^^^°° Fortel 882 004 °°^^ Chancen durch ***Outsourcing*** - 500 Beiträge pro Seite

[TheAndy]

^Zuerst die Home Page^
http://www.fortel.com/




Aus der FTD vom 20.11.2001

Keine Lust mehr auf IT
Von Oliver Wihofszki, Hamburg
Eine wachsende Zahl von Unternehmen wird in Zukunft keine firmeneigenen Computersysteme mehr betreiben. Diese Aufgabe wird stattdessen an externe Dienstleister vergeben.
Das Beratungsunternehmen Gartner glaubt, dass der Markt für das so genannte Outsourcing von Informationstechnik (IT) bis 2005 weltweit um jährlich 14 Prozent wachsen wird. "Während sich das Wachstum auf dem Gesamtmarkt für IT-Dienstleistungen abschwächt, wird sich das Segment Outsourcing diesem Trend widersetzen", schreiben die Fachleute in einer aktuellen Studie. Gartner-Analyst Roger Cox sagt: "Das Konzept, alle Programme und Computer selbst zu kaufen und zu besitzen, wird bald der Vergangenheit angehören." Auch die Berater der Metagroup rechnen mit steigenden Umsätzen: Für Deutschland prognostizieren die Fachleute ein jährliches Wachstum von elf Prozent. Demnach soll der Markt für IT-Auslagerungen hier zu Lande von 8,3 Mrd. Euro in diesem Jahr auf 11,5 Mrd. Euro im Jahr 2003 anwachsen. Demnach reift bei vielen Firmen die Erkenntnis, dass es nicht zu ihrem Kerngeschäft gehört, komplizierte Computer- und Kommunikationssysteme selbst zu kaufen und zu betreuen. Darum sollen sich Spezialfirmen kümmern, die über genügend Fachkräfte und eigene Rechenzentren mit modernen Großrechnern verfügen. Mit den dort laufenden Programmen sind die Firmenkunden dann über eine Standleitung verbunden. Von der steigenden Nachfrage nach dieser Dienstleistung profitieren Unternehmen wie Accenture, EDS , IBM Global Services oder T-Systems. Solche Spezialisten erhalten Aufträge, die oft über fünf oder gar zehn Jahre laufen und damit stetige sowie planbare Umsätze garantieren. Entscheidung hat sich gelohnt Allein IBM Global Services hat in diesem Jahr bereits 25 Outsourcing-Verträge unterzeichnet, die ein Volumen von über 100 Mio. $ haben. Vier weitere Aufträge sollen gar über eine Mrd. $ Umsatz bringen. So wurde beispielsweise zu Beginn des Jahres mit dem Pharmaunternehmen AstraZeneca ein Vertrag über 1,7 Mrd. $ und einer Laufzeit von sieben Jahren abgeschlossen. IBM Global Services steuert und überwacht seither in 45 Ländern alle PC- und Kommunikationssysteme von AstraZeneca. Für Paul Burfitt, den IT-Verantwortlichen von AstraZeneca, hat sich die Entscheidung gelohnt: "Wir können unsere eigenen Leute jetzt viel intensiver für Forschung und Entwicklung einsetzen. Das bringt uns einen Wettbewerbsvorteil." Das Beispiel zeigt, dass IT-Outsourcing vor allem strategische Vorteile für die Kunden bringt. Die Analysten von Gartner warnen sogar davor, allzu große Einsparungen zu erwarten: "Wer nur Geld sparen will, kann schmerzliche Erfahrungen machen." Schließlich sind die Kosten für die langjährigen Serviceverträge erheblich. Gartner empfiehlt Outsourcing aber, "um das eigene Kapital effektiv zu nutzen und sich auf die Kernkompetenz zu konzentrieren", heißt es in einer Studie. Langjährige Betriebsaufträge erfolgreich Dienstleister wie die IT-Tochter von ThyssenKrupp , die ThyssenKrupp Information Services, bekommen immer mehr Outsourcing-Aufträge. "Für uns ist das Segment der eigentliche Markttreiber", so ein Sprecher. 80 Prozent des gesamten Umsatzes von etwa 500 Mio. Euro ließen sich auf langjährige Betriebsaufträge zurückführen. Beim IT-Berater Accenture ist der Umsatz im Bereich IT-Outsourcing binnen eines Jahres um 20 Prozent gestiegen. Mittlerweile erwirtschaftet das weltweit tätige Unternehmen zwei Mrd. $ oder 17 Prozent des Gesamtumsatzes von 11,4 Mrd. $ mit solchen Dienstleistungen. Kunden sind beispielsweise Texas Instruments oder der Ölkonzern BP. Trotz des wachsenden Marktes sieht Andy Tanner-Smith, Analyst beim Beratungsunternehmen Frost & Sullivan, vor allem für kleinere Anbieter schwere Zeiten kommen: "Das Geschäft als Outsourcing-Dienstleister ist sehr teuer. Deshalb werden auf Dauer nur die Großen überleben." Die Kosten, ein modernes und zuverlässiges Rechenzentrum zu unterhalten, seien sehr hoch. Neben hoher Mietpreise für die große Fläche fallen zudem erhebliche Personal- und Hardwarekosten an. Eigentlich sollten nämlich alle Programme der Kunden auf einem zweiten Großrechner vorhanden sein. "Falls der erste Computer ausfällt, muss sofort der zweite einspringen", so Analyst Tanner-Smith. Wegen des hohen Kapitaleinsatzes lohnt sich das Geschäft deshalb erst, wenn das Rechenzentrum mit großen Aufträgen ausgelastet ist. Diese begehrten Verträge erhalten aber meist nur Dienstleister, die den Großkunden auch globale Hilfe anbieten können. Kleineren Anbietern rät Tanner-Smith daher, sich nach Partnern oder Käufern umzusehen.

