I’ve blogged before about consolidation in the services industry, and I believe the industry is now on the cusp of a new round of significant acquisitions. But don’t expect a repeat of the usual M&A strategy. We’ll see a shift from the usual tuck-in acquisition strategy to billion-dollar-capability acquisitions. At this game-changing level, consolidation could have an immense impact on the industry.
Market conditions are ripe for consolidation: a maturing marketplace, the cost of capital is very low and there is a changing perspective in executive ranks toward major acquisitions. As a result, the number of highly acquisitive players has jumped dramatically.
Cognizant led the way with its TriZetto acquisition, which changed the game in terms of size. ATOS acquired the infrastructure arm of Xerox. At Everest Group we also see Capgemini, Fujitsu, Genpact, NTT Data and Wipro as highly acquisitive players. And we wouldn’t be surprised to find others driving consolidation.
It will be interesting to see who these companies acquire – and whether they will acquire each other.
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