featured posts:
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Quality Engineering Becoming A Reality: TCS Launches Smart QE Platform
Oct 26, 2018, by Dominique RaviartIn our last testing blog on TCS in July 2018, we discussed the work TCS has conducted around UX testing and the introduction of its CX Assurance Platform (CXAP). In this blog, I look at the IP that TCS launched in mid-2018 addressing another feature of the digital world: DevOps and AI. TCS’ Smart QE Platform is built on existing TCS IP, including: NETRA – automat[...]
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TestingXperts: Focusing on Next-Gen & Technical Testing Services
Oct 23, 2018, by Dominique RaviartWe recently caught up with TestingXperts (Tx), a software testing/QA specialist. Tx was set up in 2013 and has presence in Harrisburg, PA, London, and Chandigarh and Hyderabad in India. Revenues of Tx in 2017 were $15m, and its current headcount is 500. The model of the company is based on Indian delivery: currently, around 80% of its personnel are located in India, primarily in H[...]
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Tech Mahindra Continues to Shift Performance Testing Portfolio Toward Next-Gen Services
Sep 13, 2018, by Dominique RaviartWe recently talked with Performance Engineering, a horizontal unit within Tech Mahindra and a growth story within the firm’s testing practice: the unit’s headcount has nearly tripled in the last four years to 1.2k. Part of this success relates to changes that Tech Mahindra has made to its service portfolio, which has expanded from a specialized testing offering (perfor[...]
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Sopra Steria’s Digital Enablers Program: Increased Adoption & AI in Mind
Sep 07, 2018, by Dominique RaviartWhile Sopra Steria may be known for its execution excellence and its investment in delivery industrialization, it had not really invested in creating accelerators and IP. Then, early last year it launched its Digital Enablers program with accelerators in mind. The company followed a slightly different approach to some of its peers in India, and initially focused on providing its d[...]
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Rackspace Jump-starts its Salesforce Services Business with RelationEdge
Sep 04, 2018, by Dominique RaviartNelsonHall recently caught up with managed cloud and hosting vendor Rackspace. We discussed Rackspace’s May 2018 acquisition of a Salesforce consulting and systems integration partner, RelationEdge, and how the acquisition fits into its plans. Who is RelationEdge? RelationEdge (RE) was founded in 2013, in San Diego, CA. The company is positioned as a business process reen[...]
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TCS’ CX Assurance Platform: a Bold Ambition for Digital Testing
Jul 19, 2018, by Dominique RaviartIn the past five years, NelsonHall has observed software testing services vendors adapting their portfolio around digital testing, focusing initially on agile and DevOps, and with a sense of urgency given the accelerating adoption of agile development methodologies. The transformation towards DevOps/continuous testing is ongoing, with most vendors now having their DevOps testing buil[...]
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T-Systems Targeting Modest Growth & Better Profitability by 2021
Jun 19, 2018, by Dominique RaviartBy Dominique Raviart & Rachael Stormonth Deutsche Telekom’s Capital Market Day 2018 included a session in which the new CEO of T-Systems Adel Al-Saleh explained how he intends to turn around the Systems Solutions market unit (T-Systems). Back to onshore vendor profitability standards by 2021 Al-Saleh’s message to investors is clear: the priority is [...]
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Tech Mahindra’s ATA Tackles the Challenges of Model-Based Testing
Jun 15, 2018, by Dominique RaviartTech Mahindra recently briefed NelsonHall on its new model-based testing (MBT) offering, Automated Test Assurance (ATA). To date, enterprises have shown interest in MBT technology, but take up has been low, partly because they had already invested in creating test cases and test scripts and were reluctant to make a further investment in creating a new a set of process models/diagrams[...]
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Testbirds Continues to Experiment with its Crowdtesting Portfolio
May 14, 2018, by Dominique RaviartWhen NelsonHall published the first crowdtesting vendor evaluation in the industry in 2017, it was striking to see how the main crowdtesting players had different strategies and were developing their services in different directions. And crowdtesting continues to surprise by bringing novelty to the testing service industry – an industry essentially based on process and, increas[...]
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Accenture’ s Teach & Test Methodology for AI Testing
May 11, 2018, by Dominique RaviartIn the past three years, testing service vendors have been looking at how to adopt more automation and apply AI to testing. Accenture, meanwhile, has been approaching things from a different angle, looking at how to test AI software itself rather than applying AI to the delivery of testing services. Here I look briefly at Accenture's approach to AI testing, which used a two-ph[...]
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Infostretch: Leveraging AI for Software Test Optimization
Apr 17, 2018, by Dominique RaviartI have touched several times on how AI is being used in the context of software testing for reducing the number of test cases, optimizing coverage, and estimating the number of defects in an upcoming release of an application. And, as AI technology is becoming pervasive, we are expecting more use cases to emerge for software testing soon. We recently had a discussion with Santa Cl[...]
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What M&A Activity at SQS Means for its Management Consulting Model
Apr 05, 2018, by Dominique RaviartWe recently spoke with QA specialist SQS about how its acquisition of Moorhouse Consulting and its own acquisition by Assystem Technologies (AT) are each supporting its management consulting (MC) services ambitions. SQS continues to deploy its MC units across geographies Firstly, Moorhouse Consulting. This U.K.-based company brings in ~140 consultants and £22m in annual r[...]
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IoT Platforms: Build or Buy? Implications for Clients & IT Services Vendors
Apr 03, 2018, by Dominique RaviartThere is an abundance of IoT platforms on the market. Many technology firms (e.g. IBM Software, AWS, PTC/Thingworx, Microsoft), major manufacturing firms (GE, Siemens, ABB, Bosch, Schneider Electric) and some large IT services vendors (e.g. Accenture, TCS, and Atos via Worldline) have invested in their own IoT platform products. History is repeating itself, as the build or buy que[...]
