February 24, 2012

The Forrester Wave: Global Commerce Service Providers, Q1 2012

by Brian K. Walker and Peter Sheldon for eBusiness & Channel Strategy Professionals

Making Leaders Successful Every Day

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February 24, 2012

The Forrester Wave: Global Commerce Service Providers, Q1 2012

Sapientnitro, Deloitte, and iBm GBS lead, With a Strong Pack of Contenders Close Behind
by Brian K. Walker and Peter Sheldon with Zia Daniell Wigder and lily varon

ExECuT i v E S u m ma ry
In Forresters 72-criteria evaluation of the top 12 global commerce service providers (GCSPs), we found that SapientNitro, Deloitte, and IBM Global Business Services (GBS) led the pack with their comprehensive suite of services, global reach, customer base, and focus on multichannel commerce. Accenture, Acquity Group, Rosetta, Razorfish, HCL, Infosys, and arvato Systems represent strong providers with varying strengths and differentiators. Wipro and Valtech represent effective providers, but with limitations. With this report, we evaluate these firms to help eBusiness, channel strategy, and technology leaders determine the best service providers for their company to work with as they embark on programs to transform their company in the era of agile commerce.

TaBl E o F Co nTE nTS

2 The Stakes Are High And eBusiness Leaders Need A Strategic Partner 4 Global Commerce Service Providers Evaluation Overview 8 Evaluated Commerce Service Providers Represent The Best Of The Best 9 Global Commerce Service Providers Evaluation 12 Vendor Profiles 14 Supplemental Material

n oT E S & rE S o u r CE S
Forrester conducted in-depth briefings in September 2011 with 12 vendor companies: accenture, acquity Group, arvato Systems, Deloitte, HCl, iBm Global Business Services, infosys, razorfish, rosetta, Sapientnitro, valtech, and Wipro. Forrester conducted surveys with clients of each firm and interviews with two clients of each firm included in the report.

Related Research Documents How To Select a Commerce Services Provider February 9, 2012
The agile Commerce Platform october 19, 2011 Welcome To The Era of agile Commerce march 11, 2011 The Forrester Wave: B2C eCommerce Platforms, Q4 2010 october 21, 2010

2012 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Forrester, Forrester Wave, RoleView, Technographics, TechRankings, and Total Economic Impact are trademarks of Forrester Research, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Reproduction or sharing of this content in any form without prior written permission is strictly prohibited. To purchase reprints of this document, please email clientsupport@ forrester.com. For additional reproduction and usage information, see Forresters Citation Policy located at www.forrester.com. Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change.

The Forrester Wave: Global Commerce Service Providers, Q1 2012

For eBusiness & Channel Strategy Professionals

THE STAKES ARE HiGH AND EBuSiNESS LEADERS NEED A STRATEGiC PARTNER Todays commerce technology projects are complex, and growing eCommerce revenues mean the bets are getting bigger. eCommerce continues to grow at double-digit rates year over year in North America and Western Europe.1 Outside of these regions, eCommerce is growing even faster, representing an important growth opportunity for brands and retailers.2 Moreover, commerce capabilities in all regions must increasingly extend and integrate across customer touchpoints to support changing customer expectations, which means that eCommerce will affect the entire business, whether that impact can be easily measured or not. With large-scale commerce technology programs, careers are literally on the line. Not only does the implementation of a commerce platform and related technologies require a host of technical integrations, but these projects often involve rethinking and designing a crosstouchpoint customer experience.3 These complex integrations must also take into account the platforms effect on the companys overall business strategies, processes, and operations. When multiple firms are involved to address all of these issues, companies risk missing requirements, having questions go unasked, seeing their vision and recommendations get lost in translation, and witnessing accountability go out the window. As a result, eBusiness and technology leaders must seek services firms that can provide a wide range of capabilities, including:

Channel strategy. In the era of agile commerce, clients need support integrating the customer

experience, evolving business processes, optimizing organizational design, and implementing technology across digitally enabled customer touchpoints.4 They also need help developing business cases and road maps for global expansion. eBusiness leaders also seek out firms experienced in the unique challenges and opportunities within their industry. Global commerce service providers (GCSPs) must understand how agile commerce and digital disruption affects their clients customer relationships, market, and competitive environment.

Technology strategy. Successful commerce projects require in-depth knowledge as well

as extensive experience implementing and integrating commerce solutions into overall technology ecosystems. That ecosystem will likely include enterprise resource planning (ERP), finance systems, call center systems, order management, content management, point-of-sale, analytics and data warehousing, and many point solutions that make up the clients technology environment. eBusiness and technology leaders need help working with GCSPs to identify appropriate and relevant technology solutions and to develop system architectures that are rational and effective at meeting business, customer experience, and technology goals.

