PUBLISHED DATE: 2026-11-05 04:13:04
IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Cloud Professional Services 2024 Vendor Assessment
Erin Hichman
Gard Little
This IDC MarketScape excerpt features Publicis Sapient.
IDC MarketScape Figure
Figure 1. IDC MarketScape Worldwide Cloud Professional Services Vendor Assessment
IDC MarketScape Worldwide Cloud Professional Services, 2024
Axes:
- Capabilities (vertical)
- Strategies (horizontal)
Regions shown:
- Leaders
- Major Players
- Contenders
- Participants
Vendors shown:
- PwC
- Capgemini
- HCLTech
- EY
- Kyndryl
- Perficient
- LTIMindtree
- TCS
- NTT DATA
- Accenture
- Publicis Sapient
- Deloitte
- IBM
- Rackspace
- DXC
- Dell
- EPAM
- HPE
- CGI
- Samsung SDS
- Mphasis
- Cognizant
- SoftwareOne
- KPMG
Source: IDC, 2024
Please see the Appendix for detailed methodology, market definition, and scoring criteria.
June 2024, IDC #US51406224e
In This Excerpt
The content for this excerpt was taken directly from IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Cloud Professional Services 2024 Vendor Assessment (Doc #US51406224). All or parts of the following sections are included in this excerpt: IDC Opinion, IDC MarketScape Vendor Inclusion Criteria, Essential Guidance, Vendor Summary Profile, Appendix, and Learn More. Also included is Figure 1.
IDC Opinion
Buyers of cloud professional services continue to enjoy a wealth of choices among provider types, and cloud professional service providers continue to expand their own end-to-end capabilities, making the selection process more challenging than ever. A record 24 vendors were evaluated in this sixth biannual evaluation, giving buyers a new snapshot of vendors to consider. Given this dynamic, IDC again recommends that buyers think about providers' expanding capabilities akin to a college graduate with a major and a minor and prioritize their needs accordingly.
When buyers were asked what characteristics are required for any cloud professional services vendor to be successful at a worldwide level, the number 1 attribute mentioned was "provide technical insights and competence," up from second place in the 2022 evaluation. The second attribute mentioned was "provide an appropriate and high-quality team for the project." This ordering of the top 2 attributes reversed the positionings seen in both the 2022 and 2020 evaluations. The increasing complexity of choices available for implementing hybrid cloud and multicloud solutions is likely one reason, but the surge of interest in using generative AI (GenAI), built on a solid cloud foundation, is also a factor. Conversely, the least unimportant characteristics were "presence of local offices and local resources," followed by "optimize ratio of onshore/offshore efforts on the project."
In terms of how buyers are relying on their cloud professional services vendors to help deliver on business priorities, at a worldwide level, the top business priorities were "comply with new or existing regulations," followed by "improve operational efficiency." While regulatory compliance remained a top priority as it was in 2022 and 2020, improving operational efficiency moved up one spot to become the second most critical priority. IDC has seen a significant focus on cost efficiency over the past two years as buyers have faced considerable economic headwinds and uncertainty about the future. The lowest-priority response remained consistent in 2020, 2022, and 2024, which was to "expand into new markets/geographies."
IDC MarketScape Vendor Inclusion Criteria
The inclusion criteria for this IDC MarketScape consisted of two dimensions. The first was aggregate CY23 information technology (IT) project-based services revenue of $430+ million. Using the definitions detailed in IDC's Worldwide Services Taxonomy, 2022 (IDC #US47769222, July 2022), IDC aggregated IT services revenue for over 940 services vendors that are tracked in IDC's Worldwide Semiannual Services Tracker to determine qualification. Second, the aggregate professional IT services revenue was segmented into the three macroregions of the Americas, EMEA, and Asia/Pacific. Vendors with $30+ million of aggregate professional IT services revenue in each of the macroregions and $430+ million in total revenue were invited to participate in this study.
