“Application testing services” is a comprehensive term for the verification and validation services that support quality control and quality assurance (QA) of clients’ applications. Verification assesses whether a product/application or service complies with regulations, requirements, specifications or enforced constraints. Validation typically involves engagement with external customers to confirm suitability and acceptance. Infrastructure testing services, mobile device testing and software testing tools created for the market by independent software vendors (ISVs) are not included in this definition.
Gartner defines cloud ERP services as services provided by third-party systems integrators to assess needs, implement solutions and evolve platforms that are transforming their back-office systems via the implementation of cloud-based ERP solutions. A cloud ERP solution is a set of applications (SaaS) that are sold/marketed as integrated products to support organizations. These integrated products include financial management (FM) functionality, human capital management (HCM), supply chain management (SCM) and other administrative ERP functionality.
Gartner defines custom software development (CSD) services as those that develop software in rapid increments and iterate custom applications and software products to meet an organization’s unique business needs. CSD services entail gathering business requirements and coding applications from inception, building applications on a platform as a service (PaaS), or assembling applications from existing web services or other reusable pieces of code. Services marketed as “software product engineering” or “digital product development” are likely to be examples of the category Gartner defines as CSD services.
Gartner defines the market for data and analytics (D&A) services as consulting and system integration (C&SI) and managed services. These services manage data for all uses (operational and analytical), and analyze data to drive business processes and improve business outcomes through more effective decision making. The core capabilities for vendor solutions in the D&A services market include: D&A strategy and operating model design Data management Analytics and business intelligence (ABI) Data science and machine learning D&A governance Program management Enterprise metadata
Gartner defines public cloud IT transformation services (PCITS) as services designed to deliver transformational outcomes via the utilization of cloud-native professional and managed services. It includes migration, modernization and the building of new transformational solutions on public hyperscale cloud infrastructure and platform services. Organizations seeking to use public clouds such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Microsoft Azure, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) and similar platforms engage with providers in this market to realize the greatest transformational benefits. PCITS transforms client applications, workloads and data to the public cloud to achieve their clients’ business outcomes. It makes primary use of cloud-native tools and manages IT operations in the public cloud. It encapsulates cloud management, optimization and modernization to continuously manage reliability, scalability, interoperability and more.
Service integration and management (SIAM) refers to the provision of technology consulting, project implementation and operational management services across multiple external and internal IT and business process service providers. These services coordinate and integrate service delivery and the alignment of service management processes. The goal of SIAM is to achieve seamless end-to-end service outcomes with a single point of accountability in a multisourced IT services environment or ecosystem. SIAM services can also be delivered internally; however, in this context, we cater to SIAM functions delivered by external SIAM providers. SIAM is typically used in multisourced infrastructure and application outsourcing initiatives. It also applies to business process outsourcing (BPO) and can integrate other business functions such as finance and HR. Consumers of SIAM who want to achieve seamless end-to-end service outcomes from the SIAM provider relinquish the responsibility of managing service delivery quality, resulting in a hybrid IT services ecosystem. A SIAM provider is usually a third party contracted by an organization to act as its agent for coordinating and connecting services and sources in an environment that uses a neutral third party (internal and external) for IT and business process services delivery. The SIAM provider has a direct contractual relationship with the organization rather than with the external sources engaged (as it would under a prime or general contractor arrangement).
Gartner defines software asset management (SAM) managed services as services expert providers deliver to manage the software, SaaS and cloud assets of end-user organizations. They include skills, processes, technologies and governance to transform and run the SAM discipline on behalf of the client. SAM managed services employ the providers’ proprietary skills and methodologies to transform and run the SAM discipline on behalf of the client, augmenting the client’s resources. Delivered by skilled resources and leveraging the provider’s expertise, intellectual property (IP), rigor and best practices, SAM managed services address the gap in available SAM skills, enable scalability and enhance SAM maturity. At the same time, they deliver day-to-day SAM activities and oversee the full SAM life cycle. SAM managed services are delivered directly to end-user customers, on either a continuous or a scheduled basis, employing required discipline to meet software and cloud cost optimization and governance objectives.