SAP Implementation Services, Worldwide

SAP has a large ecosystem of implementation service providers, where the focus and strengths of providers vary. 

The SAP ecosystem has over 3200 service partners and over 4,200+ channel partners/ distributors. This magic quadrant from Gartner assesses 17 of the leading service providers. Each of these providers have its own strengths and weaknesses and each of them are suitable for some type of engagements and specific clients/ industries. 

In this report, Gartner has evaluated the service providers for SAP programs that involve:

• ability to provide a set of consulting, system integration and implementation services across multiple SAP applications, products and technologies. 
• Ability to service multiple industries in multiple geographies

Given the context of this report, consulting, system integration and implementation services have their own definitions: 

• Consulting services: these are advisory services that enable organizations analyze and improve the effectiveness of their business operations and technology strategies. These go beyond technological blueprinting to include operating model changes, process improvement, etc when they are part of the SAP program
• System integration & implementation services: these include configuration, customization and enhancement of existing SAP fuctionalities; application, report and interface development; and data loading, rollout, integration, testing and training services.

The magic quadrant for SAP implementation services is as below: 

Source: Gartner (July 2015)

1. Accenture:

Accenture has the largest SAP service practice globally. It has over 42,000+ professionals of which 27,000+ are dedicated resources towards SAP implementation services. Its global spread of SAP implementation resources is as below: 

• North America: 18%
• Latin America: 5%
• EMEA: 31%
• APJ: 46%

Accenture's largest verticals in the SAP practice in 2014 were consumer products, chemicals, energy and utilities, and oil and gas. 

Strengths: 

• Ability to drive complex transformation projects: due to its business approach, its industry expertise, broad SAP technology capabilities, its governance and methodology, its global presence and its global delivery network allows it to drive complex transformation projects and compete aggressively on price and scale. 
• Co-Innovation: Accenture and SAP business solutions group is the co-innovation program with SAP to drive next generation solutions, often hosted in the cloud or offered as a service for clients to rapidly adopt these solutions to gain value. Accenture also offers integrated, full stack, as a service solutions. 
• Customer Feedback: Its clients have appreciated Accenture's project leadership, its commitment to get the project completed successfully and its strong methodology to drive delivery excellence in highly complex projects. 

2. Capgemini: 

Capgemini has 15,900+ SAP skilled professionals of whom more than 10,600+ are dedicated to SAP implementation services. Its global spread of SAP implementation resources is as below: 

• North America: 16%
• Latin America: 8%
• EMEA: 28%
• APJ: 48%

Its largest verticals in SAP practice in 2014 were retail, consumer products, oil and gas, and utilities and energy

Strengths:

• Intellectual property (IP) solutions: It currently has 14 industry and process preconfigured solutions. For its smaller clients, these solutions are packaged as a bundle of hardware, software and services and offered as a service. For its larger clients, these solutions are used accelerators. 
• Focus on Digital Technologies: Capgemini supports its digital customer experience practice with hybris and cloud for customer experience, its human capital management with SAP HCM and Success Factors , and its analytics group with SAP HANA. It has also made significant investments in SAP's newer technologies. It has 900+ Hana consultants that are doing over 50 Hana projects and proof of concepts and has 6 application offerings on Hana.
• Customer Feedback: Its clients are impressed with its ability to provide rapid implementation solutions and they typically find Capgemini easy to work with.

3. HCL Technologies: 

HCL has close to 9,000+ SAP skilled resources worldwide of which 5,000+ are dedicated to SAP implementation services. Its global spread of SAP implementation resources is as below: 

• North America: 35%
• Latin America: 3%
• EMEA: 28%
• APJ: 34%

HCL's largest verticals in SAP practice in 2014 were consumer products, utilities and energy, aerospace and defense and public sector. 

Strengths: 

• Continuous investments: It has a good track record of implementing large scale SAP programs, especially around global deployment. It also has built good capabilities and a vast library of tools and accelerators in newer solutions involving Hana, Hybris, Successfactors, InfiniteInsight and cloud migration. 
• Thought leadership in Delivery: It brings delivery thought leadership through programs such as minimum viable product, back to standard offerings,usage pricing, guaranteed outcomes and benefits realization. 
• Excellent Skills: HCL has high quality consultants with strong experience in SAP

4. Infosys: 

Infosys has more than 13,000+ SAP skilled resources of which over 6,000+ resources are dedicated to implementation services. Its  global spread of SAP implementation resources is as below: 

• North America: 17%
• Latin America:1%
• EMEA: 25%
• APJ: 58%

Infosys' largest verticals in SAP practice in 2014 were consumer products, life sciences, automotive and agriculture. 

Strengths:

• Value realization focus: It has frameworks and methodologies to focus the SAP implementation team on value realization, aligning clients SAP program with desired outcomes. Infosys willingness to agree on outcome based programs on value realization shows confidence in its execution ability. 
• Excellent capabilities at a competitive price: It has strong capabilities at a competitive price through its global delivery model, accelerators, industry tools and processes.
• Full stack of capabilities: Lodestone+ Infosys consulting allows it to bring the right mix of business consulting skills with SAP capabilities to its clients for transformational programs.

You could read the complete report at SAP Implementation Services, Worldwide