Advice for Technology Buyers
- Be clear how much cost/operational efficiency you want from the cloud. The past two years have highlighted a lot of economic uncertainty and mixed signals about the successful path forward, so the appeal of cloud to drive efficiency is clear. However, many organizations have taken the risk to transform and innovate, despite the uncertainty, given the competitive pressures they face. Both are likely to be goals for most organizations, but the ordering of priority matters in thinking about the sequence of projects and selection of providers. So, be clear with yourself, and then your providers, how much your use of a cloud delivery model is about cost takeout compared with digitally transforming to become a more effective business.
- Make your cloud governance and FinOps approaches a top selection criterion. Cloud governance has become even more prominent in the two years since our last evaluation. As cloud hardware and software providers, and the providers that build bridges between the two, increasingly push toward higher levels of abstraction, building good cost and operational controls to govern your consumption of cloud services is critical. Ask professional service providers whether their cloud governance approach is optimized to meet technical or business operations, or is balanced between the two, and match that to your needs.
- Consider how business agile you must become. While building and implementing cloud services is a significant task, equally significant is the change, post go live, in the operating model for your business. Many end-user organizations we have spoken with struggle to keep pace with integrating the increased tempo of software releases from their cloud service providers. And the journey to cloud reveals their own lack of business agility. Look for professional service providers that can also help you become more agile in your overall business and IT operations. At an IT level, this means ensuring you can conduct the integration and acceptance testing required when cloud service providers have multiple software releases each year. At a business level, this means deciding on which new innovations or increased functionality from your cloud service providers you want to activate.
- Add new insights to your vendor selection process. Use this IDC MarketScape as a tool not only to short list vendors for cloud professional services bids but also to evaluate vendors' proposals and oral presentations. For example, ask any of the vendors profiled how they are building on the strengths identified, and likewise, how they are addressing their challenges. Make sure you understand where these players are truly differentiated, and take advantage of their expertise, industry based or otherwise. Tips about when to consider each provider are included in the Vendor Summary Profiles section.
Many clients of the providers evaluated justified their vendor selections, whether they were considered good or not so good, with the old idiom, "you get what you pay for" — but what exactly does that mean in the context of cloud professional services? Traditionally, professional service providers have considered three dimensions (price, speed, and quality) when engaging with clients and have only let clients pick two of the dimensions for a given project, thus allowing the provider some room to maneuver; but in the world of cloud services, it is often possible to deliver high quality quickly and at a good price, so other considerations must be involved. When pressed for details, a common theme among clients was that higher-priced firms provided much more contractual latitude in accommodating small changes in project scope, as well as providing limited doses of supplemental expertise not originally asked for. The reverse could be seen for lower-priced firms, but not all clients require a lot of contractual latitude. Another dimension relates to the total relationship between buyer and supplier where the cost for project-based services can be cross-subsidized by existing cloud managed services relationships or other partnerships/alliances with clients where joint solutions, such as industry clouds, are sold to other players in each ecosystem.
Finally, buyers should consider the following when selecting a cloud professional service provider:
- Project specificity: If you know precisely what you want, and know you want no more, a lower-priced provider can be an excellent choice. The reverse is also true.
- Project support: If you are lucky enough to have CEO- or board-level support for your cloud project, then a lower-priced provider can be cost-effective. However, if your cloud project is transformational and you don't have senior-level support, providers that are trusted by your CEO and board can make the difference.
- Project style: If you want a project where it's hard to tell which member works for the client versus the professional service provider, then collaboration skills and interpersonal dynamics will be a major factor. Conversely, if you want a service provider to maintain a bit of distance in hopes of giving you some outside-in objectivity, or just to break old patterns of thinking and behavior, then a more independent provider is key.
- Project structure: If you want to be deeply hands on in the strategy and tactics of the project, then insist your providers factor that into their staffing plans. Conversely, if you are willing to cede day-to-day control to your service provider and manage to contractual KPIs, then you can get by with a lower level of your staff assigned.
- Project skills: If you need 1 Python developer virtually, every provider evaluated can support your requirement easily. But if you need 20 Python developers all in the Middle East, then those firms with the historically deepest technology benches worldwide are a better selection.
