ISG to Publish Study on Application Development Outsourcing Market

ISG Provider Lens™ report will look at ways service providers are responding to demand for faster development cycles and improved customer experience

Information Services Group (ISG) (Nasdaq: III), a leading global technology research and advisory firm, has launched a research study examining the application development outsourcing market.

The study results will be published in a comprehensive ISG Provider Lens™ report, called Next-Gen Application Development and Maintenance (ADM) Services, scheduled to be released in September. The report will cover a range of application development services, including cloud-native applications and security-related services packaged with app development.

Enterprise buyers will be able to use information from the report to evaluate their current vendor relationships, potential new engagements and available offerings, while ISG advisors use the information to recommend providers to the firm’s buy-side clients.

The new report will look at ways service providers are meeting enterprise demand for enhanced customer experience and faster development cycles, said Jan Erik Aase, partner and global leader, ISG Provider Lens Research. “Application outsourcing continues to evolve, and service providers are responding to demands for an increased frequency of updates and more feature-led, intuitive and interactive digital applications,” he said. “As a result, service providers are increasingly adopting agile development practices for their service delivery.”

ISG has distributed surveys to more than 175 ADM providers. Working in collaboration with ISG’s global advisors, the research team will produce five quadrants representing the services and products the typical enterprise client is buying in the ADM space, based on ISG’s experience working with its clients. The five quadrants that will be covered are:

• Application Development and Scaled Agile, assessing providers that offer application expertise in the use of various technologies, and in a range of industry verticals. The assessment determines the way providers use project management tools to support and coordinate resource allocation, portfolio management, backlog prioritization, agile methods, waterfall methods, cloud-native application development and other management services to optimize the performance of the development teams working simultaneously in a client’s environment.

• Application Development Specialists, evaluating providers that offer agile application development based on expertise. These providers add specific knowledge around areas such as programming language, vendor certification, data analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning, customer experience and system architecture. These providers may also specialize by industry verticals; function-specific knowledge, such as fraud detection or virtual reality, and methodologies like product-oriented development and object-oriented programming.

• Managed Application Services, looking at providers that take responsibility for managing customer applications. Services include application support, platform upgrades, application security, bug fixing, troubleshooting, application improvement and merging of improvement and development backlogs under Kanban or similar methodologies. Some service providers include application monitoring, release management, version control, defect identification and resolution, and database query performance in their service offerings.

• Application Quality Assurance, assessing providers that enhance the application lifecycle management process for clients with a comprehensive quality assurance program, involving the assessment, design, implementation and operation of applications. Quality assurance encapsulates multiple tasks, including setting requirements, estimations, project planning, documentation, fixed sprint execution timelines, setting the functional criteria for a product to be deemed complete, and testing to identify bugs or defects in a product.

• Continuous Testing Specialists, covering providers of automated testing services. These companies develop testing strategy and scope, and methods and scripts before automation and test execution. They have the skills to deploy automation and execute testing cycles, producing the necessary evidence to support compliance auditing. Continuous application testing focuses on delivering quality in tandem with the speed of agile development.

The report will cover the global ADM market and examine products and services available in the U.S., Germany, the U.K., Brazil and the Nordic countries. ISG analysts Ashish Chaturvedi, Oliver Nickels and Pedro L. Bicudo Maschio will serve as authors of the report.

An archetype report will also be published as part of this study. This report, unique to ISG, is the study of typical buyer types of ADM services as observed by ISG advisors.

A list of identified providers and vendors and further details on the study are available in this digital brochure. Companies not listed as ADM providers can contact ISG and ask to be included in the study.

About ISG Provider Lens™ Research

The ISG Provider Lens™ Quadrant research series is the only service provider evaluation of its kind to combine empirical, data-driven research and market analysis with the real-world experience and observations of ISG's global advisory team. Enterprises will find a wealth of detailed data and market analysis to help guide their selection of appropriate sourcing partners, while ISG advisors use the reports to validate their own market knowledge and make recommendations to ISG's enterprise clients. The research currently covers providers offering their services globally, across Europe, as well as in the U.S., Germany, Switzerland, the U.K., France, the Nordics, Brazil and Australia/New Zealand, with additional markets to be added in the future. For more information about ISG Provider Lens research, please visit this webpage.

A companion research series, the ISG Provider Lens Archetype reports, offer a first-of-its-kind evaluation of providers from the perspective of specific buyer types.

About ISG

ISG (Information Services Group) (Nasdaq: III) is a leading global technology research and advisory firm. A trusted business partner to more than 700 clients, including more than 75 of the world’s top 100 enterprises, ISG is committed to helping corporations, public sector organizations, and service and technology providers achieve operational excellence and faster growth. The firm specializes in digital transformation services, including automation, cloud and data analytics; sourcing advisory; managed governance and risk services; network carrier services; strategy and operations design; change management; market intelligence and technology research and analysis. Founded in 2006, and based in Stamford, Conn., ISG employs more than 1,300 digital-ready professionals operating in more than 20 countries—a global team known for its innovative thinking, market influence, deep industry and technology expertise, and world-class research and analytical capabilities based on the industry’s most comprehensive marketplace data. For more information, visit www.isg-one.com.

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