Gartner’s “Magic Quadrant for European CRM Service Providers”

Gartner’s much anticipated “Magic Quadrant for European CRM Service Providers” has been released for 2006. As a review of the state of the CRM project market, the Magic report seeks to identify the top delivery partners. Winners in this year’s survey include Accenture, Capgemini, Deloitte, IBM Business Consulting Services, who were given nods as notables in the industry in the report’s “Leader Quadrant” section.

India-based companies, too, received special mention, with the key statistic pure-play ESP growth rates, with Indian numbers well above the international market average “Magic Quadrant” is a European-based study with focus of CRM external service providers; the data is broken up into international, pan-European and non-European. Only firms with accounts in four countries or more were included, and a minimum of $20 million in European CRM service revenue was needed for consideration as well. The report stated that changes in the market in 2006 were chiefly due to market expansion and that “the European market for CRM project-based services during 2005 experienced its healthiest growth since 2001.”

In contrast, Magic also noted that “Growth among CRM consulting and systems integrators was inconsistent, marked by wide variances.” No. 1 on the leader quadrant chart was Accenture. Accenture is a repeat visitor to the list and this year outdid IBM in growth, performance and “completeness of vision.” According to study authors, the global management consulting, technology and outsourcing firm is on track to occupy top partner spots at Oracle, Salesforce.com and SAP, earning praise: “Accenture grew far faster than the market rate in Europe during 2005, due to expansion in [western Europe and] the Nordic countries.”

Further noted was Accenture’s rapid expansion in brand value, loyalty management, marketing analytics and marketing effectiveness analysis. Placing second was IBM BCS which, although experiencing a slow rate of growth, was noted for its strong presence in every European nation within the scope of the survey. Additionally, the IBM BCS CRM practice management team got kudos for its consistency of performance. Cap Gemini was another company to get mention as exhibiting strong growth in its CRM practice in 2005. “Cap Gemini has the second-widest range of partnerships,” study authors judged, “with vendors such as SAS, Teradata, Unica, and Epiphany … Of the largest ESPs, [Cap Gemini is] making the biggest move into SAP CRM work.” And Cap Gemini’s financial gain continues into 2006. The company’s results for the first quarter of 2006 were recently released, showing a gain of about three percent over last quarter, a rise from €1.808 million to €1.869 million ($2.33 million to $2.41 million).

The last of the fab four, Deloitte Touché Tohmatsu, has seen nice growth in its public sector CRM business, and the study went on the note the Deloitte presence in banking, communications, consumer goods, and transportation sectors. In the Challengers and Visionaries quadrants stood BearingPoint and Computer Sciences Corporation, named challenger and visionary, respectively. BearingPoint was named to the challenger spot in last year’s report and saw faster than average growth in Europe despite the recent musical chairs in leadership. Computer Sciences Corporation got the nod because it “grew its CRM practice at above the market rate during 2005 and is approaching the point of being ‘sold out’ for CRM in 2006 in Europe…”