Customer experience design. An understanding of the changing consumer and the ability to

design and develop highly usable customer experiences is becoming an increasingly important capability for GCSPs. While it is not uncommon to have third-party agencies involved in the conceptual or brand design activities, often those designs must be translated into specific wireframes and interface designs that are developed and implemented in the course of a project. Working with a GCSP that has a design competency not only provides the needed skills to

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execute these design tasks, but also helps ensure that the user experience and brand vision can be translated properly into application architecture and project specifications, as well as user and system test cases. As commerce platforms and the related technology ecosystem must increasingly support many or all customer touchpoints, it will become increasingly critical that a GCSP can provide these capabilities to complement their other capabilities.

Technology implementation and integration. Todays commerce implementations are

increasingly complex, involving many channels and touchpoints. These initiatives typically involve integration to multiple back-end legacy systems to obtain or update inventory data, order data, customer data, content, and marketing data. These initiatives also require integration to multiple front-end systems and technologies such as on-site search, email marketing, web analytics, recommendations engines, user-generated content solutions, and mobile commerce solutions. Commerce platforms must also integrate with call center or customer relationship management (CRM) systems, in-store technology such as point-of-sale or mPOS systems, and marketplaces such as Amazon.com and eBay. GCSPs provide critical capabilities to integrate these systems rationally in a robust and scalable technology architecture that supports clients over time.

Managed technology services. It has become more and more difficult for companies to

source the talent and expertise required to support complex and evolving systems that must be robust, secure, available, and high-performing. These are business-critical applications; seamless failover and disaster recovery are a must. Companies are turning to their GCSP to provide ongoing application support, development, and optimization, including release testing and platform upgrades. This now includes the responsibility to manage the physical hosting environments, often with a third-party hosting facility providing the physical hosting facilities.5

Global consulting services. Companies are now looking for their technology partners to

provide online or cross-touchpoint capabilities not only in their current markets, but also to provide a platform on which to grow internationally. eBusiness professionals need a partner that has extensive knowledge of key global markets. This is critical not only in supporting the commerce capability, but to help with localizing the experience for the quirks and unique requirements of each market. Payment methods, banking relationships, taxation, fulfillment, hosting, and legal and regulatory issues are all challenges on top of developing a relevant and usable localized customer experience. It is important that the eBusiness selects a GCSP that can serve the key current and future markets in which they will need their commerce capability.

Your Service Provider May Be The Most important Decision You Make The success or failure of a commerce technology program has big stakes attached to it. Getting a program right or wrong will mean the difference not just in the eBusiness organization meeting its goals, but also of the company adapting and hitting revenue and profit objectives over many years. Who you hire to design, integrate, and support your commerce solution is critical for many reasons, including:

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The Forrester Wave: Global Commerce Service Providers, Q1 2012

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Its not the platform; its what you do with it. All too often, the commerce platform is blamed

for poor metrics like conversion, stability, performance issues, or the challenges in integrating customer experience across channels. However, more often than not, how a commerce platform and related technologies are designed, configured, architected, and integrated is a more critical success factor than the platform decision itself. In the past, the decision on a service provider was often made after the decision on a platform and technology. Increasingly however, the service provider is decided first and is a key partner in the technology strategy and vendor selection. This reflects the way business and technology leaders have become increasingly reliant on GCSPs for long-term success (see Figure 1).

The cost of a project or program is primarily in services. Many business and technology

leaders considering a commerce program focus on the licensing and maintenance costs of technologies they need to drive their customer experience and business goals. Yet the costs of services to design, implement, and support that technology will be eight to 10 times the cost of the technology. This is true when sourcing outside services or utilizing internal resources, although the costs of that often go uncaptured. Companies exceed their budgets and timelines as a result of poor planning, design, architecture, implementation, and testing.

Flexibility and agility requires access to resources. IT organizations struggle to hire talented

architects and developers. eBusiness leaders find recruiting these resources directly very challenging.6 Working with a GCSP not only provides critical expertise in the implementation of projects, but also can be critical to the ongoing evolution and development of commerce capabilities across touchpoints. eBusiness leaders need flexibility and agility in the resources available to them as they must adapt their businesses to rapidly changing user experiences across the Web, in-store, mobile, contact centers, and emerging digital experiences.

Companies prefer to have the proverbial one throat to choke. Many business leaders have
had the experience of projects gone awry, only to see how their design firm, platform and technology vendors, systems integrator, hosting provider, and internal IT resources launch into a blame game seeking to pin responsibility elsewhere. eBusiness and technology leaders need to drive accountability to one service provider, streamlining their vendor relationships and contracts.

