FOR: Vendor Strategy Professionals

The Move To An Asset-Based Services Play

by Frederic giron, April 16, 2012 Key TaKeaWays service providers are under pressure To address innovation Challenges The intersection of cloud, mobile, social, and business analytics is disrupting the business/IT equilibrium, but service providers are stuck in a custom service portfolio structure that lacks broader relevance. The need for business process agility is slowly but surely replacing solution customization as the buying requirement for IT services. solution accelerator initiatives are picking up Momentum Over the past 18 months, many large SIs have started to take the steps necessary to revive their solution accelerator programs: focusing on getting the right skills in place to proactively manage solutions, acquiring software assets to complement their services, and building new offerings that address their clients innovation challenges. The services industry is shifting To an asset-Based play The move to solution accelerators is gaining momentum, signifying the increasing importance of assets to the IT services industry. Providers having different backgrounds, such as consulting, BPO, and outsourcing, are emphasizing the move to a more modular and scalable solution structure that allows faster and more costeffective service delivery.

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APRIl 16, 2012

The Move To an asset-Based services play

Asset-Based Services Have Become A Prerequisite For Success
by Frederic giron with Pascal matzke, John C. mcCarthy, and Rupika malhotra

Why Read This RepoRT New business success imperatives are pushing clients to change the way they leverage IT solutions. IT service providers will have to adapt to these new rules of engagement if they want to remain relevant to their clients in the long term. Forrester believes that the increased focus on business innovation will push service providers to invest more in the development of software assets that provide strong business value to multiple clients. This is the first report in a series that examines the evolution of these solution accelerators. We analyze why the move to these solution accelerators has been slow and describe the steps an increasing number of service vendors are taking in order to successfully grow their solution accelerator footprint. Vendor strategists will learn what it takes to implement the organization, governance models, processes, and tools to support this shift and what skill sets are needed to succeed in the asset-based services world.

Table Of Contents
2 The iT services World is Changing To Business innovation imperatives A Range Of Client And Vendor Forces Are Fueling The Shift In Services 4 The Move To solution accelerators has Been slow To date 6 service providers are Rekindling solution accelerator programs 11 solution accelerators are one Manifestation of a Broader shift
RECOmmEndATIOnS

notes & Resources

Forrester interviewed 19 vendors and user companies, including Atos, BearingPoint, Canvasm Technologies, Capgemini, Cognizant, CSC, CSS, deloitte, HCl Technologies, IBm, Infosys, mahindra Satyam, mastek, mphasiS, nIIT Technologies, Sonata Software, Tata Consultancy Services, TCS iOn, and Wipro.

Related Research documents

mobile Is The new Face Of Engagement February 13, 2012 The Coming Upheaval In Tech Services July 29, 2010

13 service providers Need To Change Their Culture 14 supplemental Material

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The iT seRviCes WoRld is ChaNgiNg To BusiNess iNNovaTioN iMpeRaTives The pace of change in the IT services world is greatly accelerating; technology innovation no longer comes in successive waves. Services clients now face a perfect storm of innovation the interrelationships of cloud, mobile, social, and business analytics are disrupting the precarious business/IT equilibrium. As business rules are rewritten to embrace these new technologies, service providers will have to undergo a major transformation in order for their value proposition to remain relevant to their clients. Forrester believes there is a real sense of urgency around this transformation; as a result, solution accelerators will be some of the key enablers of the transformation imperative.1 Forrester defines solution accelerators as (see Figure 1): Internally developed or acquired software assets that IT services vendors use to automate a particular business or aspect of product development for a range of clients. Solution accelerators provide 30% to 90% of the solution that the client is looking for and are reused across multiple engagements. For example, Capgeminis Smart Energy Services offering leverages a set of solution accelerators that the firm accumulated via its acquisition of Skvader Systems. These software assets, combined with deep domain expertise in the utilities space, allow Capgemini to provide strong smart meter management services capabilities to its clients. The value proposition of such solution accelerators includes higher predictability and lower risk for clients and improved margins for Capgemini. a Range of Client and vendor Forces are Fueling The shift in services The pressure for clients to innovate and differentiate has been building since the global financial crisis began. Forrester believes that new rules of success for clients will generate new types of requirements for their service providers.2 In particular, the need for business process agility is slowly but surely replacing solution customization as a buying requirement for IT services. The perfect storm of technology innovation around cloud, mobility, social, and business analytics provides both the drivers and the enabling forces to stimulate wider adoption of asset-based solutions. Forrester sees the following new client and industry requirements driving this adoption:

