“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 the customer relationship management (CRM) and customer experience (CX) implementation service market as project-based services to help clients develop a CX strategy and transform a customer relationship with consulting expertise. Providers in this market design, build, integrate and deploy process change and technology solutions that improve interactions between organizations and their customers. These services are specific to improving clients’ sales, customer service and marketing operations, and they focus on interactions with customers, including commerce transaction enablement.
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.
DCO/HIMS is composed of the following Data center outsourcing services: Managed services for traditional data center (DC) environments: Mainframe managed services ERP hosting managed services Managed servers and network equipment Managed services for hosted and private cloud infrastructure Managed services for public cloud and edge environments: Hybrid infrastructure managed services Data center consolidation and transformation services Cloud migration services This complex set of data center capabilities and services is increasingly based on managed virtual private cloud services plus hyperscale public cloud services. It is managed via a mix of remote infrastructure management (RIM) services leveraging traditional tools, cloud management platforms (CMPs), and intelligent automation and/or hyperautomation.
Gartner defines a data science and machine learning platform as an integrated set of code-based libraries and low-code tooling that support the independent use by, and collaboration between, data scientists and their business and IT counterparts through all stages of the data science life cycle. These stages include business understanding, data access and preparation, experimentation and model creation, and sharing of insights. They also support machine learning engineering workflows including creation of data, feature, deployment and testing pipelines. The platforms are provided via desktop client or browser with supporting compute instances and/or as a fully managed cloud offering. Data science and machine learning (DSML) platforms are designed to allow a broad range of users to develop and apply a comprehensive set of predictive and prescriptive analytical techniques. Leveraging data from distributed sources, cutting-edge user experience, and native machine learning and generative AI (GenAI) capabilities, these platforms help to augment and automate decision making across an enterprise. They provide a range of proprietary and open-source tools to enable data scientists and domain experts to find patterns in data that can be used to forecast financial metrics, understand customer behavior, predict supply and demand, and many other use cases. Models can be built on all types of data, including tabular, images, video and text for applications that require computer vision or natural language processing.
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 digital commerce as the technology that enables customers to purchase goods and services through an interactive and self-service or assisted experience. The platform provides necessary information for customers to make their buying decisions and uses rules and data to present fully priced orders for payment. The commerce product must support interoperability with customer data, product content (e.g., price, availability) and order functionality and data via APIs. Digital commerce is commonly delivered as single or multitenant SaaS, or as single-tenant hosted or managed hosted (PaaS) applications. It could be offered for on-premises implementations in some circumstances. Digital commerce enables customers to purchase goods and services through an interactive and self-service or assisted experience, providing the necessary information for customers to make buying decisions.
Gartner defines finance and accounting (F&A) business process outsourcing (BPO) as the use of digital F&A technology solutions and managed services supplied by a third-party service provider. F&A BPO services provide transformation expertise and technology solutions that meet finance departments’ requirement to move from labor-intensive service delivery models to automation-intensive models supporting the digital transformation of finance operations. F&A BPO providers offer processing services and technology solutions for purchase to pay (P2P), order to cash (O2C) and record to report (R2R). BPO providers meet finance buyers’ needs to address improving process maturity at a competitive price. Providers offer processing and technology services to improve P2P, O2C and R2R processes, which offer buyers the ability to purchase transformation expertise and technology solutions to help their finance operations mature. At minimum, an F&A BPO provider processes finance activities on behalf of its customers via a delivery center network, often in low-cost locations, passing on cost savings in the form of labor arbitrage. Mature BPO offerings move beyond labor arbitrage efforts and offer buyers end-to-end intelligent processing capabilities through either proprietary or partner technology ecosystems, which are often cloud-based and are focused on reducing human dependencies in process workflows. Buyers benefit from these types of agreements by maturing their processes and adopting technologies that require minimum human intervention.
Gartner defines IT Services for Communication Service Providers (ITS-CSP) as multivendor IT services CSPs buy to: ■ Enable solutions to their customers, particularly enterprises ■ Transform their customer, partner, workforce, service or infrastructure management IT must deliver a cloud-first, agile, automation- and intelligence-based “digital factory” that can support broader corporate goals of product diversification, innovation, revenue growth and improved digital customer journeys. Geopolitical issues, ecosystems, transparency, trust and security are mission-critical in the uncertain world and add to the factors affecting CSPs’ competitiveness. Communications service providers want to buy and understand business outcomes over technology. They want their IT service partners to have a personal investment. CIOs in large CSPs would like to work with a smaller number of more strategic IT service partners. At the same time, business unit leaders also want to speed up their initiatives, creating possibilities for IT service providers. CSPs want help with revenue growth from enterprises, including joint go-to-market and new digital technology capabilities from IT service providers. Communications service providers expect cost-efficiency from automation, from IT enabling their networks and from using more cloud-delivered software capability. All this is underpinned by the CSP’s desire to run data-focused businesses, including digital key performance indicators (KPIs).