GLOBAL COMMERCE SERViCE PROViDERS EVALuATiON OVERViEW To assess how well these commerce service providers meet the evolving needs of our clients and to determine how the vendors stack up against each other, Forrester evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of top providers of commerce service providers across a range of strategy, customer experience design, technology, and managed services capabilities (see Figure 2). The firms included in the evaluation all have capabilities across the spectrum of services included, although their heritage as service providers varies.

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Figure 1 Satisfaction With Services Firms runs High

1-1 Outsourcing to SI rms will increase in 2012 How do you expect your rms/organizations total spending on systems integration and project work to change over the next 12 months? 33% 49% 6% Increase more than 10% Increase 5% to 10% Stay about the same Decrease 5% to 10% Decrease more than 10%

3% Base: 531 enterprise IT services decision-makers who plan to spend on systems integration and project work (percentages may not total 100 because of rounding) 1-2 Few regret their decision to outsource How satised is your rm with its decision to use a third party for systems integration and project work? 8% 32% 34% 11% Very satised Somewhat satised Neutral Somewhat unsatised Very unsatised

8%

2% Base: 979 enterprise IT services decision-makers who are using third parties for systems integration and project work Note: 13% Dont know/does not apply completes the 100% 1-3 Almost half of organizations use or are planning to use an SI rm for implementation of packaged software applications Will you hire or use a third-party systems integrator or consultant to implement or upgrade packaged applications (e.g., ERP, CRM, SCM) in the next 12 months? Dont know 7% Not using/ does not apply 35%

Currently using 22%

Will use in the next 12 months 16% Interested/considering 19%

Base: 1,031 enterprise IT services decision-makers (percentages may not total 100 because of rounding) Source: Forrsights Services Survey, Q3 2011
60823 Source: Forrester Research, Inc.

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The Forrester Wave: Global Commerce Service Providers, Q1 2012

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Figure 2 Evaluated vendors: vendor information and Selection Criteria

Vendor Accenture Acquity Group Arvato Systems Deloitte HCL IBM Global Business Services Infosys Rosetta Razorsh SapientNitro Valtech Wipro Technologies Date evaluated September 2011 September 2011 September 2011 September 2011 September 2011 September 2011 September 2011 September 2011 September 2011 September 2011 September 2011 September 2011 Vendor selection criteria The vendors had a dedicated commerce services practice with at least ve years experience of implementing complex multichannel commerce projects at the time of data collection, with at least four references available for contact. Vendors included in this evaluation had at least 400 full-time employees dedicated to sales, support, training, and consulting services for multichannel commerce. The vendors had proven implementation expertise around at least two of the eCommerce platforms identied in the "Thr Forrester Wave: B2C eCommerce Platforms, Q4 2010" and was able to demonstrate client experience implementing enterprise order management, PIM, and CMS applications. The vendors demonstrated an ability to deliver B2C and B2B multichannel commerce projects for enterprise-class organizations across a diverse set of industry verticals and/or global markets.
Source: Forrester Research, Inc.

Firms Represented in Our Evaluation Have A Range Of Backgrounds In this evaluation, Forrester focused on the leading vendors that have proven experience delivering successful multichannel direct-to-consumer or B2B commerce projects. The vendors we evaluated offered similar types of services, although their backgrounds as service providers include:

Firms with a management consulting background. This report includes two firms with a

background as multinational management consultancy firms, Accenture and Deloitte. Both of

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these firms have significant experience delivering a range of consulting services to multichannel companies, although commerce technology and design services have traditionally been a small part of their respective businesses.

Firms with an interactive design agency background. The report includes four firms with

backgrounds as interactive marketing agencies: Razorfish, Rosetta, SapientNitro, and Valtech. Although best known for their creative and user experience services, all four of these firms have capabilities to implement, integrate, and support commerce technology programs to varying degrees. Typically, these firms have a significant portion of their business from commerce services clients.

Firms with a systems integrator background. The report includes six firms with backgrounds

as systems integrators: Acquity Group, arvato Systems, HCL, IBM Global Business Services, Infosys, and Wipro Technologies. Based on client needs, all of these firms have added or matured capabilities in strategy and design to their systems integration competencies, though to varying degrees. These firms range from commerce specialists like Acquity and arvato Systems to large firms with significant commerce practice headcounts, but where commerce-related services account for only a small part of the business such as HCL, IBM GBS, Infosys, and Wipro Technologies.

