Fierce competition ahead in European IT

The IT services market in Western Europe is becoming increasingly complex as the traditional big players face competition from smaller firms, clients and offshore locations, according to new research from IDC.

There is no change in the top three players with IBM Global Services dominant on revenue and market share, ahead of EDS and Accenture.

BT charts surprisingly highly on the list at number six, on the back of its services push and recent big contract wins such as the NHS.

Much of the market, however, is dominated by the smaller players. The top 10 companies represent 29 per cent of the market in Western Europe with hundreds of other vendors making up the other 71 per cent.

In the Lessons Learned from the Top 10 Western European Service Players in 2003 report IDC said it expects this polarisation to continue with the big players increasing their dominance through organic growth and strategic acquisitions of niche and smaller firms.

Khalid Irshad, senior analyst in IDC's European Services group, said in a statement: "Big players face competition not only from each other, but also from clients and from emerging competitors from offshore locations and the hardware and software markets. The situation is not helped by some vendors being determined to win at any cost."

The top 10 rankings for 2003 are:

1. IBM Global Services
2. EDS
3. Accenture
4. HP Services
5. Capgemini
6. BT Global Services
7. Siemens Business Services
8. CSC
9. Atos Origin
10. T-Systems