Co-opetition to Drive Digital Capability: EVRY Signs up for the IBM Cloud

Smart service providers are quickly realizing they can’t be all things to all people. They are focusing on a selected number of industries, geographies and solutions where they can specialize and be distinctive.

The success and impact of cloud is driving the rapid development of digital transformation, but this also means we don’t need multitudes of cloud providers to provide the trusted security, speed and computing power to provide digital solutions effectively. This is also changing the way service providers have to operate, blurring the lines between competition and partnering. Plus, it is increasing the volume and intimacy of partnerships. For many ambitious IT and business service providers driving digital transformation offerings, this means accepting the need to make partners from a broader group of industry stakeholders – and sometimes with erstwhile competitors.

With this in mind, IBM and Nordic IT services stalwart, EVRY, have signed an agreement whereby EVRY uses IBM cloud infrastructure as a platform to deliver solutions and services to its Nordic clients. The agreement is over 10 years and worth c$1 billion with services delivered from the SoftLayer datacentre based in Fet/Oslo. Given EVRY’s annual revenues are c$1.5 billion, the scale of this deal makes it more than just window dressing.

This deal allows EVRY to focus its investment and energies on its core strengths. EVRY reorganized its Norwegian services at the start of 2014 splitting it in two. With one providing enterprise level services focused on larger businesses and the public sector, concentrating on building industry specific and localized solutions. The other one focuses on the fast growing SME sector in Norway, leveraging the EVRY’s local presence across the country. EVRY will use this partnership to provide a high quality cloud based infrastructure service to its clients and speed up the creation and delivery of its local and industry solutions. We have seen similar Cloud/solutions partnerships already developing in the industry in recent years, such as HCL/CSC, Capgemini/Microsoft, and HP/Accenture.

It is increasingly difficult to be able to deliver all of the components of a world class end to end service on your own. HfS expects more deals of this nature to appear over the next two years as service providers start to accept that recent changes to the market means providing services more as part of an ecosystem of providers. The best use of resources, both labour and capital, is spent on delivering the service components that drive business value and business outcomes for their clients, and getting best in class services from other providers that fill the gaps.

Watch this space for the upcoming blueprint primer on Business Cloud later this quarter and recent look at changes happening within IBM GTS business here.