Vendor Summary Profiles
This section briefly explains IDC's key observations resulting in a vendor's position in the IDC MarketScape. While every vendor is evaluated against each of the criteria outlined in the Appendix, the description here provides a summary of each vendor's strengths and challenges.
Publicis Sapient
According to IDC analysis and buyer perception, Publicis Sapient is positioned in the Leaders category in this 2024 IDC MarketScape for worldwide cloud professional services.
Publicis Sapient believes one of the largest mindset changes all clients face is shifting from managing a hybrid cloud infrastructure (e.g., access, security, uptime, support, and performance) to managing digital outcomes (e.g., growth, trust, experience, and productivity). To that end, it has a suite of professional services aligned with four different customer transformation strategies. First is optimization, which is a technology-led, but business-savvy, rationalization through the migration and modernization of clients' applications and data. Second is transformation at the enterprise level using cloud-native technology and data/AI-centric models in specific industry sectors. Third is reimagination, essentially industry-level disruption involving the reassessment of the value chain roles of participants in the clients' sector. And finally, reinvention, using smart ecosystems approach across industries and on multiple clouds, with a heavy use of data and AI for decision-making. Publicis Sapient's industry cloud offers, like for financial services, are part of the company's reimagination strategy but, along with other industry clouds (e.g., retail services and transportation), are connected via the company's smart ecosystem to integrate industry specialists with other cloud-enabled partners from multiple different industries. The company positions its three key strengths for clients as end-to-end engineering and technology capabilities, a business impact and business outcome-led approach to transformation, and its ecosystem capabilities to help clients and partners innovate and cocreate. Publicis Sapient also has an internal venture capital firm to fund selected ecosystem plays. And while not all clients are at the same level of maturity for cloud adoption, Publicis Sapient always focuses on how to build and sustain the digital outcomes clients desire.
Strengths
Publicis Sapient's strength is for offering breadth, cloud professional services life-cycle evolution, and next-generation tools and technologies. A client noted that compared with other SIs considered, Publicis Sapient has higher-quality personnel and more breadth of industry experience. IDC sees other strengths including justifying expenditures for clients, portfolio of cloud professional services life-cycle offerings, and methods to ensure delivery consistency.
Challenges
Increasing competencies and specializations related to cloud professional services is a good next step for Publicis Sapient to pursue as the firm moves forward with its offering strategy. A client noted that an improvement area for Publicis Sapient is in providing the necessary knowledge transfer to support client success.
Consider Publicis Sapient When
Consider Publicis Sapient if you want a balance of creative and technical capabilities applied to your cloud-driven business transformation. Publicis Sapient excels on projects sitting at the intersection of CMO- and CIO-led initiatives and is skilled at winning both hearts and minds when driving business change. For an example of this balance, check out some of its Impact Films, which are a nontraditional take on describing client case studies.
Appendix
Reading an IDC MarketScape Graph
For the purposes of this analysis, IDC divided potential key measures for success into two primary categories: capabilities and strategies.
Positioning on the y-axis reflects the vendor's current capabilities and menu of services and how well aligned the vendor is to customer needs. The capabilities category focuses on the capabilities of the company and product today, here and now. Under this category, IDC analysts will look at how well a vendor is building/delivering capabilities that enable it to execute its chosen strategy in the market.
Positioning on the x-axis, or strategies axis, indicates how well the vendor's future strategy aligns with what customers will require in three to five years. The strategies category focuses on high-level decisions and underlying assumptions about offerings, customer segments, and business and go-to-market plans for the next three to five years.
The size of the individual vendor markers in the IDC MarketScape represents the market share of each individual vendor within the specific market segment being assessed.
While the 24 vendors evaluated represent the majority share of spending for worldwide cloud professional services, there are other vendors that participate in this market and are worth considering based on your needs. These include Atos, AWS Professional Services, BCG, Cisco, Fujitsu, Hitachi Digital Services, Huawei, Indra, Infosys, Microsoft Consulting Services, McKinsey, NCR, NEC, Oracle Consulting, Tech Mahindra, and Wipro.