How Criteria Are Organized After examining past research, user needs assessments, and vendor and expert interviews, we developed a comprehensive set of evaluation criteria. We evaluated vendors against 72 criteria, which we grouped into three high-level buckets:

Current offering. Forresters criteria to assess the strength of the vendors current offerings

were weighted toward expertise in commerce technology solutions. Although eBusiness leaders are increasingly asking these firms to provide strategy, design, and managed services, they still primarily engage these firms to implement and integrate commerce technologies including commerce platforms, order management, content management, and a wide range of point solutions. We also evaluated each vendor against the following: channel strategy and commerce process consulting, customer experience and design services, implementation services, managed services, hosting support, and solution expertise.

Strategy. We examined each vendors strategy for evolving their capabilities to meet the

changing needs of clients, their vision for commerce solutions in the future and industry expertise, and plans to support their clients across global markets.

Market presence. eBusiness and technology leaders must look for service providers with a

strong and stable customer base, steady growth, and a network of partners. To determine current market presence for our evaluation, we combined information about each vendors current customer base, recent sales momentum, revenues, relative size of each vendors commerce practice, and financial resources to support their strategy and growth.
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EVALuATED COMMERCE SERViCE PROViDERS REPRESENT THE BEST OF THE BEST Forrester evaluated 12 service providers in this assessment: Accenture, Acquity Group, arvato Systems, Deloitte, HCL, IBM Global Business Services, Infosys, Razorfish, Rosetta, SapientNitro, Valtech, and Wipro Technologies. While we considered a wide range of services firms for this assessment, each of these firms has:

A significant focus on commerce solutions. Although many of the firms we evaluated have

significant business across a range of solutions, each of these firms has a significant commitment to serving clients with B2C and B2B eCommerce and multichannel commerce programs.

The ability to support large and complex clients across multiple verticals. Each of these firms

has a stable of clients that represent complex and mature online and multichannel business in need of an enterprise-class commerce solution. These clients cross verticals including retail, travel, consumer products, manufacturing, media and entertainment, and telecommunications. These firms can largely support clients across the key markets of North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific. Forrester defines enterprise-class as solutions serving companies with more than $1 billion in total sales, or total eCommerce transactions of more than $100 million annually.

A profitable or stable business with client momentum. To ensure that the vendors we

evaluated will remain viable in this evolving market, Forrester limited its analysis to firms that have the resources and momentum to sustain themselves through variable market conditions. Each of these firms has significant business in implementing and supporting commerce programs and has shown growth in their commerce services practice.

Forrester did not include companies in this assessment with a different market focus such as:

Full-service solutions aimed at providing a suite of eCommerce capabilities. We have

written separate research on the capabilities of full-service eCommerce solutions providers that provide platforms, marketing services, fulfillment, and customer care such as Digital River, GSI Commerce, Netrada, PFSweb, Speed FC, and Yoox.7

Hosted/managed or SaaS commerce solution providers. We have written separate research on

solution providers that provide proprietary eCommerce and multichannel technology solutions such as BT Fresca, Demandware, Digital River, eCommera, and MarketLive.8 Many of these firms provide services that may complement their platforms.

eCommerce technology vendors. We have written separate research on eCommerce platforms

and related technology providers such as vendors of customer experience management (CXM) solutions, product content management solutions (PCM), content management systems (CMS), and order management systems (OMS) such as hybris, IBM, Micros, Oracle, RedPrarie, and others. Many of these firms provide services around their specific solutions.

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GLOBAL COMMERCE SERViCE PROViDERS EVALuATiON As a group, global commerce service providers are poised to support their clients as they increasingly move into cross-channel commerce and support the next generation of customer touchpoints. However, we found important differentiators in our evaluation. Our evaluation uncovered a diverse market in which (see Figure 3):

SapientNitro, Deloitte, and IBM GBS lead for overall breadth of service offerings. In many

ways, these firms best embody our definition of a global commerce service provider. They have significant implementation experience around leading eCommerce platforms and related ecosystem technologies, but also possess a range of additional services that are important in delivering a comprehensive set of services to their commerce clients. These firms can extend well beyond the role of systems integrator. They play a critical role in defining the future state of commerce together with their clients.

Accenture, Acquity Group, Razorfish, and Rosetta have deep eCommerce expertise. These

firms all have a robust vision for multichannel commerce and between them have a strong portfolio of commerce project implementations. However, each of these firms remains somewhat niche in either their global reach, breadth of platform technology expertise, or the depth of commerce services offered. Forrester expects continued growth from these firms and an increased focus on their commerce services offerings in the near future.

HCL, Infosys, and arvato Systems represent capable integration-focused service providers.

