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In this section we present the market for IT services in Belgium. Who are the top Service Providers for Applications and Infrastructure services? What are their strengths and weaknesses? What is the market’s level of satisfaction with their services?
We have interviewed 70 top Belgian companies and government organizations and assessed 165 contracts. We have been speaking to CIOs, Application Leads, Infrastructure Leads or Vendor Management. This was done through a 1 hour discussion over a video call.
In parallel, we have interviewed the service provider leadership to understand their capabilities, differentiators and focus areas when it comes to Belgium.
We map the service providers on two ‘Squares’:
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Applications and Digital Services Square
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Infrastructure and Cloud Services Square
In order to be represented on one of our Squares, a service provider needs a minimum of 5 contracts – for that Square.
Each provider is measured on two axes: client satisfaction and scale / capability.
Client Satisfaction, represented on the X-Axis is measured on a scale of 1-5, where:
1 – Extremely dissatisfied
2 – Dissatisfied
3 – Satisfied
4 – Very satisfied
5 – Exceptional / exceeds expectations
Scale and Capability, represented on the Y-Axis, is S-Square’s assessment of the service provider based on client feedback and service provider interviews. We look at the following aspects:
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Local delivery capabilities and scale of business
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Global delivery capabilities and scale of business
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Maturity and completeness of the service offerings
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Presence across different industry or sectors
We have 10 service providers represented in our Applications & Digital Square. The services considered within this Square cover application management and development, systems integration and digital transformation.
Leaders
In the Leaders category, we have 2 companies: Accenture and TCS. They have a broad portfolio of services across applications management and development, systems integration and digital transformation. They have deep skills in different technology domains – both locally and throughout their well established global delivery networks.
They have the largest market presence in Belgium in terms of application revenues, number of customers, size of deals and number of local employees. Also, both of them have a broad client base across industry sectors. They have a strong managed services offering with mature capabilities; strong governance and service management; embedded continuous improvement; and established processes and tools.
Accenture stands out for its consulting mindset, business understanding and solution deployments capability (e.g. SAP, Saleforce). It has have a good applications management capability and very strong local workforce. Clients praise it for its transformation mindset and ability to bring global best practice.
TCS stands out on its overall applications management capabilities and market share in this area. They have been the most successful company when it comes to winning large competitive application management deals. Clients praise their ‘customer first’ mindset and delivery track record. They have been present for long in Belgium and have long term relationships with several clients.
challengers
The next category of the Challengers, have almost similar capabilities in terms of managed services, technology skills and the portfolio of services. All of them also have a large global delivery network and some marquee clients in Belgium with long standing relationships. However, they are not at the same level as the Leaders - in terms of overall scale of business and presence across all the industry sectors.
We have 3 companies in this category:
Cognizant, Cap Gemini, Infosys.
Cognizant is very present in financial services, telecommunications and life- sciences. Compared to their Indian peers, they have a more balanced local workforce – both in delivery and account management. They also have a more consulting like approach. They are particularly successful at clients who are working Agile.
Infosys has been present since long in Belgium and have some huge clients in Manufacturing and Telco. They have very strong application management skills and also experience in systems integration. They tend to have deep strategic relationships with several clients where they are often present for more than 10 years. While historically strong, we see less of them in recent competitive wins.
Cap Gemini has a strong presence across both systems integration and applications management. With almost
1700 people in Belgium across Cap Gemini, Cap Gemini Advent, Sogeti and Altran – they have one of the largest local workforce in Belgium. Clients praise them for their knowledge and delivery, client focus and cultural fit.
Niche Players
Unlike the Leaders or the Challengers, the Niche players either, do not offer the complete portfolio of application services; or, focus on a limited number of industries or sectors.
We have 5 companies in this category:
Deloitte, Delaware, DXC, Atos & Cegeka.
Deloitte scores lower on Scale and Capability primarily because they do not offer application management services. However, they are very strong on systems integration (particularly SAP and Salesforce) and digital transformation. Deloitte has the highest client satisfaction scores in the Applications category. Clients admire their consulting mindset and professional approach, cultural fit and very strong alignment with the business.
Delaware is a large player for application services on the Belgian market. They are focused on mid-market clients and are very strong in SAP and Microsoft. While they do have a managed services offering – most of their activity centers around application development / systems integration. They are very strong also on digital workplace (collaboration). They are praised by clients for their flexibility and client centricity.