IDC MarketScape Methodology
IDC MarketScape criteria selection, weightings, and vendor scores represent well-researched IDC judgment about the market and specific vendors. IDC analysts tailor the range of standard characteristics by which vendors are measured through structured discussions, surveys, and interviews with market leaders, participants, and end users. Market weightings are based on user interviews, buyer surveys, and the input of IDC experts in each market. IDC analysts base individual vendor scores, and ultimately vendor positions on the IDC MarketScape, on detailed surveys and interviews with the vendors, publicly available information, and end-user experiences in an effort to provide an accurate and consistent assessment of each vendor's characteristics, behavior, and capability.
Market Definition
The cloud professional services market includes elements from four of IDC's services foundation markets, which are defined in their entirety in IDC's Worldwide Services Taxonomy, 2022 (IDC #US47769222, July 2022). Examples of specific cloud professional services are shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2. Examples of Cloud Professional Services
IT Consulting
- Maturity assessments
- IT strategic planning
- Support of customer procurement
- Vendor relationship management
Custom Application Development
- Cloud-native development using PaaS
- Setup of modern development environment (private cloud)
- Modernization efforts
Systems Integration
- Migrating/integrating legacy systems or workloads with cloud apps/infra
- Integrating disparate cloud applications, cloud application platforms, or cloud infrastructure
Network Consulting and Integration
- Planning, designing, or building local and/or wide area networks to accommodate cloud services
Source: IDC, 2024
Learn More
Related Research
- IDC MarketScape: U.S. Federal Government Cloud Professional Services 2024 Vendor Assessment (IDC #US49996223, April 2024)
- IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Higher Education Cloud Professional Services 2024 Vendor Assessment (IDC #US49968823, January 2024)
- IDC MarketScape: Asia/Pacific Cloud Professional Services 2023–2024 Vendor Assessment (IDC #AP50426623, November 2023)
- IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Industry Cloud Professional Services 2022 Vendor Assessment (IDC #US48187622, September 2022)
- IDC's Worldwide Services Taxonomy, 2022 (IDC #US47769222, July 2022)
- IDC MarketScape: Gulf Countries Cloud Professional Services 2022 Vendor Assessment (IDC #META47590721, May 2022)
- IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Cloud Professional Services 2022 Vendor Assessment (IDC #US48061322, April 2022)
- IDC MarketScape: Canadian Cloud Professional Services 2021 Vendor Assessment (IDC #CA46215320, January 2021)
Synopsis
This IDC study represents a vendor assessment of the 2024 cloud professional services market through the IDC MarketScape model. This research is a quantitative and qualitative assessment of the characteristics that explain a vendor's success in the marketplace and help anticipate the vendor's ascendancy. This IDC MarketScape covers a variety of vendors participating in the worldwide cloud professional services market. This evaluation is based on a comprehensive framework and set of parameters expected to be most conducive to success in providing cloud professional services in both the short term and the long term. A component of this evaluation is the inclusion of the perception of cloud professional services buyers of both the key characteristics and the capabilities of the provider evaluated. Buyers were surveyed across all three of IDC's macroregions for the vendors participating.
"Buyers of cloud professional services continue to enjoy a wealth of choices among provider types, and cloud professional service providers continue to expand their own end-to-end capabilities, making the selection process more challenging than ever," said Gard Little, research vice president, Global Services, Markets, and Trends, IDC. "A record 24 vendors were evaluated in this sixth biannual evaluation, giving buyers a new snapshot of vendors to consider."
About IDC
International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. With more than 1,300 analysts worldwide, IDC offers global, regional, and local expertise on technology, IT benchmarking and sourcing, and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries. IDC's analysis and insight helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community to make fact-based technology decisions and to achieve their key business objectives. Founded in 1964, IDC is a wholly owned subsidiary of International Data Group (IDG, Inc.).
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