HCL, Infosys, and arvato Systems all represent classic systems integrators and outsourced IT services providers that are building out further services capabilities to address their clients strategy, customer experience, and managed services needs. Each firm also has typically focused its services on specific technology solutions, and our evaluation revealed that each firm is diversifying and broadening the solutions it provides services around.

Wipro Technologies and Valtech lag behind as global commerce service providers. While

each of these firms provide needed and valuable services to their clients, they are narrowly focused on specific markets, services, or technologies. As the demand for additional services evolves, and Valtech and Wipro start to serve broader geographic and technology markets, their services portfolio will have to adapt to remain relevant to commerce business and technology leaders in need of more complete commerce services expertise.

This evaluation of the global commerce service provider market is intended to be a starting point only. We encourage readers to view the detailed evaluations and adapt the criteria weightings to fit their individual needs through the Forrester Wave Excel-based vendor comparison tool. The service provider strengths and weaknesses vary greatly by services, industry, global presence, and technology solution expertise therefore customization of weightings is encouraged.

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Figure 3 Forrester Wave: Global Commerce Service Providers, Q1 12

Risky Bets Strong Contenders Strong Performers Leaders

Go online to download

SapientNitro Infosys HCL Razorsh Deloitte IBM Accenture Acquity Group Rosetta

the Forrester Wave tool for more detailed product evaluations, feature comparisons, and customizable rankings.

Wipro Technologies Current oering

arvato Systems Valtech

Market presence Weak Weak Full vendor participation Strategy Strong

Source: Forrester Research, Inc.

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11

Figure 3 Forrester Wave: Global Commerce Service Providers, Q1 12 (Cont.)

Wipro Technologies 3.55 3.55 3.00 3.20 2.30 2.00 3.00 3.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 3.00 3.76 3.00 4.20 5.00 3.00

arvato Systems

Acquity Group

SapientNitro 4.15 3.60 3.60 4.00 3.95 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 3.00 4.78 5.00 4.40 5.00 4.60

Forresters Weighting

Accenture

Razorsh

Deloitte

Rosetta

CURRENT OFFERING Channel strategy and commerce process consulting Customer experience and design services Implementation services Managed services Hosting support Solution expertise STRATEGY Corporate strategy Commerce services focus Industry strategy eCommerce focus Multichannel commerce focus Multichannel transformation Mobile commerce focus Pricing structure MARKET PRESENCE Clients Financials Global presence Vertical presence

50% 15% 20% 15% 10% 10% 30% 50% 5% 20% 5% 15% 20% 20% 10% 5% 0% 40% 30% 20% 10%

3.27 3.12 2.82 3.67 3.17 3.31 3.25 3.27 3.07 4.02 2.03 2.87 3.50 3.05 2.30 3.90 2.65 3.40 2.50 3.10 3.00 4.00 2.00 2.65 2.70 3.40 2.00 3.30 2.30 3.00 2.00 4.00 3.40 4.40 2.40 1.60 3.90 3.10 3.00 3.35 3.55 4.00 3.00 5.00 3.00 4.00 4.00 3.00 3.00 4.22 5.00 3.40 4.00 4.00 3.10 3.40 3.20 2.85 3.25 2.00 4.00 2.00 4.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 2.48 3.00 2.80 1.20 2.00 2.80 3.60 3.80 3.05 2.60 2.00 3.00 2.00 3.00 3.00 2.00 2.00 3.00 2.59 2.00 3.20 2.80 2.70 3.95 3.35 3.00 4.00 3.90 4.00 4.00 5.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 3.00 3.00 4.92 5.00 4.80 5.00 4.80 3.75 3.45 3.20 3.60 2.80 2.00 3.00 4.00 3.00 3.00 2.00 3.00 3.00 4.62 4.70 4.80 5.00 3.00 3.40 3.20 3.80 3.30 3.85 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 3.00 3.00 4.42 5.00 4.00 4.60 3.00 3.95 3.85 3.60 3.80 2.85 3.00 3.00 4.00 3.00 3.00 2.00 3.00 3.00 3.86 3.30 4.20 5.00 2.80 3.15 3.00 3.00 3.10 3.15 4.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 4.00 3.00 2.48 2.00 2.20 3.60 3.00 2.95 3.55 3.00 2.80 3.15 4.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 4.00 3.00 2.64 3.00 2.80 1.60 2.80 2.00 2.25 1.20 2.00 2.25 1.00 2.00 2.00 3.00 2.00 2.00 3.00 3.00 1.81 1.70 1.40 2.60 1.90

All scores are based on a scale of 0 (weak) to 5 (strong).

Source: Forrester Research, Inc.

