This week saw the news that Cognizant will be acquiring Norwegian oil and gas services group Akastor’s IT and BPO captive Frontica Business Solutions for NOK1,025m (~$128m). Frontica’s staffing business Frontica Advantage is not a part of the transaction. In 2015, Frontica generated revenues of NOK 4,919m (~$610m), down 14.5% y/y. 2016 has seen further market softening and Q2 2016 r[...]

  Atos (which some years ago was at risk of itself being consolidated), is today one of the more effective consolidators in the IT services industry, with impressive experience of taking on challenging low-margin (or loss-making) businesses and turning them around in super quick time. Last week, just 14 months after its acquisition of the IT outsourcing business of Xerox Corp, Atos [...]

HCL Technologies’ (HCL) twitter hashtag for its recent adviser and analyst event in Sweden was #HCLBigLeap, which led us to expect to hear some big news items. The jam-packed sessions did provide an overview of many recent and current developments – but the big news item was finally disclosed in an individual blog the following day (more of which later). We heard from many clients a[...]

This is the second in a series of blogs looking at how business process outsourcing vendors are applying RPA and AI in the insurance sector.   WNS’ RPA journey is moving quickly, with six pilots underway and five more ready to go. WNS has decided to wait on AI for the time being, in favour of developing its process automation capabilities, which has included the launch of eAdj[...]

  Genpact recently hosted an advisor/analyst session at its new Innovation Center in Palo Alto. So why is a BPO specialist opening a center in Silicon Valley? Genpact is using the center as a hub for the development (and showcasing) of platform-based digital assets aimed at mimicking the industry disruptors by being based on standardized, simplified operating models and distributed tec[...]

In August 2015, we asked ‘Is CGI Ready to Pull the Acquisition Trigger?’It’s been four years CGI’s last big acquisition (Logica), and CGI watchers are still waiting to see what big move CGI will make next. Here I take a look at what’s driving CGI’s growth plans, and what we should expect next. As a consolidator, CGI positions on taking a long-term strategic v[...]

Yesterday evening provided what was possibly the biggest surprise in the IT services industry for some time: the news that Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) is spinning off its Enterprise Services business via a Reverse Morris Trust (RMT) to HPE shareholders, for the business to be able to merge with CSC in a tax-efficient manner. Firstly, here are a few of the details of the transaction, which [...]

Next year will mark Capgemini’s 50th anniversary, and it is looking to its U.S. operations to spearhead a reinvention as a next generation IT and business process services provider, one where it positions as an innovator that is bold and capable of acting at speed in helping clients optimize and disrupt the way they do business. This is reflected in an aspirational statement for th[...]

Since his appointment as CEO of Infosys, a key message of Dr. Vishal Sikka has been that automation and AI are about the ‘amplification’ of the human, and that this has been true of technology for centuries. Here is one of many similar bold visionary statements made during his early months: “we see an opportunity to launch a great human revolution, where we are able to achieve mu[...]

At Atos’ recent industry analyst event in Boston, the first time it had held such an event in the U.S., we expected the focus would be its expanded presence in the U.S. following its acquisition of Xerox’s ITO business last June, with an update on the integration, and plans for further development in the U.S. But this was a global rather than a regional event, and Atos had much more to[...]

Last week, Cognizant released results for Q4 and full year 2015. At first glance, results looked strong. Q4 revenues were $3,232.5m, up 17.9% y/y, up 16% in CC, and adjusted operating margin was 19.6%, up 18 bps y/y and in the middle of the company's target range of 19%-20%. If we look at Q4 2015 revenue performance in Cognizant’s two largest vertical groups: Financial Services,[...]

The first working day in 2016 started with the announcement of the appointment of Abid Neemuchwala as CEO of Wipro, with TK Kurien’s elevation to Executive Vice Chairman, still reporting directly to Azim Premji. Today’s announcement was not a huge surprise; Neemuchwala’s arrival from TCS in March 2015 as COO was perhaps more unexpected in that he was an external appointment, a[...]

Will CSC invest nearly $1.2bn in M&A in the space of a few months? Or will Capita progress with a bidding war? CSC has sent a letter to the Xchanging board outlining its interest in making a cash offer of 170p per share for Xchanging stock. This would constitute a premium of 6.3% over Capita’s October 14 offer of 160p per share. CSC’s offer is dependent on Xchanging not [...]

On October 14, the Xchanging board recommended a final cash offer by Capita of 160p per share. The offer, valuing Xchanging at ~£412m, represents a premium of ~44% to the closing price on October 2, 2015 (the last business day before the start of the offer period), 52% to the prior three-month average price and 64% to the one-month average price.  Capita states it believes the acquis[...]

One recurring theme in recent conversations with CIOs has been their increasing interest in DevOps and their recognition of the importance of having the right culture. In fact, three C words: Culture, Collaboration, Communication. The general feeling is that if Agile is difficult, distributed Agile is challenging – and DevOps requires organizational rethinking. But, they agree[...]

CSC has announced it has entered into exclusive negotiations to acquire Australian IT services vendor UXC for AU$1.26 per share, a purchase price of ~AU$428m (~US$300m). The transaction is subject to completion of a five-week exclusive due diligence process. CSC expects it to be finalized by February 2016. UXC is one of Australia’s largest independent publicly-owned IT services vendo[...]

Along with its Q1 FY 2016 results today (see here) CSC has announced its intended acquisition of Fixnetix, a London-based provider of front-office managed trading solutions with 120 employees and offices in London, New York, Boston, Chicago and Tokyo. Founded in 2006, VC-backed Fixnetix provides and operates specialist trading infrastructure for ultra-low latency trading. It claims its iX-[...]

Last week, the US Department of Defense awarded a long-awaited multi-billion dollar contract to Leidos, Cerner and Accenture to provide and implement an off-the shelf EHR system across the Military Health System. The ID/IQ contract has a ceiling of just over $4.33bn. It has a two-year base with two three-year extension options, and a possible two-year award term, making a total period of up to ten[...]

Cognizant Q2 2015 results: Revenues were $3,085.1m, up 22.6% y/y, and up 25.5% in CC EBIT margin was 17.7%, down 171 bps y/y but up 50 bps sequentially Adjusted EBIT margin was 19.8%, down 122 bps y/y, but the same as in Q1 Non-GAAP operating margin, which excludes stock-based compensation expense and acquisition related expenses, was 20.2%, slightly above the target range of 19% to 20[...]

CGI's Q3 FY 15 results included: Revenues of CDN$2.56bn, down 3.5% y/y in CC and flat sequentially Adjusted EBIT margin of 14.5%, up 167 bps y/y Full results are available here. The y/y CC revenue decline (the same as in Q2) is attributed to the wind down of U.S. government healthcare projects, continued delays in U.S. federal procurement, and the slowdown in U.K. government sp[...]