Moving from pure cost-cutting to focusing on innovation. Data from Forresters Forrsights

Services Survey, Q3 2011 shows that the need for companies to innovate and grow their business now has a higher IT services spending priority than the need to lower their IT operations costs.3 The combination of the uncertain economy and a more open and more complex competitive environment is forcing companies to focus more on innovation to achieve their goals of faster, more profitable business growth and more agile business operations. For IT services vendors, client value is being redefined from delivering cost savings to generating business value through innovation, the latter of which is the main value proposition of solution accelerators.

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Innovating core business processes and reducing the associated risk. Clients will increasingly
differentiate by how they leverage their systems of engagement, the logical extensions of their systems of records, and the automation engines of their core business processes.4 One example of a core business process is clinical data management for pharmaceutical companies. Companies will also reconsider intellectual property (IP) ownership as part of their efforts to reduce or eliminate the risk associated with IT application investments. What used to be mostly internal is becoming increasingly open, driven by the need for faster innovation and stronger differentiation. As a result, clients want service providers to take on more risk and be more predictable in the delivery of the final solution.

Expecting service providers to lead them through the perfect storm of innovation. As clients

embrace mobile devices and apps to empower their clients, employees, and partners, they need their services partners to lead them through the accelerated pace of change.5 Infosys recently signed a deal with bharti airtel to build and operate its mWallet mobile payment solution. Infosys leveraged its own existing solution accelerators and its strong domain expertise in the financial services and telecom sector to build the solution. In this complex business and technology world, Co-innovation initiatives around software assets will become more prevalent as in the Infosys/ bharti deal.

Improving the delivery quality, speed, and profitability of IT services. IT services

engagements have shrunk dramatically over the past few years. Services projects related to mobile or social have a typical contract value of less than $200,000. Two years ago, individual sales success in an IT services firm was defined by one $5 million contract in a quarter. Nowadays, individual sales success is defined by five $1 million contracts per quarter. To make things worse, the lack of talent for example, architects and project managers with experience in mobility will render traditional operating models difficult to implement. IT services vendors are feeling the pressure to find new ways to build repeatability and automation which will drive margin improvements.

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Figure 1 Choosing The Right Direction With Solution Accelerators

Fast lane!
Reusable software assets The building blocks of the solution delivered to the client

Wrong way!
Delivery tools used to build the solution Software tools that the client does not use

Strong business value enablers Accelerate the delivery of business value (revenue growth, cost reduction, asset optimization) to clients

Code widgets or components Software assets whose main value proposition is to replace human e ort (automate work)

Proactive portfolio management Require strategic investements in go-to-market assessments and proactive development

Frameworks, templates, and data models These are not software assets.

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The Move To soluTioN aCCeleRaToRs has BeeN sloW To daTe Despite these customer and business pressures, movement toward a more software asset-led model has been slow. Today, only a handful of IT services vendors leverage solution accelerators efficiently and can relate 10% to 15% of their total revenues to their use of solution accelerators in 2011. The large majority of IT services firms is still below the 5% mark, signifying that service providers continue to struggle to adopt the underlying concept of prepackaging and reuse. In particular, service providers face the following challenges:

Too much reaction, not enough action. While most service providers now recognize the need
to invest in solution accelerators, they typically follow a bottom-up, tactical approach to these investments. Solution accelerators are developed at the business unit level based on existing

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IP developed in past projects. After rapidly analyzing the market landscape and potential opportunity, marketing teams package the IP and sales teams try to resell these assets to clients with similar pain points but with uncertain success. And most service providers still lack the forward-looking capabilities that would allow them to anticipate demand and deliver true innovation to clients.

