Tag: Application Services

Sourcing of Application Services Management Grows Steeply Among Smaller Enterprises —Everest Group

October 12, 2021

Optimizing applications is a mandate for enterprises of all sizes, but enterprises seek more business value from sourcing engagements.

Enterprises with revenue less than US$5 billion have witnessed a steep increase in adoption of application services (AS), increasing from 55% to 79% in the last two years, according to Everest Group. The growing share of smaller enterprises in AS engagements reinforces the fact that optimizing the application estate has become a universal mandate. The COVID-19 pandemic has also forced many smaller enterprises to undertake modernization initiatives to remain resilient in the wake of another black swan event.

Although AS engagements take the top spot (more than 70%) in an IT services market expected to grow by 5-7%, most enterprises consider application management to be a necessary evil and the sourcing of application management to be solely a cost take-out function. According to Everest Group’s most recent poll of enterprise buyers of application services, enterprises believe service providers have not been able to add value to application management initiatives beyond cost-take out; value addition received the lowest score among assessment criteria. The key value-add benefits enterprises desire from their AS engagements include the following:

  1. Enable better experience for customers
  2. Increase scalabilty and resiliency of existing applications
  3. Facilitate advanced analytics and forecasting capabilities
  4. Increase security, reduce risk and adhere to compliance

To help organizations derive more business value from application services, Everest Group proposes a model that enterprises can use to drive transformation in their AS function. The “Business Value Orchestrator Platform” views application management as one part of a broader initiative comprising other technology towers, operating models, service management solutions, delivery enablement, and next-generation sourcing.

The model is described in detail in Everest Group’s newly published State of the Market Report, “Application Services – Transform Application Management to Drive Digital Success.” In this report, Everest Group also examines the market trends in the AS market, including IT services market size; AS buyer adoption trends across geographies, industry verticals and revenue sizes; and key trends shaping the AS market.

Selected Report Highlights:

 Though enterprises plan to adopt cognitive capabilities in application management functions, only 16% have adopted it thus far. The key challenge is the unavailability of suitable mature AI solutions.

  • Sixty percent of enterprises are integrating site reliability engineering (SRE) with application management.
  • With incumbent application management service (AMS) providers unable to drive more value, enterprises are willing to work with challengers. Everest Group sees nearly 20% of AMS engagements now being signed with challenger service providers rather than incumbents.
  • Discrete application services engagements continue to form 71% of the IT services market.
  • Enterprises continue to prefer short-term AS engagements (less than three years). The proportion of short-term engagements has risen over the last two years from 23% to 36% of all engagements.
  • AS engagements in the North American market continued to decline in comparison to other geographies, but Everest Group expects the North American market to grow faster than other regions as the market recovers from pandemic influences.

***Download a complimentary abstract of the report here.***Application Services

About Everest Group
Everest Group is a research firm focused on strategic IT, business services, engineering services, and sourcing. Our clients include leading global companies, service providers, and investors. Clients use our services to guide their journeys to achieve heightened operational and financial performance, accelerated value delivery, and high-impact business outcomes. Details and in-depth content are available at http://www.everestgrp.com

Output-based Pricing Gaining Ground in Application Services Outsourcing | Blog

December 16, 2019

Over the past several years, output-based pricing has increased in popularity in infrastructure services and transactional business process outsourcing deals. More recently, enterprises have warmed up to the idea of using this pricing model for application services.

This should come as no surprise, given the benefits. Here’s an example that paints a clear picture of the advantages of output-based pricing in application services.

One of our clients – a large retail firm – was using the managed capacity pricing model. While in isolation the pricing appeared attractive, the firm wasn’t able to differentiate the fee it was paying for critical versus non-critical applications. The fee it was paying was a black box with no foreseeable value. After a thorough analysis of its portfolio, we realized that there were instances of over-utilization, redundant budgeting, and unnecessary allocation of resources for certain applications.

After we armed the company with market best practices data on business criticality, support coverage, ticket volumes, ticket type, usage, change frequency, and underlying technology, it renegotiated its contract with its provider. The new contract is saving the retailer 15 percent compared to earlier spend. And the adoption of the output-based pricing model spurred conversations around portfolio transformation, particularly in the cloud.

Overall, output-based pricing brings a lot of transparency into the pricing equation, and makes underlying delivery nuances clear. Enterprises’ procurement teams also find this pricing model attractive, as they can expect greater delivery certainty, better transparency, and more flexibility from the suppliers, leading to higher value relationships.

Output-based pricing is good for providers too

Service providers also benefit from this pricing model, as it allows them to charge a higher price per service unit delivered. Because the focus in this pricing construct is on services offered, not on the underlying number of resources, providers can cross-utilize resources across projects or charge a premium fee resulting in improved project margins.

Key success factors

Output-based pricing works best in scenarios where transaction volumes are known, repetitive, and predictable. Enterprises with clearly defined parameters such as industrialized estimation models to measure resource productivity can derive optimum results from this model.