The managed network services (MNS) market focuses on externally provided, network operations center (NOC) functionality, as well as relevant network and security life cycle services that deliver current and emerging requirements to end users. Gartner defines the MNS market as globally capable providers of remote service management functions for the network and security operations of enterprise networks, including: Managed LAN services (MNS for LAN) Managed WAN services (MNS for WAN) Managed security (MNS for security) functions
Mobile testing services are different from traditional application testing with additional complexity, such as the testing of multiplatform, networks, multiple operating systems (OSs) as well as different devices. These services are needed to test the function, performance, compatibility and other details of a mobile application, using both manual and automated tests. While the testing this market refers to is that of applications residing on mobile handheld devices, the testing must also take into account the data being gathered or supplied to embedded devices and sensors with the Internet of Things (IoT) becoming more prominent. User experience is key in mobility by creating unique requirements for the testing process. With digital business and customer experience, applications and data are increasingly available and visible to external constituents — especially customers. Thus, quality, reliability, security, and adaptability needed for external use of systems are far beyond internal usage.
This market is focused on the full life cycle of Oracle application services, spanning project-based implementation and multiyear application management services (AMS). Evaluate service providers for their ability to deliver a comprehensive set of implementation and management services across the Oracle portfolio of products for clients worldwide. Comprehensive is defined as follows: • A distinct offering, consistent with common market service offerings as defined by the following: scope of service, delivery structure, intellectual property (IP), roles and responsibilities, service metrics and levels, terms and conditions, and pricing model. • A consolidated set of distinct offerings to address industry-specific demand or cross-industry demand, where the offering is recognized by clients or analysts as an integrated offering.
Gartner defines Oracle Cloud Application (OCA) services as only those services associated with the products under Oracle Cloud Applications, also known as SaaS. This means consultancy, migration, implementation, ongoing services, postimplementation evolution and optimization services. To qualify, each vendor project must have an “anchoring” OCA product from at least one of the following Oracle “Fusion” solutions: - Advertising and customer experience (ACX) - Industry applications (IA) - Enterprise resource planning (ERP; includes the previous EPM applications) - Human capital management (HCM) - Supply chain management (SCM)
Gartner defines the outsourced digital workplace services market as the capabilities required of a provider to deliver consulting, implementation, or support services to end users of technology who utilize end-user devices or applications to conduct business. Services offered in the outsourced digital workplace services (ODWS) market include integrated and ubiquitous digital workplace (DW) services to employees to increase their engagement, productivity and digital dexterity in support of the organization’s digital business strategy.
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.
R&D (research and development) outsourcing services offer solutions to the organisations' research activities that include component innovations, design, new process innovations, new product innovations, and software design. The objective to outsource R&D is to obtain the required expertise, skills, and equipment that may not necessarily be accessible to businesses. It can increase business sales and profits and save time significantly. R&D outsourcing providers provide customized solutions from designing, prototyping, testing, production to sales to clients across different industries like manufacturing, financial services, energy and utilities, retail and CPG, life sciences, etc.
This market is focused on the full life cycle of SAP application services, spanning project-based implementation and multiyear application management services (AMS). Evaluate service providers for their ability to deliver a comprehensive set of implementation and management services across the SAP portfolio of products for clients worldwide. Comprehensive is defined as follows: • A distinct offering, consistent with common market service offerings as defined by the following: scope of service, delivery structure, intellectual property (IP), roles and responsibilities, service metrics and levels, terms and conditions, and pricing model. • A consolidated set of distinct offerings to address industry-specific demand or cross-industry demand, where the offering is recognized by clients or analysts as an integrated offering.
Gartner defines the SAP S/4HANA Application Services as: assessment, implementation and applications management services. Assessment services are discrete, project based services to assess the impact of either a new SAP S/4HANA implementation or a migration from a legacy platform(s) to SAP S/4HANA. These services include consulting and potentially Proof of Concept, and covers the analysis of all SAP S/4HANA products, applications, databases, analytics, middleware, mobile and other technologies. Implementation services are discrete, project-based implementations of SAP S/4HANA applications without ongoing management responsibilities. These services include consulting, development and integration services, and covers all SAP S/4HANA products, applications, databases, analytics, middleware, mobile and other technologies. Management services are ongoing services focused on SAP S/4HANA applications that are provided as part of a multiyear-based agreement and managed against defined quality metrics.
SIAM refers to the provision of technology consulting, project implementation and operational management services related to overseeing service delivery of multiple internal and external IT and business process service providers. The goal is to achieve seamless end-to-end service outcomes with a single point of accountability in a multisourced IT services environment or ecosystem. SIAM is typically a function needed in multisourced infrastructure and application outsourcing initiatives with applicability in business process outsourcing (BPO) with the ability to integrate other business function deals. In addition, the definition includes the management of cloud service providers in the hybrid IT environment. We have provided more details in the Market Analysis section on specific services delivered for each category of related offerings.