U.K. Firms Turning to Microsoft in Pandemic Recovery

Enterprises Give Providers Higher CX Scores but Demand More Innovation, ISG Study Shows

 Diverse provider ecosystem helps U.K. companies adopt Microsoft technologies to overcome new challenges, ISG Provider Lens™ report says

Enterprises in the U.K. are turning to the Microsoft ecosystem to help digitize their businesses and overcome hurdles introduced by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new research report published today by Information Services Group (ISG), a leading global technology research and advisory firm.

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“There are providers in the U.K. that can tie these together in a solution form-fitted to a particular industry.”

The 2022 ISG Provider Lens™ Microsoft Ecosystem Partners report for the U.K. finds organizations are moving to cloud-based platforms to handle increasingly complex supply chains, improve employee experience and create better online customer support channels. Microsoft cloud platforms are also facilitating new efforts at decarbonization and sustainability.

A diverse, growing ecosystem of Microsoft service providers in the U.K. is helping many companies adopt Microsoft’s Azure, Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365 clouds, ISG says.

“Microsoft technologies can address many challenges that British companies face, but implementing them is not always as simple as it first appears,” said Anthony Drake, ISG director in the U.K. “Service providers are doing a lot of that work.”

New cloud adopters usually lack the skills to migrate to or manage Azure deployments, the report says. They may also be unprepared for the costs of cloud deployments, including license and transaction fees and charges for data ingress and egress. Getting the right amount of cloud capacity can also be difficult.

U.K. enterprises can choose from a wide range of Microsoft ecosystem partners for cloud migration and digital transformation, including large, full-service providers and smaller players specializing in one or two platforms, the report says. A growing number of providers, and Microsoft itself, are targeting specific industries with solutions engineered for their needs.

“A Microsoft implementation may involve many different technologies,” said Jan Erik Aase, partner and global leader, ISG Provider Lens Research. “There are providers in the U.K. that can tie these together in a solution form-fitted to a particular industry.”

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The report describes the kinds of services available from Microsoft managed service providers. It also examines the rise of Microsoft 365 for newly remote workforces, the challenges of SAP on Azure migration and the growth of low-code development initiatives using Microsoft Power Platform.

The 2022 ISG Provider Lens™ Microsoft Ecosystem Partners report for the U.K. evaluates the capabilities of 41 providers across five quadrants: Managed Services for Azure, Microsoft 365 Services, SAP on Azure Services, Dynamics 365 Services and Power Platform Services.

The report names Accenture, Cognizant, DXC Technology, TCS and Wipro as Leaders in all five quadrants. It names Fujitsu, HCL and IBM as Leaders in four quadrants each and Atos as a Leader in three quadrants. Hexaware and Infosys are named as Leaders in two quadrants each, and EY is named as a Leader in one quadrant.

In addition, Content+Cloud, Fujitsu, Rackspace Technology and Sonata Software are named as Rising Stars — companies with a “promising portfolio” and “high future potential” by ISG’s definition — in one quadrant each.

A customized version of the report is available from Fujitsu.

The 2022 ISG Provider Lens™ Microsoft Ecosystem Partners report for the U.K. is available to subscribers or for one-time purchase on this webpage.

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