybrid worker capabilities across the workplace. It is also prototyping use cases in generative AI across DWS to address market opportunities. These include humanized and frontline chatbot, service desk assist, developer acceleration, and insights query reporting. It is ingesting knowledge bases into Unisys to provide a more curated experience.

Driving application and infrastructure modernization

Manju Naglapur, SVP of Cloud, Applications, and Infrastructure Solutions (CA&I), highlighted business/client opportunities with hybrid infrastructure clients looking to utilize multi-cloud management and move to an SRE/DevSecOps model to transform its existing client base. It aims to accelerate through a cloud-native digital-first approach, automation, and microservices framework.

Unisys continues to invest in its cloud solutions through M&A (e.g., CompuGain) and its IP CloudForte Asset Suite across cloud, applications, data & AI, and automation. CloudForte AIOps seeks to reduce incidents through self-healing and automation and drive insights through AI/ML to prevent outages using proactive analytics, anomaly detection, and automated resolution. In support of DevSecOps, it is focused on an SRE-enabled agile model and utilizes Stealth to provide a cloud-managed security solution. Unisys is investing in AI use cases, including generative AI, continuous delivery through AIOps, and applied AI supporting CA&I.

Increasing BFS market presence

Unisys’ Financial Services practice accounts for ~$600m in revenues across 230 global clients. It is building on its BFS market presence to deliver new services for banks across three pillars of service: 

• Core renewal: Unisys is partnering with core platform vendors to modernize client platforms. Typical uses cases include enhancing the digitalization of processes, AI, and data management
• Branch: digitalizing branch services and integrating them with third-party services vendors
• Digital: Unisys is developing AI-based offerings for:
  • Portfolio optimization: analytics to mitigate portfolio risk 
  • AML/Fraud mitigation: enabling dynamic risk assessments
  • Customer acquisition: assessing partner risk using quantum annealing techniques.   

The launch of the first product is anticipated to be in Q2 2024, and these offerings will target regional and local banks.

Outlook

Unisys is focusing more on using a consulting-led approach to support client outcomes, and we expect to see a further increase in dedicated business consultants. Across client services, it focuses on personalized attention, innovation, and a proactive partnership approach. It is also bringing in CTOs across accounts to bridge the gap between business and technology.

In parallel with its large-deal pursuits, its mid-market approach in the U.S. should provide easier access to decision-makers, expedite RFPs, and enable Unisys to leverage its client-intimacy approach and industry SMEs to support the enterprise’s digital transformation initiatives. Unisys will apply its learnings from large-deal pursuits to mid-market opportunities. It also has the opportunity to utilize its dedicated BFS offerings across target markets, in particular across tier two and three banks and insurance.

We expect bolt-on acquisitions supporting CA&I across automation, analytics, AI, and joint IP and GTM offerings with key hyperscalers. Across digital workplace services, we expect to see greater utilization of generative AI as current POCs mature. We expect continued investment across PowerSuite, InteliServe vNext, and AI-based OCM.

Through its XMO, we expect to see an increase in XLAs across clients through a hyper-personalized approach, and in its experience governance board to evaluate and evolve client XLAs continually. This investment aligns well with market demand for experience parity across hybrid work. We also expect Unisys to utilize its field services capabilities further to target frontline worker opportunities, and greater use of immersive technologies, including AR/VR.

Finally, we expect Unisys to increase, train, and up-skill its resources across AI/ML engineers, cloud architects, data scientists, and automation engineers to support a platform engineering approach and increased focus on automation.