Vague definitions and value propositions. Too often, value propositions center on faster

project completion rather than a keener focus on business outcomes. This invariably takes the negotiation back to a discussion around how many full-time equivalents (FTEs) the customer can save by leveraging the asset. Adding to the confusion, service providers tend to be unclear in how they define solution accelerators, including software components that are in fact artifacts of industrialization in the category.

A lack of product management and packaging skills. Architecting, selling, and delivering

solution accelerators requires a very different set of resources: product managers, portfolio managers, and solution architects. Salespeople often lack the skills or preparation to sell proactively, and service providers have been slow to invest in the skills necessary to making any solution accelerator efforts sustainable in the long term.

Vendors are not ready to sell them . . . Most vendors have only launched their solution

accelerator programs within the past 18 months; a large proportion of them showcase assets that they are still developing. Most of the software assets in production have just a handful of clients demonstrating their limited commercial success. To make things worse, most service providers counterbalance this lack of commercial availability by claiming that the hundreds or thousands of artifacts available in their asset repositories are solution accelerators. The vast majority of these artifacts are in fact widgets or components for which the clients never see business value. This amalgamation confuses the client and undermines the vendors capability to sell true solution accelerators (see Figure 2).

. . . and clients are not ready to buy them. Most clients are still basically buying personnel

qualifications from their service providers. Due to a lack of maturity and experience, they are still reluctant to purchase software assets from those same service providers. While clients trust companies like SAP, Microsoft, and other independent software vendors with the creation and management of software IP, the same is not true for pure IT service providers.

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Figure 2 Solution Accelerators Leverage Client-Facing Hard Assets

Target
IT services vendors internal efficiency Delivery tools Project/portfolio management tools Collaboration tools Hard assets Knowledge management systems Workforce management systems Code widgets or components Clients business or IT value Customizable software assets that: Reduce the cost of running a business process (like claims processing) Create new sources of revenue (like mobile payments) Optimize the utilization of business These are not solution accelerators. assets (like smart meters) Consulting methodologies Process assets Data models These are not solution accelerators.

IP assets

Transition methodologies Quality assurance methodologies Templates Soft assets These are not solution accelerators.

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seRviCe pRovideRs aRe ReKiNdliNg soluTioN aCCeleRaToR pRogRaMs After a slow start, service providers now understand that solution accelerators are critical to their long-term success. Providers have to change how they create and manage these solutions and take them to market. Over the past 18 months, large systems integrators (SIs) have taken some of the necessary steps to revive their solution accelerator programs and now boast several solution accelerators in their portfolio (see Figure 3).6 Launched as corporate strategic initiatives sometimes on the direct orders of the CEOs office these renewed programs cover organizational issues, skill sets, and go-to-market strategies. Forrester has observed service providers doing the following:

Taking a more strategic approach. Solution accelerator programs have to respond to corporate
intent. As part of its Infosys 3.0 strategy, in April 2011 Infosys created a product, platform, and solutions (PPS) business unit to oversee the development, management, and commercialization of its portfolio of innovative IP-led solutions. Before it packaged any software asset, the company spent several months defining its PPS strategy, putting current and future client business requirements at the center of the initiative.7 As a result of this strategic exercise, the company officially launched its Infosys Edge portfolio of innovative IP-led soluion offerings in November 2011. In this example, the corporate intent is to have one-third of the companys revenue linked to its portfolio of innovative IP-led solutions within five to seven years.

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Supporting solution accelerator management with governance, processes, and tools.