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Valtech

Infosys

HCL

IBM

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VENDOR PROFiLES Leaders

SapientNitro. SapientNitro is an integrated marketing and technology services firm with a

significant focus on providing commerce-related technology and customer experience design services to its clients. The firm has significant market presence, with close to 200 commerce clients and strong customer growth in the past 24 months. SapientNitro differentiates through a comprehensive set of services including strategy, customer experience design, technology strategy, technical implementation, and ongoing managed support services. SapientNitros customers described the firm as having a strong and visionary understanding of the future of multichannel commerce space, with the ability to help them execute.

Deloitte. Deloitte is well suited for firms that are changing their multichannel business process
in conjunction with a commerce technology replatforming project. The firm is often involved from the very early phases, helping clients with a breadth of strategic services required to transform to a state of agile commerce. In addition to the strategy and planning services for which the firm is best known, Deloitte has built up a commerce practice with technology expertise around leading eCommerce, call center, and in-store technologies. Deloitte has also invested in a customer experience design capability. Deloitte differentiates through a global presence, strong program management, as well as expertise around organizational transformation, security, privacy, and tax and trade compliance issues. Deloittes customers described the firm as a strong partner able to handle complex programs and work with senior leaders effectively in navigating program opportunities and challenges.

IBM GBS. IBM Global Business Services (GBS) represents a strong services offering, albeit one

that is largely focused on IBMs core commerce technologies, notably WebSphere Commerce, Sterling Commerce, Coremetrics, and Unica. IBM offers the full range of services offerings of a GCSP, including strategy, technology strategy, implementation, and managed services, while delivering customer experience design through the firms interactive design agency. Although many other vendors included in this evaluation have extensive experience around IBMs product suite, IBM GBS will represent a compelling option for IBM-centric commerce programs.

Strong Performers

Accenture. Like Deloitte, Accenture brings strong program and project management

capabilities, which can benefit clients undertaking large commerce transformation projects. The firm has been investing in commerce strategy, technology strategy, customer experience, and managed services offerings, although these areas may not yet be strengths. Accenture is often engaged to manage the implementation program across a range of third parties, bringing its program management competencies to bear. Accenture has built out specific industry experience around a range of verticals, one of which is retail. Accentures clients described the firm as a strong partner capable of supporting complex, large-scale projects across a range of services providers involved.

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Acquity Group. Acquity Group is a fast-growing North American-based digital agency and

systems integrator. The company is focused primarily on eCommerce and mobile commerce across B2C and B2B verticals and has established itself as a provider of comprehensive commerce design and implementation services. The firm has strong capabilities helping clients establish strategies, define requirements, and select eCommerce technologies with a focus on commerce platforms from ATG, hybris, and RedPraries Blue Martini. Recently the firm has established a hosted/managed solution for the hybris platform. Acquity lacks a significant presence outside of North America, although it has begun to focus on enabling North Americabased clients to launch eCommerce in the Chinese market.

Razorfish. Razorfish has a history of designing and implementing commerce experiences for

its clients, although in recent years a string of ownership changes did little to help the firm further mature this part of the business. Now part of the Publicis Groupe (along with Rosetta), Razorfish is again focused on supporting commerce clients as they develop their customer experience services across a range of web, mobile, in-store, and emerging touchpoints. Known primarily for implementing and supporting clients on the ATG/Oracle commerce platform, Razorfish is now broadening its capabilities across additional commerce platforms and technologies, including providing managed services for its clients.

Rosetta. Rosetta has a history of delivering commerce design and implementation services

focused on IBMs WebSphere Commerce. Now also a part of the Publicis Groupe, Rosetta is focused on supporting commerce clients across a range of commerce platforms and services. Rosetta has limited global capability today but will present a strong option for IBM WebSphere Commerce projects in North America.

Infosys. Infosys has a strong project management and technical foundation in eCommerce

technologies; however, beyond these capabilities Infosys has significant gaps as a CSP. Areas such as commerce strategy and customer experience need maturation in order for Infosys to deliver a comprehensive services offering, areas Infosys is committed to improving. The firm has a mature practice around IBM (Sterling) and Oracle order management technologies, which will benefit clients that are undertaking supply chain optimization projects. Infosys has focused its commerce services around ATG/Oracle, IBM WebSphere, and Microsoft Commerce Server in the past, but is adding a hybris practice.

HCL. While known in the past primarily as a systems integrator and offshore IT consulting firm,
HCL has emerged as the strongest of the offshore-centric commerce service providers. HCL has strong practices around implementation of ATG, IBM, and custom-developed platforms, but limited experience delivering strategy and customer experience design today. However, HCL has strong plans for growth and a vision for providing a wide range of services to its clients, including those they may lack in-depth today. However, to change current perceptions, HCL must evolve and mature these capabilities and recruit experienced onshore talent.

