I believe we’ll see significant changes in the third-party services industry in 2019. The coming year will bring some major movements and trends, along with disruptions and bumpy roads.
Bumpy Roads in Digital Transformation
This year has been a move from digital transformation pilots to programs, which led to a full-on wave of IT modernization to support transforming to digital operating models. The question we must examine going forward is whether this wave will survive a recession.
It seems likely that the global economy will slow and even the US economy will come down off its heavy heights. If this happens and the economy decelerates, less capital and less discretionary funding will be available to fund companies’ modernization goals. If this happens – and the question is not if it will happen but when – I think it’s likely that it will start to happen in 2019.