Vendors are moving from solution accelerator projects managed at the business unit level to more integrated programs that benefit from companywide governance, processes, and tools. Case in point: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) created a component engineering group in January 2010; one of the groups goals is to manage the life cycle of all solution accelerators, measure the success of the solution accelerator portfolio, and promote the creation and reuse of software assets. This group also operates an IP management system a set of integrated tools that acts as the backbone of the TCS solution accelerator program.

Making new types of investments to strengthen go-to-market and sales programs. With

product managers in place, a more focused set of offerings, and better-designed go-to-market strategies, vendors can increase their sales of higher-value solution accelerators. Product manager incentives are typically based on the revenue they generate and the number of clients they sign to a particular solution. Product managers augment the capabilities of the sales team and drive the sales of these solutions. NIIT Technologies has named product managers for each one of its Process-Easy solutions, such as Assure-Easy and Banking-Easy. In addition to hiring product managers, one of the key success factors of solution accelerator commercialization is how quickly the client can experience the solution. Service providers are increasingly investing in experience or concept centers in which they can showcase their solutions.

Acquiring ready-made assets to jump-start the solution accelerator programs. Service

providers have acquired a number of independent software vendors over the past 24 months (see Figure 4). These acquisitions provide service organizations with the product-led culture, skills (including product management and product engineering), and software assets they need to build solution accelerator programs. Case in point: Mastek kicked off its solution accelerator initiative in the insurance space with the acquisition of Systems Task Group (STG) in 2008. The company believed that its long-term success hinged on domain expertise and went beyond a core set of IT skills so it was important to have a more asset-led culture. Stefan Van Overtveldt, chief engineer at Mastek, said: With a long history of delivering IP-led solutions, acquisitions such as STG brought us some ready-made product IP as well as the domain skills and processes that have enabled us to build out our IP-led services business in property and casualty insurance.

Making special investments in solution accelerators to navigate through the innovation storm.
As clients accelerate their investments in mobile applications, the number of releases across Apple iOS, Android, and other mobile OS platforms will increase dramatically every year. Traditional application development and management models cannot meet these time-to-market expectations. Forrester sees more service providers starting to develop solution accelerator strategies to face up to time-to-market pressures. For example, CanvasM Technologies, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tech Mahindra, has developed a broad range of solution accelerators to accelerate the delivery of applications like mobile banking, mobile wallets, and mobile couponing.

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Figure 3 Solution Accelerators Affect The Entire IT Services Ecosystem

Company Accenture Asset Main verticals Value proposition Grow revenue by improving billing e ciency Grow revenue and reduce costs via better insights into client operations Optimize asset utilization by empowering and monitoring eld workforce and assets Optimize asset utilization by managing large eets of smart meters Reduce the cost of sales Optimize asset utilization via access to an integrated view of technical, operational, and nancial information across the enterprise Grow revenue, reduce costs, manage risk, and gain insights via a set of business apps delivered as SaaS Grow revenue by delivering a better customer experience for banking customers Grow revenue by improving customer loyalty and retention Reduce costs by managing suppliers, contracts, and expenses Grow revenue with mobile payment services Reduce costs by improving IT system compliance Accenture Telecom Communication Solutions All All Utilities All Oil and gas

BearingPoint HyperCube BT Capgemini Cognizant CSC Field Force Automation Smart Metering Management iComp Petroleum Enterprise Intelligence Deloitte Digital

Deloitte

All (Australia) Banking Telecom All Banking, telecom Insurance

HCL FinEdge Technologies HP IBM Infosys Logica Mahindra Satyam Mastek Limited Mphasis CentralView Emptoris mWallet Solvency II

Warranty Claims Manufacturing Reduce the cost of warranties and grow revenue by Management increasing client satisfaction Elixir Winsure Insurance Insurance Airlines Logistics Healthcare All Grow revenue by accelerating the time-to-market of new insurance products Grow revenue by accelerating the time-to-market of new insurance products Grow revenue by improving airline revenue accounting and leak prevention Reduce costs through better insights into supply chain e ectiveness Grow revenue by reducing the costs of running a hospital Grow revenue, reduce costs, and optimize assets via a set of horizontal and vertical SaaS applications