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Arvato Systems. Arvato Systems is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bertelsmann that operates

in 36 countries around the globe, providing both implementation and outsourced commerce services. Today those implementation services are largely focused on hybris, with some IBM experience specifically in China. Arvato Systems differentiates in its capability to provide fulfillment and customer service operations services together with implementation and managed services across many markets. However, arvato Systems lacks capabilities in strategy and customer experience design, which many of its competitors have focused on. The firm has strong global capabilities with a substantial presence in Asia, including offices across the region and a commerce solution center based in Shanghai.

Contenders

Wipro Technologies. Wipro aspires to become a provider of strategy and hosting services to its
clients in addition to the technology and development services it currently provides; however, these services lack the track record and maturity of many of its GCSP competitors today. While Wipro has created a hosted managed offering called Encore, built around an ecosystem of commerce technologies including IBMs WebSphere Commerce, the solution has failed to gain traction. Wipro has implementation experience focused on IBM WebSphere Commerce and ATG/Oracle, and is adding a hybris practice. Wipro also has experience working with IBM (Sterling) and Oracle order management solutions.

Valtech. Valtech is a France-based, midsize digital marketing agency with the capability to

implement eCommerce technology projects for clients. Despite its relatively small size, the firm has a presence in often-overlooked markets like Scandinavia, South Korea, and Hong Kong. Valtechs experience is focused on design and implementation of eCommerce projects, and today lacks the full range of services seen in leading GCSPs. Valtech has experience with ATG/Oracle, IBM WebSphere Commerce, Microsoft Commerce Server, and open source solutions.

SuPPLEMENTAL MATERiAL Online Resource The online version of Figure 3 is an Excel-based vendor comparison tool that provides detailed product evaluations and customizable rankings. Data Sources used in This Forrester Wave Forrester used a combination of four data sources to assess the strengths and weaknesses of each service provider:

Provider surveys. Forrester surveyed vendors on their capabilities as they relate to the

evaluation criteria. Once we analyzed the completed vendor surveys, we conducted vendor calls where necessary to gather details of vendor qualifications.

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Strategy briefings. Forrester invited the vendors to brief us on their strategy for multichannel
commerce in a two-hour presentation.

Client reference surveys. To validate customer satisfaction with the vendors, Forrester
conducted online satisfaction surveys with five of each providers current customers.

Client reference calls. To validate service provider qualifications, Forrester also conducted
reference calls with two of each providers current customers. The Forrester Wave Methodology We conduct primary research to develop a list of vendors that meet our criteria to be evaluated in this market. From that initial pool of vendors, we then narrow our final list. We choose these vendors based on: 1) product fit; 2) customer success; and 3) Forrester client demand. We eliminate vendors that have limited customer references and products that dont fit the scope of our evaluation. After examining past research, user need assessments, and vendor and expert interviews, we develop the initial evaluation criteria. To evaluate the vendors and their products against our set of criteria, we gather details of product qualifications through a combination of lab evaluations, questionnaires, demos, and/or discussions with client references. We send evaluations to the vendors for their review, and we adjust the evaluations to provide the most accurate view of vendor offerings and strategies. We set default weightings to reflect our analysis of the needs of large user companies and/or other scenarios as outlined in the Forrester Wave document and then score the vendors based on a clearly defined scale. These default weightings are intended only as a starting point, and we encourage readers to adapt the weightings to fit their individual needs through the Excel-based tool. The final scores generate the graphical depiction of the market based on current offering, strategy, and market presence. Forrester intends to update vendor evaluations regularly as product capabilities and vendor strategies evolve. Forrsights Survey Methodology Forresters Forrsights Services Survey, Q3 2011, was fielded to 1,031 IT executives and technology decision-makers located in Canada, France, Germany, the UK, and the United States from enterprise companies with 1,000 or more employees. This survey is part of Forresters Forrsights for Business Technology and was fielded during July and August 2011. The LinkedIn Research Network fielded this survey online on behalf of Forrester. Survey respondent incentives include a choice of gift certificates or charitable donations. We have provided exact sample sizes in this report on a question-by-question basis. Forresters Forrsights for Business Technology fields 10 business-to-business technology studies in 12 countries each calendar year. For quality control, we carefully screen respondents according to job title and function. Forresters Forrsights for Business Technology ensures that the final survey population contains only those with significant

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involvement in the planning, funding, and purchasing of IT products and services. Additionally, we set quotas for company size (number of employees) and industry as a means of controlling the data distribution and establishing alignment with IT spend calculated by Forrester analysts. Companies interviewed For This Document Accenture Acquity Group Arvato Systems Deloitte HCL IBM Global Business Services ENDNOTES
1