DXC is traditionally known for their infrastructure business – however, 60% of their Belgian revenues come from applications. DXC has a strong focus on applications development and systems integration. They have a lot of good credentials around digital Transformation, particularly within the Public sector. They have very high client satisfaction scores and are particularly strong in the public sector.
Atos has a relatively complete applications service offering – both project services and application support. They are however present primarily in the European institutions and public sector, where they have very good satisfaction scores. They have good nearshore and offshore capabilities and their Poland center comes in for particular praise.
Cegeka is focused on custom development (.Net and Java) and Microsoft Dynamics. They are active on mid-market clients, primarily within public-social and healthcare. They do not have offshore capabilities but focus on proximity and strong cultural fit.
Low Performers
Any provider who has an average satisfaction score of < 2.6 is placed within the category of Low Performers. Fortunately, we do not have any application service providers in this category for this year.
We have 7 companies represented in our Infrastructure and Cloud Services Square. Infrastructure services cover datacenter, workplace, service desk and cloud transformation. This year there was a bigger focus on datacenter services – therefore we do not see any companies focused exclusively on service desk or workplace on this list. We have also excluded network providers from the assessment.
Leaders
In the Leaders category, we have 2 companies:
Atos and HCL. Both of these companies have a broad portfolio of services across datacenter management, digital workplace and service desk. They both have strong cloud transformation skills and a strong client base across industries.
Atos has the most complete portfolio of services across datacenter, cloud transformation (public cloud, ATOS private cloud), workplace and service desk. They are one of the few companies present across the entire spectrum – mid market and large clients. While being particularly big in the European institutions and government sector, they have a good presence in the private sector too.
HCL has the most future looking and mature service offering. Having no baggage with legacy datacenters, they have an aggressive approach to the cloud and a strong digital workplace offering. They have a limited number of very high profile clients within the industry. They have the best satisfaction rating from amongst all suppliers in this Square.
challengers
We have 2 companies on our list of Challengers – Cegeka and Fujitsu. Both these companies also have a broad service offering, capabilities to offer strong and industrialized datacenter services, cloud transformation, workplace and service desk. They have strong delivery capabilities and presence at multiple clients. They are lower than the Leaders however – either in terms of market presence or the maturity of their service offerings.
cegeka is focused on the mid-market segment. They are very strong within public - social, healthcare and within the mid-tier banking and insurance companies. They have strong competencies and a good nearshore capability. Clients praise them for their good delivery capabilities and strong cultural fit.
fujitsu has strong capabilities globally and locally. They are less industrialized compared to their competition – but have the ability to adapt and fit well, particularly with the small and mid-tier clients. They have a strong presence with Japanese head-quartered companies and European institutions. Their Kazan center is particularly praised by clients.
low performers
Any provider with an average client satisfaction score of < 2.6 is placed within the category of Low Performers. This year, we have 3 providers in this category for Infrastructure services – IBM, DXC and Cap Gemini. While these providers also have a broad portfolio of services and strong offerings, they score low on client satisfaction.
ibm would have ranked amongst the Leaders from a capabilities perspective. They have very a strong hybrid cloud offering based on Redhat, strong global capability and a very big market share in Belgium. They have however low client satisfaction and a
presence that is mostly within financial services and the public sector.
dxc has a complete service offering and strong capabilities both locally and offshore. They have however bad satisfaction ratings – particularly on the datacenter business. Going forward, we see DXC focusing much more on cloud transformation rather than the traditional datacenter business which is the legacy from HP.
cap gemini is one of the few players active on both applications and infrastructure services. While they have very good performance on the applications part, the client satisfaction on infrastructure services is low. They have a broad presence across the industry and public institutions.
We see a clear trend of service providers moving away from the traditional datacenter services towards cloud transformation. The scale and capabilities of the public cloud providers like Amazon, Microsoft and Google will be difficult to beat and the traditional datacenter business will shrink to a large extent. The recent announcement by IBM to spin off its infrastructure services division ‘NewCo’ so that IBM can focus on cloud transformation is a clear indicator of this strategy. DXC has also changed its strategy locally by putting a focus away from the datacenter towards cloud transformation.
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