NIIT Monalisa Technologies Sonata Software TCS TCS iON Wipro WNS
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SonnetSCOR Med Mantra iON

Marketing Mix Consumer Optimize marketing activities Modeling (MMM) product goods Verifare Airlines Grow revenue by improving airline revenue accounting and leak prevention
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Figure 4 IT Services Vendors Are Strengthening Their Asset-Based Practices Via M&A
Buyer Accenture Accenture Target Duck Creek Technologies CAS Date Description 2011 Software solutions for the property and casualty insurance industry 2011 CRM and mobility solutions focused on retail execution and trade promotions for the consumer products industry 2010 Aftersales management solutions Vertical Insurance Consumer products goods Automotive, manufacturing Retail Services All Banking Telecom and media All

Accenture Accenture Atos Atos-U da Atos

Acceria

CadenceQuest 2010 Customer analytics technology and consulting MSL Group Yunano joint venture Venture Infotek 2012 Sports and major events-related solutions 2011 SaaS solutions 2010 Payment processing solutions 2003 CRM and billing solutions 2012 Business analytics

BearingPoint Infonova BearingPoint E science/ HyperCube Capgemini Prosodie

2011 Multichannel transactional ows of operators Banking, retail, telecom (phones and mobiles; Internet; payment and prepayment) 2010 Smart metering management solution 2011 Miscellaneous vertical applications for the Italian markets 2011 eProcurement solutions 2007 Sales and marketing analytics solutions 2011 Healthcare solutions 2011 Business analytics solution (SaaS) 2011 Analytic suite for energy market modeling and price forecasting 2012 Telecom expense management solution Utilities Financial services, transportation, manufacturing All Pharmaceuticals Healthcare All Utilities All

Capgemini Capgemini

Skvader Aive

Capgemini Cognizant CSC Deloitte Deloitte Dimension Data

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IBX Group marketRx iSOFT Group Oco MarketPoint Xigo

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Figure 4 IT Services Vendors Are Strengthening Their Asset-Based Practices Via M&A (Cont.)
Buyer Target Date Description 2008 Straight-through processing (STP) solution 2011 Supply chain analytics 2011 SaaS retail analytics solution Vertical Banking All Retail Public sector Utilities Insurance All Financial services Insurance HCL CapitalStream Technologies IBM IBM IBM IBM Infosys Genpact Mahindra Satyam Mastek Limited Mastek Limited Mphasis Mphasis Emptoris DemandTec

CuramSoftware 2011 Social enterprise management software Platform Computing McCamish Systems Akritiv Technologies Dion Global Solutions Systems Task Group SEG Software 2011 Load sharing facility software 2009 Policy administration solution and BPO services 2011 SaaS order-to-cash solution 2012 Financial services solutions 2008 P&C insurance industry in the areas of policy and billing administration, claims processing, and point-of-sale administration

2010 Provider of policy administration systems Insurance covering the individual and group life, health, and annuity insurance products 2011 Insurance policy administration product 2005 Health bene t management product 2010 Electronic health records and referral management platform 2008 Airline revenue accounting and operations products 2006 Travel and transportation solutions Insurance Insurance Healthcare Travel and transportation Travel and transportation

Wyde Eldorado

NIIT Preferr Technologies NIIT Softec Technologies Sonata Software Wipro

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TUI Infotec Gallagher

2008 NetOxygen is loan origination and processing Banking software

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soluTioN aCCeleRaToRs aRe oNe MaNiFesTaTioN oF a BRoadeR shiFT The move to solution accelerators will gain momentum but will be just one example of the increasing importance of assets to the IT services industry (see Figure 5). Non-SI vendors are investing in and building their asset-based offerings as part of innovation-led strategies. Forrester expects our definition of solution accelerators to change to adapt to the specificities of each operating model. As such, the fundamental tenets of solution accelerators will also play out in the different IT service categories. The value propositions of these asset-led offerings will also change to adapt to the requirements of the primary buyers in each service line. This shift to asset-based services will affect the entire spectrum of IT services (see Figure 6):

