Index Insider: Market on pace for highest number of contract awards ever

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Stanton Jones

Stanton Jones

Hello. This is Stanton Jones with your weekly briefing on what’s important in IT and business services.
 
In this edition: The IT and business services market is on pace to hit the highest number of contract awards in a year. Colocation providers are growing their global footprints. HCM software provider adds workplace assessment and certification to its portfolio.
 
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MARKET ACTIVITY

The IT and business services market is on pace to execute the most contract awards ever in a single year. In the first half of 2021, there were 1,025 managed services awards over $5 million in ACV (see Data Watch). If the second half of the year sees the same or a higher number of awards – which it typically does – that puts the market on pace to reach more than 2,000 managed services awards in a single year. This would beat the previous record set in 2018.


DATA WATCH

Number of Managed Services Awards with ACV > $5M


COLOCATION SERVICES

Colocation providers are growing their global footprints. For example, Digital Realty continues to double down in Europe – especially in France – as it opens its third Paris-based data center (link). In Q2 of this year, it broke ground on a new interconnection hub in Marseilles. And Equinix is betting on continued strong GDP growth in India, as it closes its $160 million acquisition of two Mumbai-based data centers from GPX Global Systems (link).

 
Our POV: Colocation providers are part of ISG's IaaS market segment – which saw nearly 30% growth in the first half of the year compared to the same time last year. In response to increased demand for data sovereignty, especially in Europe – and to capture fast-growing digital opportunities, especially in Southeast Asia – colocation providers will continue to push their aggressive expansion plans, fueling continued growth in this segment.
 
You can find more detail on strengths and challenges for colocation providers here.


DEAL ACTIVITY

  • Kansas Department for Children and Families and Conduent. Child support agency migrating case management system from mainframe to Azure (link).
  • Bank BPS and Asseco. Polish bank signs 10-year core banking agreement (link).
  • JICA and Accenture. Japanese social and economic aid organization piloting digital initiatives across Asia (link).


M&A; ALLIANCES

  • HCM provider UKG acquires workplace assessment and certification firm Great Place to Work (link).
  • Accenture acquires Canadian healthcare consultancy Gevity (link).
  • Location data platform provider HERE jointly developing real-time monitoring and tracking solutions with Wipro (link).
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About the author

Stanton Jones

Stanton Jones

Stanton leads ISG's Index research, helping providers, investors and ISG clients make sense of the global IT services sector. Stanton’s weekly newsletter, the Index Insider, is read by thousands of market stakeholders each week. An ISG Digital Fellow, Stanton has been quoted in Fast Company, Forbes and CIO.com, and has appeared on national cable news.

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