IT service providers remain on course

The ten largest IT service companies, on the other hand, achieved only slight growth with an average revenue development of 1.9 percent, but this was in a market environment that was very strongly characterized by the shift to cloud sourcing and thus also to more variable and in some cases lower service revenues. This is shown by Lünendonk & Hossenfelder's annual analysis of the IT consulting and IT service market in Germany.

Last year, the trade war between the USA, the EU and China and the associated economic slowdown impacted the global economy. In Germany, this development particularly affected export-oriented sectors such as the automotive industry and plant and mechanical engineering.

"One consequence of these developments was declining budgets for digitization projects and halted or postponed projects, which affected the growth momentum of IT service providers"

is how Mario Zillmann, Partner at Lünendonk & Hossenfelder, describes the market environment. However, there was also a whole range of issues that boosted the business of IT service providers in Germany.

"These included, for example, the S/4 Hana conversion, the development and introduction of new software to implement digitization strategies, the modernization of IT landscapes, and the migration of IT applications and IT infrastructure to the cloud"

Zillmann lists some of the growth themes of IT consultancies in the past year.

Although S/4 Hana transformations in particular can often be complex and expensive, the Corona crisis had little impact on planned or already launched IT projects in this area.

"Implementing S/4 Hana is not an end in itself, you expect something from it, you want to modernize processes and make them more efficient"

Holger von Daniels, CEO of Valantic, describes the current situation.

Lünendonk List 2020: Leading IT consulting and systems integration companies in Germany

"This digitization demand outweighs short-term cyclical shifts."

For the current year 2020, Lünendonk & Hossenfelder does not publish the forecasts of the IT services companies surveyed, most of which were made prior to the Corona crisis, as it is currently almost impossible to make reliable statements about business development in the coming months.

"However, our data over the last 30 years shows that there is a high correlation between the development of the IT services market and German gross domestic product (GDP)"

says Zillmann.

With GDP forecast to fall by 6.5 percent according to the EU Commission in May 2020, this will also have an impact on the business development of most IT service providers. As soon as the economy picks up again, this will also revive the IT services market more strongly.

"IT service providers that can strategically support and accompany their customers in their digital transformation with a broad portfolio had an advantage in 2019 and will continue to do so in 2020"

predicts Zillmann.