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Accenture Articulates its ER&D Ambitions
Mar 13, 2018, by Dominique RaviartWe were recently briefed by Accenture on the creation of Industry X.0 within its Accenture Digital organization. The discussion far exceeded the scope we were expecting of Industrial IoT, and it signaled Accenture’s expansion in Engineering and R&D discussions (ER&D), with bold ambitions not just from a product design perspective, but also from a manufacturing and produ[...]
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Sogeti Deploys AI & Analytics in Testing, Unveils Cognitive QA
Feb 15, 2018, by Dominique RaviartWe continue to assess the impact of AI on software testing services in its various forms (ML, NLP, deep learning), talking to the major suppliers in the industry. Vendors have been accelerating their investment in AI technologies to make sense of the wealth of data available in defect management tools, production logs, and ITSM software tools, creating use cases – mostly around[...]
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IoT Beyond Connectivity: Deutsche Telekom & T-Systems Open Up to Partnerships & Packaged Offerings
Feb 07, 2018, by Dominique RaviartT-Systems recently held an analyst event which specifically covered the IoT capabilities of parent company Deutsche Telekom AG Group (DTAG) and its own Digital Division. Here are the key takeaways. IoT Connectivity Services IoT is clearly important for DTAG and for T-Systems for connectivity reasons: NelsonHall estimates that most of its IoT revenues come from traditional SIM c[...]
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Wipro’s Appirio One Year On: Investing in Digital Consulting, IP & Verticalized Offerings
Jan 29, 2018, by Dominique RaviartWe recently met with the senior management of Appirio, acquired by Wipro in November 2016, for an update on developments in 2017 and priorities for 2018. As part of Wipro, Appirio has been able to accelerate the development of its digital consulting units and its investment in IP and accelerators, working alongside Wipro’s industry units, and also to expand into other geographi[...]
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2018 M&A Outlook for IT Services: More of the Same or Bold Moves Ahead?
Jan 10, 2018, by Dominique RaviartHere I look back at how M&A activity has impacted the IT services industry over the past year and make a few broad predictions for the type of activity to be expected in the next twelve months. 2016 had been marked by some large M&A announcements, with: Hardware companies moving out of services: HPE announcing the sale of Enterprise Services to CSC (completed i[...]
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Assystem Technologies' Acquisition of SQS: Scale Achieved, IoT Services a Major Priority
Dec 19, 2017, by Dominique RaviartIn something of a surprise move, Assystem Technologies (AT) recently announced its intention to acquire Germany-headquartered but LSE-listed SQS. AT is offering 825 pence per share, valuing SQS at £281m, and has secured (on an irrevocable basis) 31.4% of the shares of SQS from founders, executive management, and board members. This is a generous offer - 56% over SQS’ shar[...]
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Atos Makes €4.3bn Unsolicited Offer for Gemalto; Another Bold but Challenging Move
Dec 13, 2017, by Dominique RaviartAtos has made an unsolicited offer for security, SIM cards, and payment cards technology vendor Gemalto. The offer is sizeable at €4.3bn (plus Gemalto’s net debt of €938m at end of H1 2017) financed in cash. It runs until December 15. Gemalto is another major acquisition for Atos: in its fiscal year ended June 30, 2017, Gemalto generated revenues of ~€3bn, with an EBITD[...]
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Bold Move by Altran, Makes Largest Ever Acquisition in the ER&D Industry with Aricent
Dec 01, 2017, by Dominique RaviartER&D vendor Altran yesterday announced the acquisition of India-centric Silicon Valley-headquartered Aricent. Altran will be paying $2.0bn for Aricent through a capital increase of €0.75bn, the remaining ~€1bn in debt. In the year ending June 30, 2017, Aricent had revenues of $687m and an EBITDA margin of 27.9%. This is a significant acquisition for Altran, streng[...]
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Infosys’ Testing Practice Update: AI, Chatbots & Blockchain
Nov 06, 2017, by Dominique RaviartWe recently caught up with Infosys to discuss where its Infosys Validation Solutions (IVS) testing practice is currently investing. This is a follow-up to a similar discussion we had with Infosys back in July 2016 that centered on applying AI and making sense of the data that client organizations have (see here). Our most recent discussion looked at technologies such as AI, chatbo[...]
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Office Depot Seeks to Reinvent Itself with Acquisition of CompuCom
Oct 06, 2017, by Dominique RaviartIn a surprise transaction, Office Depot announced the acquisition of U.S.-based CompuCom, an end-user computer specialist. The price is significant: ~$1bn, including $750m in cash and 45m shares of Office Depot, with the seller, PE Thomas H. Lee Partners, owning 8% of the share of Office Depot. Despite revenues of $10.6bn, Office Depot has a market cap of just ~$2bn. With the acqu[...]
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Wipro Converging its Crowdtesting Activities Around QaaS & Topcoder
Oct 04, 2017, by Dominique RaviartI recently talked with Wipro about its crowdtesting capabilities. Here, Wipro has a different positioning and service portfolio from crowdtesting pure-plays, with a stronger focus on automation frameworks (with its mobile website and app testing framework), and access to mobile device labs. QaaS: an aggregation of testing offerings at scale QaaS is an aggregation of s[...]
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CSC to DXC Technology – Plus Ca Change…
Oct 16, 2017, by Dominique RaviartDXC Technology recently held an analyst day in the U.K., its first since being ‘born’ on April 1. It is still early days for this young organization and the integration continues (though there was little mention of this at the event). In its recent investor calls, DXC Technology has emphasized actions to strip out costs, apply financial discipline, and invest in next[...]