2021 Nordic IT Sourcing Study Results Published

The 2021 Nordic IT Sourcing Study, conducted by Whitelane Research in collaboration with PA Consulting, investigates more than 700 unique IT sourcing relationships and more than 700 cloud sourcing relationships held by over 350 participants of the top IT spending organisations in the Nordics.

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Participants
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IT/Cloud Service Providers
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Cloud sourcing relationships
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IT sourcing relationships

Key findings from the 2021 Nordic study:

Over the next two years 71% of respondents confirm they will outsource at the same rate or more, with 27% citing that they are planning to outsource more (currently the lowest level in Europe). The category ‘There will be no change’ has experienced the biggest change, up 8% from 36% to 44%, contrasting the general European trend of more outsourcing. This could indicate that more Nordic organisations are satisfied with their current level of outsourcing or are not planning to make any changes due to the uncertainty caused by COVID-19.

What are your organisation's plans for the next 2 years with regard to outsourcing?

More scalability to business needs is the most important outsourcing driver in the Nordics for organisations planning to outsource more (63%), jointly followed by access to resources/talent (up 18% to 53% since 2020) and cost reduction (53%). Service providers continue to view achieving cost savings as the top outsourcing driver and rank it significantly higher compared to clients (86% vs 53%).

Overall, respondents are satisfied with their IT service provider(s), with 89% of all 721 IT sourcing relationships being rated as satisfactory, 7% being somewhat unsatisfied, 3% unsatisfied and only 1% very unsatisfied.

On the overall ranking for general satisfaction, TCS is the number one service provider with a score of 85%, jointly followed by Infosys and Basefarm (both at 80%) and Accenture and LTI (both at 76%). Infosys and LTI both enter the top 5 after significant increases in client satisfaction of 9% and 5% respectively. The average satisfaction has increased from 69% in 2020 to 72% while none of the service providers experience a significant decrease in satisfaction of 5% or more.

Our comprehensive report contains more details and ranks the IT service providers by country, process (applications, data centre and end-user services) as well as in nine different KPI’s.

TCS 85%
Infosys 80%
Basefarm 80%
Accenture 76%
LTI 76%

Top 5 only (Nordics 2021)

Across the four Nordic countries, the highest-ranking providers are:

Denmark

Accenture, TCS and Cognizant

Finland

TCS, CGI and Accenture

Norway

TCS, Basefarm and ATEA

Sweden

TCS, LTI and HCL

  • For Denmark: Accenture, TCS and Cognizant

  • For Finland: TCS, CGI and Accenture

  • For Norway: TCS, Basefarm and ATEA

  • For Sweden: TCS, LTI and HCL

Satisfaction with cloud providers is overall higher compared to IT service providers, with 94% of all 721 cloud sourcing relationships being rated as satisfactory. Amazon Web Services (AWS) achieves first place for infrastructure cloud platforms (IaaS/PaaS) with a score of 78%. For software cloud platforms (SaaS), Microsoft 365 is ranked first with 82% while the average satisfaction is the highest of the five IT domains (75%).

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of all 721 cloud sourcing relationships rated as satisfactory

57% of clients predict that 50% or more of new applications will be running on a public cloud platform within two years compared to only 21% of clients for legacy apps. Service providers predict a larger percentage of their clients new and legacy applications will be cloud based. There are differences by country and industry with organisations in Norway predicting the highest usage of public cloud while the public sector predicts a significantly lower degree for both new and legacy apps.

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of organisations in Norway predict 50% or more of their new apps will be running on a public cloud platform in 2 years

43% of respondents are currently outsourcing (cyber)security services with 60% of respondents declaring themselves satisfied or very satisfied with their managed (cyber)security service providers. Finland stands out with a significantly higher level of outsourcing of managed (cyber)security services compared to the rest of the Nordics while the manufacturing and chemicals sector is ahead by a significant margin.

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of Finnish respondents are currently outsourcing their (cyber)security services

“In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Nordic outsourcing market is surprisingly resilient and is characterized by continued growth and increasing customer satisfaction.”
Tom Krohn, Partner, Sourcing – PA Consulting

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