Infosys Razorfish Rosetta SapientNitro Valtech Wipro Technologies

Several factors continue to propel double-digit growth for the web channel: ubiquitous web connectivity among consumers, increasing consumer familiarity with and preference for online shopping (and the subsequent cannibalization of store shopping), best-in-class shopping experiences even in the long tail, and new online shopping models such as flash sales, which have generated excitement and grown rapidly. See the February 28, 2011, US Online Retail Forecast, 2010 To 2015 report and see the March 5, 2010, Western European Online Retail Forecast, 2009 To 2014 report. Latin Americas online retail markets are dynamic and varied. With the largest economy and approximately 40% of Latin Americas Internet users, Brazil will remain the powerhouse in Latin American online retail. Brazils already-large market is set to grow by a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18% over the next five years, with todays growth coming largely from consumer technology purchases. By contrast, the online retail marketplace in Mexico will grow by a CAGR of 19% during the same time period, but from a small base. See the April 6, 2011, Latin American Online Retail Forecast, 2011 To 2016 report. Nowhere in the world is online shopping exploding as quickly as in Asia Pacific. This region now includes more than 40% of the global online population, and with the growing percentage of online shoppers and increasing per-capita online spending, the aggregate online retail markets of Asia Pacific are growing faster than their counterparts in North America or Europe. see the October 27, 2010, Asia Pacific Online Retail Forecast, 2010 To 2015 report.

Related technologies often implemented together with a commerce platform include on-site search or customer experience management (CXM), product content management (PCM), web content management (WCM), order management (OMS), recommendations engine, reviews, site optimization tools, and analytics.

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Multichannel commerce is being reborn. Traditional ways of describing multichannel commerce no longer work because customers do not interact with companies from a channel perspective. Customers now use a rapidly evolving set of devices as a means of engaging across touchpoints, which they dont distinguish from the brand or business. Customers are empowered with more information than ever before. As businesses still struggle to deliver cross-channel experiences, the stream of innovation and market transformation continues to flow unchecked. In response, eBusiness professionals must transform how they market, transact, serve, and organize around changing customer experiences. These changes are not an incremental evolution, they are a metamorphosis. Welcome to the era of agile commerce. eBusiness leaders will optimize their people, processes, and technology to serve todays empowered, ever-connected customers across a rapidly evolving set of customer touchpoints. See the March 11, 2011, Welcome To The Era Of Agile Commerce report. Third-party hosting facilities might include Amazon AWS, AT&T, Microsoft Azure, Rackspace, or Savvis for example. The evolution from multichannel to agile commerce strategies has eBusiness teams scrambling. Finding the right organizational structure to accommodate the complexities of the multichannel/multitouchpoint world is a tall order. The last time we fielded a study on organizational structures, our respondents utilized and preferred a shared services model in which a core eBusiness team acts as an internal center of excellence for all eBusiness efforts. Now we find that eBusiness teams are moving back toward centralization. What does this fluctuation mean? We believe that eBusiness teams are in experimentation mode, searching for the right structure for today and at the same time testing models for accelerated growth and touchpoint optimization. See the November 7, 2011, eBusiness Teams Reorganize . . . Again report. Full-service eCommerce solution providers represent an intriguing opportunity for companies faced with a lack of resources, competencies, and capabilities to do eCommerce well. Forrester advises that companies evaluate their specific needs and, in addition to considering point solutions, look to full-service providers to round out their needs. Only when the fit is evident across the board should eCommerce executives look to take advantage of the complete offering. See the October 31, 2008, Market Overview: Full-Service eCommerce Solutions report. In Forresters 111-criteria evaluation of the top 12 global enterprise-class eCommerce platform vendors, we found that IBM, hybris, Art Technology Group (ATG), Demandware, and iCongo led the pack with their comprehensive eCommerce features, overall effective business tools, and flexibility to meet todays eCommerce and multichannel business needs. Fry, Intershop, and Elastic Path Software represent strong solutions with varying models, vertical specialties, and key differentiators. Escalate Retail, Venda, MarketLive, and Microsoft represent unique solutions at different stages of maturity and evolution, with solutions largely focused on midtier eCommerce retailers. Each of these solutions represents a fit for some segment of the global business-to-consumer (B2C) enterprise eCommerce platform market. With this detailed evaluation and report, we evaluate these solutions to help eBusiness executives and technology leaders determine the best fit for their organizations as they grow, mature, and scale their online businesses. See the October 21, 2010, The Forrester Wave: B2C eCommerce Platforms, Q4 2010 report.

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