https://www.techtarget.com/searchitchannel/news/252489270/Accenture-cloud-investment-to-reach-3-billion
Accenture said it will invest $3 billion over three years to help customers lead their technological efforts with the cloud and ramp up digital transformation projects.
The investment in the newly created Accenture Cloud First group underscores the importance of cloud services to IT services providers -- from global professional services firms like Accenture to local and regional MSPs also banking on the cloud. Cloud has been one of the bright spots in the IT market, which has taken a hit due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the related economic downturn.
The Accenture Cloud First group brings together 70,000 cloud professionals and integrates areas of expertise that include cloud migration, infrastructure and application services, according to the company. The group also draws upon Accenture Interactive's experience design skills, along with Accenture's business process and vertical market resources.
Accenture has appointed Karthik Narain to direct the cloud group, effective Oct. 1. He was previously a lead for Accenture Technology in North America.
The COVID-19 pandemic played a key role in the creation of Accenture Cloud First. The pandemic's business disruption has increased the velocity with which organizations are transitioning to the cloud, noted Annette Rippert, group chief executive of strategy and consulting at Accenture.
"The demand coming from the market is voracious," she said.
Accenture's organizational changes and investment plan aim to keep pace with clients moving with speed and at scale, helping them "change in a way that is essential for their survival," Rippert said.
That imperative calls for an understanding that spans the CEO agenda and stakeholder value creation as well as industry and business process change, she said. Required skillsets include consulting, technology strategy, implementation, cloud-native development, cloud operations and human performance.
The launch of Accenture Cloud First will "bring these pieces into one comprehensive offering," Rippert said.
In addition to the 70,000 Accenture employees permanently designated to Accenture Cloud First, the company has segmented components of other practices to be part of the group, she added.
The company generated $11 billion in cloud revenue for fiscal year 2019, slightly more than 25% of its total revenue of $43.2 billion. Accenture, whose fiscal year ends Aug. 31, will discuss fourth-quarter and fiscal year 2020 financial results Sept. 24.
Accenture's June 10-Q filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission said the company's consulting revenue "continues to be driven by digital-, cloud- and security-related services." The company's outsourcing business, meanwhile, experienced "growing demand to assist clients with the operation and maintenance of digital-related services and cloud enablement."
The $3 billion investment aims to advance a range of activities at Accenture, including cloud AI data and architectures, cloud tools, automation and edge computing.
Redstor, a cloud data management solutions provider based in the United Kingdom, has launched a self-service portal that lets MSPs deploy backup, recovery and archiving offerings for their customers.
Partners can use the portal, called Redstor Marketplace, to sell and manage Redstor's data management offerings that span on-premises and cloud data, including Microsoft 365 and G Suite. The company's partner program, meanwhile, offers discounted pricing as well as sales, marketing and technical support.
Redstor's seven-figure investment in the portal marks a change in strategy. The company had been selling both directly to customers and through partners, but it decided during a 2019 planning session to become a channel-only business. Redstor found partners to be "the best source of growth for our business and the best opportunity to scale," said Redstor chief product officer James Griffin.
Redstor Marketplace's September launch follows an extended beta in which the company sought partner feedback. The process pointed out design decisions that "didn't line up with the partners' reality," which led to product changes, Griffin noted.
For example, Redstor believed since it sells digitally to MSPs, service providers would want to sell digitally to their customers. The original portal plan was to put a Redstor signup page on a partner's website and process transactions through a credit card gateway. But partners said they wanted to conduct the customer conversation over the phone, rather than hand it off to Redstor's digital approach, Griffin noted. In addition, partners said they bill customers through tools such as ConnectWise rather than taking payments through credit cards. As a result, Redstor dropped the digital sales component and credit card gateway from the final product.
Griffin said the company's partners tend to be those that provide Redstor's products as part of a wider offering and have value-driven, as opposed to price-driven, discussions with customers.
"We don't believe a race to the bottom is the right thing for the data protection market," he said.
COVID-19 has bumped automation up the list of priorities for public-sector organizations.
An Insight Enterprises survey found 27% of the local, state and federal agencies it polled cited automating employee work processes and tasks as a top three priority before the pandemic. That number increased to 35% after the pandemic emerged.
Insight, an integrator based in Tempe, Arizona, said the trend was especially notable at the state and local government level. Here, the portion of respondents citing automation as a top three priority increased from 23% pre-COVID-19 to 35% post-COVID.
Channel partners have identified automation as one of the items most in demand among customers in the COVID economy.
Additional reporting by Spencer Smith.
Market Share is a news roundup published every Friday.
18 Sep 2020