However, the model may pose limitations in situations wherein the organization’s processes are not standardized. Engagements involving activities with a higher degree of subjectivity should not go for this pricing construct. And because procurement and delivery teams need a certain level of maturity in order to leverage the model effectively, it shouldn’t be used when the enterprise is new to outsourcing.

In order to succeed with output-based pricing, the client and the provider must collaborate, and both parties must remove as many constraints as possible to allow the provider to go about the best ways to achieve optimal results.

The onus is on the enterprise to provide access to historical data, information around regulatory requirements, business fluctuations, and identify clear risk areas. The service provider is responsible for being transparent on its assumptions, inclusions, exclusions, and risk premium.

Careful contract management right from the pre-contract phase is a prerequisite to make this pricing model work. Unambiguous definitions of performance measurements will help deliver the most favorable outcomes. Finally, there must be an open and trusting relationship between the two parties. Relationships that are based on up-ending each other will likely result in failure.

To learn more, please replay our recent webinar called Output-Based Pricing in Application Services: Adoption in the As-a-Service Economy, or contact our pricing experts directly at [email protected] or [email protected].

Only 10% of Enterprises Have Effective Applications Strategy | Press Release

June 13, 2019

Transformative enterprises balance application development and modernization of legacy apps to drive agility, better customer experience

In an ideal world, enterprises that invest in application services capabilities would see a return in the form of application quality, operational efficiency and speed to value, but only 10% of enterprises are achieving this, according to Everest Group. The firm recently surveyed 194 C-level officers of global enterprises with revenues over US$1 billion and found that nearly 90% of global enterprises are unable to achieve the desired business outcomes of their application portfolios.

“Unfortunately, too many enterprises focus entirely on either investing in new technology stacks or blindly replacing their legacy applications, and this unbalanced approach is highly ineffective,” said Yugal Joshi, vice president, Information Technology Services, at Everest Group. “In contrast, 10% of enterprises are able to achieve significant improvement on their business metrics as a result of their applications strategy. What these leading organizations have in common is that they take a balanced view of their legacy and new application investments.”

Everest Group identified four more elements of effective applications strategies that leading organizations share:

  • Alignment of business and IT objectives
  • Outcome-oriented organizational structure
  • Robust talent strategy for legacy and new applications
  • Investment in strategic automation

These results and other findings are explored in a recently published Everest Group report: “Business Transformation: A Confluence of New and Legacy Applications – Annual Report 2019.” This report gives insight into the current applications services landscape, providing a fact-based analysis of buyer trends by geography, industry, and revenue size, and also offers an outlook for the application services market in the global ITS industry.

***Download a complimentary abstract of the report***

Other Key Findings

  • Application Services, which comprises application development, maintenance and testing services, accounts for approximately 32% of the US$539 billion global information technology services (ITS) outsourcing market, which is expected to continue growing at 2% per annum.
  • Application services are the fulcrum of the ITS industry, with 79% of ITS deals having some form of application services in the scope. Stand-alone application services deals have been growing consistently and contribute the largest share (68%) to the IT services market.
  • Enterprises are not shying away from making long-term investments. Deals with longer duration (longer than three years) have seen an increase at the expense of deals with shorter durations.
  • Average deal sizes in most verticals have plummeted, except for healthcare and life sciences, which saw a marginal increase in deal sizes.
  • Multi-region deal signings decreased sharply from 11% in 2017 to 2% in 2018.

About Everest Group

Everest Group is a consulting and research firm focused on strategic IT, business services, engineering services, and sourcing. We are trusted advisors to senior executives of leading enterprises, providers, and investors. Our firm helps clients improve operational and financial performance through a hands-on process that supports them in making well-informed decisions that deliver high-impact results and achieve sustained value. Our insight and guidance empowers clients to improve organizational efficiency, effectiveness, agility and responsiveness. What sets Everest Group apart is the integration of deep sourcing knowledge, problem-solving skills and original research. Details and in-depth content are available at http://www.everestgrp.com.

###

EG with tagline Neg
Linkedin-in Facebook-f Play Instagram
Better Decisions Powered by Tenacious Research    

Contact Us

Who We Are

About Us

Newsroom

Office Locations

Partners & Affiliations

What We Offer

Memberships

Custom Decision Support

Published Research

Careers

Why Everest Group

Explore Openings

Equal Opportunity Employer

Resources

Access Reports

Citation Policy

Everest Group Market Intelligence (EGMI)

Legal

Using the Reports Portal

©2023 Everest Global, Inc.         Privacy Notice          Terms of Use        Do Not Sell My Information

How can we engage?

Please let us know how we can help you on your journey.

Contact Us

"*" indicates required fields

Please review our Privacy Notice and check the box below to consent to the use of Personal Data that you provide.
Consent*