The growth of autonomics solutions, service provider
industry expertise, network globalization, software audit response strategies,
BPO value realization and cloud infrastructure investment will be six key items
on executive agendas in 2015, according to Alsbridge Inc., a benchmarking,
sourcing and transformation advisory firm.
Alsbridge senior executives and thought leaders
identified the following six key trends and priorities they anticipate for
2015:
Autonomics gains
traction: Smart machines and virtual engineer components
will increasingly be included in outsourcing deals, driving significant cost
reductions and business model disruption.
“At present, we’re seeing some early adopters offering autonomics
solutions and clients signing on,” said Howard Davies, Alsbridge Managing
Director. “However, we lack detailed data regarding implementation and support
costs, as well as a clear understanding of total economic impact.” This will
change in 2015, Davies said: “As deals are implemented and data comes on-line,
success stories will emerge and build momentum. In addition, we’ll have more
robust data to leverage for benchmarks and forecasts, which will further boost
confidence.”
Industry
expertise becomes paramount: Clients will increasingly demand that
service providers demonstrate industry knowledge and specialized expertise to
address their unique business problems. “Technology knowledge, price and SLAs
are no longer sufficient,” said Jeff Seabloom, Alsbridge Managing Director. “A
retail organization, for example, needs its service provider to know logistics,
distribution and inventory management issues related to click and brick models,
mobile payment apps, point-of-sale alternatives and other industry-specific
issues.” In this environment, Seabloom adds, tier two providers will be
positioned to leverage their agility and flexibility to gain a competitive
edge, at least in the short term.
Networks
globalize and migrate to the cloud: Large, multi-national enterprises will
continue to move towards developing and implementing truly global
communications networks, leveraging enhanced technologies and the increased
global reach of the top network providers, as well as the expanded capabilities
of viable alternatives. “One
characteristic of this trend will be migration away from regional wireless
policy programs and towards global standards, while wireless liability will
shift from the company to the individual,” said Phil Hugus, Alsbridge Managing
Director. “Additionally, regional and emerging market players will grab market
share through strategic acquisitions to expand their footprint and
significantly increase local access capabilities.” Hugus also expects to see continued
commoditization of MPLS WAN services and accelerated movement from terrestrial
data to cloud-based network services.
Enterprises
prepare for software audits: CIOs will step up efforts to ensure that
their enterprises are prepared to effectively respond to audits by software
providers seeking fees and penalties for violations of licensing terms. “Audits
are becoming an increasingly important and lucrative revenue stream for
software firms,” said Seabloom. “CIOs are recognizing that they’re at risk of
being audited, and that mergers and acquisitions, virtualization and cloud
initiatives and other actions often trigger audits. They’re responding by
putting better governance and asset management processes in place.”
BPO focuses on
value rather than cost takeout. The impact of autonomics and focus
on industry expertise will accelerate the shift to value enhancement in BPO
services. “Providers will apply transactional and contextual data, combined
with enhanced analytics capabilities, to provide business insights to their
clients in areas ranging from product engineering to customer loyalty to
upstream and downstream process effectiveness,” said Bill Huber, Alsbridge
Managing Director. “New offerings will integrate social media and mobility
channels and Cloud/BPaaS capabilities will separate winners from losers.”
Cloud growth requires
investment in the basics. As cloud-based delivery models continue to
infiltrate every traditional software, infrastructure and networking
procurement decision, improvements in basic infrastructure will be needed to
keep up with demand. “To support cloud
and unified communications, enterprises will have to upgrade or redesign core
outdated or overburdened MPLS networks to meet the demand for bandwidth speed
and availability,” said Katharine Rudd, Alsbridge Managing Director. She added
that, while SaaS will continue to dominate the market, “buyers will have to
understand what they are actually getting as the lines blur further between
PaaS and IaaS.”
About
Alsbridge Inc.
Alsbridge (www.alsbridge.com)
is a management consulting firm that helps companies reduce costs and enable
their businesses by optimizing the way they work with their vendors. With over
200 consultants on four continents, Alsbridge has been a trusted advisor to
over 40% of the Fortune 500 and currently advises over 200 clients a year on
over $11B in spend. This gives us tremendous market insight and deep
benchmarking databases that our experienced consultants use to help clients
engage the optimal vendors for their situation, negotiate best practice terms
at fair market prices and improve the governance of vendor relationships.
Alsbridge clients utilize the most cost effective and value added sources
globally for IT infrastructure services, network carrier services, hardware and
software, application support and development, business processes and cloud
services.
Media
Contact:
Alex
Kozlov, Alsbridge
alex.kozlov@alsbridge.com
617-558-3377
(office)
617-620-4180
(mobile)