Consultants will harness the power of business intelligence assets. Consulting firms like

Deloitte and BearingPoint have invested in building out their business analytics capabilities in the past two years. BearingPoint acquired the HyperCube product earlier in 2012 and has now embedded this asset into its consulting engagements. The value for clients lies in more actionable consulting outcomes. For BearingPoint, it is a competitive differentiator, as it allows the firm to merge domain expertise and consulting experience with deep business analytics capabilities.

Product engineering services will leverage software assets to improve profitability. Product
development services vendors will leverage assets to reduce their time-to-market and increase their relevance to clients via proactive and domain-led services.8

BPO services vendors will become software asset-based platform operators. Business

process outsourcing (BPO) vendors, which leverage traditional linear operating models that link revenue growth to growth in human resources, have been struggling to improve their bottom lines. Price competition from offshore destinations like the Philippines has also pushed Indian vendors to embrace nonlinear growth strategies that leverage software assets. These assets automate service delivery and can be used by multiple clients, which will improve vendor profitability. Here, also, the value proposition of such offerings is tightly coupled with the domain expertise of the service provider. Case in point: WNS Revenue Recovery solution for airlines leverages its Verifare software asset as well as its domain expertise in the travel and leisure sector.

IT outsourcing players will leverage multitenant assets. The value proposition of a traditional
infrastructure and application outsourcing engagement always missed opportunities to develop significant economies of scale. Innovation in this service category will increasingly focus on the optimization, automation, remote monitoring, and orchestration of IT assets. Vendors are investing in multitenant architectures and assets; they will run as-a-service offerings on top of these architectures and assets to provide true economies of scale. For example, Capgemini signed a five-year partnership with EMC to provide storage-as-a-service to its clients on a common and repeatable architecture.

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Figure 5 Solution Accelerators Are One Manifestation Of A Broader Asset-Led Shift

Business process automation

Customized application services Granular and highly customized o erings Customized infrastructure services

Widgets, connectors, and components

Solution accelerators Productized and standardized o erings

Managed, hosted, or public as-a-service oerings

Hardware asset optimization

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Figure 6 Solution Accelerators Affect The Entire IT Services Portfolio

Consulting rms

IT outsourcers Assets

Systems integrators

Business process outsourcers

Product development services rms

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13

R e c o m m e n d at i o n s

seRviCe pRovideRs Need To ChaNge TheiR CulTuRe

Managing software assets and managing people are two very different disciplines. To be successful in an asset-led services play, service providers will have to undergo an important cultural shift. In particular, Forrester believes that IT services firms need to:

Learn from their software product partners. Independent software vendors are the experts

in creating, managing, and selling software assets. Service vendors need to learn the software industrys best practices around release management, upgrade management, and full life-cycle management of software assets.

Build incremental value for their clients. Building client intimacy takes on a whole new

meaning with the move to asset-based services. Service providers need to engage more frequently with key clients by including them in innovation committees, where clients can experience the latest advances in software assets and how those assets can generate value for them. The goal is to generate incremental value for the client that will act as a hook and make them come back for more.

Choose their bets wisely. Services firms need to go beyond repackaging custom project

solutions and build new assets that have reusability as a central design point but they also need to choose carefully where to invest. Developing software assets is an expensive and risky activity, and Forrester believes that risk appetite will be correlated with the strength of the service providers balance sheet. Vendors need to continuously conduct thorough market intelligence and competitive intelligence exercises to assess demand and the competitive landscape.

Set and communicate goals, execute the plan, measure progress, and repeat successes. The

move to asset-led services will happen over the long haul; reaching maturity will take time due to the challenges that important cultural shifts raise. As a consequence, it is important to link the asset-based strategy to an ambitious corporate intent that is supported by the executive management of the company, including the CEO. This intent, and the goals related to it, need to be openly communicated so the leadership is accountable for this shift.

