Capgemini to acquire Altran for €5.0bn: early thoughts

/ June 24, 2019

Capgemini is to acquire Altran, for €5.0bn, including €3.6bn in cash and Altran’s net debt of €1.4bn (gross debt of €1.8bn). The company has already secured the 11% stake in Altran that Apax Partners holds and will rely on the financing, on its €1bn cash position and a €4.4bn bond issue.

HCL ERS returns to Earth in Q4 FY19

/ May 19, 2019

HCL Tech’s ERS unit posted an excellent growth of +12.1% yoy at CC. The growth positioned ERS as the second fastest ER&D services vendor (among top ten vendors) behind Alten, ahead of Altran. ERS’s growth is, however, slowing from its peak of +47.7% at CC in Q3 FY18.

Cognizant wins a large PES contract at AVEVA

/ May 11, 2019

ERDservices.org rarely reports about Cognizant, the NJ-headquartered but India-centric IT services giant in the space of ER&D services. Despite its size (2018 revenues of USD 16.1bn) and high-growth, Cognizant is little-visible in the ER&D area and is not a significant player in this industry.

UPDATED: a few thoughts about Altran and its cyber-attack

/ April 26, 2019

Altran provided some light on January 24, 2019, cyber attack that affected its operations in several countries in Europe. The company isolated malware and avoided its contamination and propagation to clients. Altran’s systems are now up and running.

Altran phases out the Aricent brand

/ April 15, 2019

Altran has phased out the Aricent brand in North America and now trades under the Altran brand. The company highlights it now has three primary brands: Aricent for its core ER&D services, Cambridge Consultants for its “innovation consulting” capabilities, and Frog for product design

L&T to launch a hostile take-over over Mindtree

/ March 22, 2019

If you follow what’s going in India, you are probably well aware that the manufacturing conglomerate Larsen & Toubro (L&T) has acquired 20.3% of Mindtree, from a passive promoter (the Indian term for key shareholders, usually founders).

Accenture acquires in the MES space with ESP

/ March 9, 2019

With the launch of Industry X.0 last year, Accenture had voiced its intention to enter the ER&D services, starting by IoT and digital technologies. During the summer of 2018, the company had acquired two embedded software specialists and one product design firm. The scale of the acquisition was relatively modest with a combined ~450 consultants added

HCL Tech’s ERS continued high growth. Up 17% in Q3 FY19

/ February 3, 2019

The revenue growth of HCL Tech’s ERS unit continued to be high in Q3 FY19 to 17.4% yoy at CC. Revenues well above the half-billion threshold, to USD 562m, comforting HCL Tech as the third largest ER&D service vendor globally.

DXC Tech Acquires Luxoft and enters ER&D services

/ January 7, 2019

DXC, the third largest IT service vendor is to acquire Luxoft, a Central and European delivery vendor providing IT and ER&D services. DXC is offering $2bn for Luxoft, which has been struggling this year, being impacted by its high client concentration.

Why onshore ER&D service vendors must pro-actively become India-centric

/ January 6, 2019

It is striking to see how few onshore ER&D service vendors have built a significant Indian or nearshore presence. Onshore vendors do acknowledge that the Indian ER&D service vendors grow faster than they do but argue that most of the Indian vendors service U.S. clients or industries (mostly, ISVs, technology vendors and telecom equipment manufacturers) they do not quite address.

2018: A Year in Review

/ January 3, 2019

2018 was an eventful year: the top ER&D vendors accelerated their M&A activities. Alten continued to deploy its business model. HCL Tech’s ERS unit had a superb year