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suppleMeNTal MaTeRial Companies interviewed For This Report Atos BearingPoint CanvasM Technologies Capgemini Cognizant CSC CSS Deloitte HCL Technologies IBM eNdNoTes
1

Infosys Mahindra Satyam Mastek MphasiS NIIT Technologies Sonata Software Tata Consultancy Services TCS iON Wipro

As IT services firms verticalized their offerings starting around 2003, they saw patterns of common processes across client organizations and opportunities to capture those for gains in productivity. However, they soon realized that its not only important to build such productivity tools, but that competitive advantage will come from selecting the right spaces in which to build such tools for the maximum client benefit. Building a solution accelerator strategy seemed a natural next step in the process. See the October 29, 2007, Solution Accelerators Will Disrupt The IT Services Landscape report. Forrester has described these new success factors in previous research. In the new era: companies are forced to focus on core competencies and value-add; the volatile economy puts a premium on the agility of business processes and IT systems; experience and service replace the product in the customer value proposition; and the IT budget is dramatically recast to free up more money for innovation. See the July 29, 2010, The Coming Upheaval In Tech Services report. Fifty-six percent of the respondents say that the need to innovate and grow their business will significantly affect their firms IT services spending in 2012, whereas just 40% cite the need to lower IT operational costs. Source: Forrsights Services Survey, Q3 2011. Systems of engagement come from multiple existing systems that are stitched together to improve the way companies interact and communicate with their customers, partners, and employees. Source: Geoffrey Moore, A Sea Change in Enterprise IT, AIIM, January 17, 2011 (http://www.aiim.org/Research/AIIMWhite-Papers/Systems-of-Engagement).

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5 Mobile is not simply another device for IT to support; rather, it is the manifestation of a much broader shift to new systems of engagement. These systems of engagement help firms empower their customers, partners, and employees with context-aware apps and smart products. To remain vital in this business technology reformation, CIOs must step up and work with other executives to establish an office of the chief mobility officer to implement an enterprisewide mobile strategy. This team will coordinate the business and technology investments under a design for mobile first mantra that delivers four immediate benefits: 1) fuel profitable growth with stickier offerings and mobile self-service; 2) move faster along the mobile learning curve; 3) aggregate mobile project budgets to fund needed engagement technology; and 4) grow from an IT group focused on systems of record to a business technology group focused on systems of engagement. See the February 13, 2012, Mobile Is The New Face Of Engagement report.
6

This report focuses on the asset-based strategies of the leading suppliers of IT services. In developing this report, Forrester sought to interview a variety of firms. In choosing this focus, Forrester acknowledges that there are other service suppliers that play an increasingly important role in the area of asset-based services. Source: Infosys (http://www.infosys.com/building-tomorrows-enterprise/pages/index.aspx). A series of major business, technological, and supplier changes is driving a fundamental transformation in the market for product development services. As our research unveils, wholesale buyers will gradually move from a tactical rudimentary staff augmentation model to a more mature and collaborative fully outsourced approach, which Forrester defines as product development services 2.0 (PDS 2.0). This report describes how the market will go through this paradigm shift in the next few years and the necessary steps vendor strategists will need to make to take advantage of this transformation. In particular, we describe the wholesale changes required to the providers business and go-to-market strategies as well as the necessary investments in solution accelerators and vertical/domain expertise. See the June 10, 2011 The Reinvention Of Product Development Services report.

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Forrester Research, Inc. (nasdaq: FORR) is an independent research company that provides pragmatic and forward-thinking advice to global leaders in business and technology. Forrester works with professionals in 19 key roles at major companies providing proprietary research, customer insight, consulting, events, and peer-to-peer executive programs. For more than 28 years, Forrester has been making IT, marketing, and technology industry leaders successful every day. For more information, visit www.forrester.com. 71081