© 2001 Financial Times Deutschland

Gruß
Andy

[Mhli]

WSR: Could you give us an overview of FORTEL and tell us about the arena in which you are involved?

FRTL: FORTEL is a software company that delivers enterprise class software for real-time end-to-end service level assurance, primarily targeting customers in the Fortune 1000 and 2000 categories, with operations in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

WSR: What is unique about FORTEL that sets you apart from others within your space? Discuss the unique market opportunities that the Company is addressing.

FRTL: The things that set us apart are SightLine’s ability to rapidly correlate very large volumes of heterogeneous information from different hardware and software platforms, networks and applications. This allows our customers to have real-time views of actual delivered services, as well as the resources utilized. Lastly it allows us to provide true root cause problem determination in large complex environments rapidly.

WSR: Could you elaborate on the offerings, the technology, and the barriers to entry?

FRTL: Our product family comes under the name of SightLine. SightLine is comprised of a component-based architecture that allows our customers to pick and choose the pieces that they need. At the heart of our product is our correlation engine, Expert Advisor, which has been developed and refined over a period of more than 13 years. These refinements provide FORTEL an extremely high-speed correlation of data, allowing our customers to correlate literally hundreds of millions of data items within seconds. Expert Advisor receives data from a broad spectrum of agent technologies, which not only services traditional single machines but also services multi-processor machines. Additionally SightLine is able to import data from other sources and products. For a customer that has a critical system that they are using to try to deliver end-to-end services, we are able to monitor and manage the entire system, which is truly unique.

Another advantage is that SightLine can be deployed very quickly reducing the cost to implement while allowing our customers to get benefit from their investment rapidly.

SightLine also has significant capability to provide not only real time but “historical” views of information allowing our customers to perform comparative analysis as well as forecasting and trending.

WSR: Tell us about some of your alliances, customers, and partnerships.

FRTL: One of the major alliances we have is with Unisys. We have been working with Unisys for a number of years, providing them with technology that they use both internally and deliver to their customers on their large transaction systems. Another is with IBM on their NUMA-Q systems. We also have products that we provide for Compaq on both their VMS and Tru64 systems and to Stratus for their VOS systems.

We also work closely with a number of large financial institutions. They use our technology in a variety of ways, from backroom trading applications, which are critical to them managing their own business, to the front office applications that are delivering customers their services.

WSR: Discuss your global presence and philosophy and how you are positioning the company.

FRTL: We are focusing primarily in North America and Europe in direct sales. We have a direct sales presence in both of those and are working with distributors in the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific. We are working with a number of traditional customers; those who have had online transaction based systems for an extensive period of time. They have the challenge of putting together the front ends, the new Web-based systems, along with all the back end things they’ve been trying to do. We also have a number of customers that started more with web-based offerings that are now trying to build and connect significant back office systems

WSR: How large is the market that you’re targeting and what is the potential growth?

FRTL: Obviously, we don’t do market projections ourselves but the latest projections we’ve seen from organizations like International Data or the Gartner Group have estimated that the overall market size for this particular marketplace is as much as $2 billion within the year 2002, so it’s a very sizable market. FORTEL is an upcoming player relative to the size of that market, though we have been growing nicely over the past few years. We are focusing on key, large accounts that we work with to help ensure that they are able to achieve their objectives.

WSR: Could you comment on trends and developments that you see happening in the marketplace? What structures are you putting in place to maintain your edge?

FRTL: I think we’re seeing two or three things. One is that the customers are looking for products that can be installed, implemented and deployed very easily. Driving down their Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is very important. One of the major focuses that we’ve had on our technology for some period of time is the ability to install, deploy and get valuable information back quickly. Our customers find that they can actually deploy our software across 100 to 200 systems within a week’s time and begin to get back valuable information to allow them to improve the management of their environment. We also believe that making the ongoing management of our product as easy as possible is very important. Another key trend I believe is becoming important is security of the products that customers use to manage their environments.

WSR: For our audience who will be monitoring FORTEL in the next two to three years, potential investors also, what milestones should they be looking for?

FRTL: I think the key for FORTEL has been to move to an arena where we are profitable on a quarterly basis and the ability to maintain growth. We expect that for the next year, top line growth will be limited based on economic conditions. We are going to be fairly cautious in our investment to expand the company. As the marketplace begins to grow again from fundamental economics, we believe there is substantial opportunity to really leverage that with what we’re doing. Pursuant to that, we will continue to seek opportunities to expand our sales force, both in North America and in Europe.

WSR: Do you think Wall Street and the investment community really understands FORTEL and that you’re fairly valued?

FRTL: Obviously, I think that you never have sufficient value. I think it is difficult to understand some of the value proposition because a lot of it is in the technology itself. As we begin to demonstrate financial strength, I think we’ll start to get some attention. But we are clearly under Wall Street’s radar screen right now in terms of attracting their attention and their focus. The Street is clearly focused on much larger players in the marketplace, but we feel that demonstrated performance over the next three or four quarters we will successfully capture our fair share of their attention.

WSR: Tell us what you bring to the table and what is really the secret of your success?

FRTL: I have been in the computer industry now for over thirty years. I started literally in support and product development with IBM. Since then I have worn had the opportunity to participate in all of the functional at one point in time or another, whether it was marketing or sales or engineering or support. I have also been a customer of IT products for several years. So I have been both a buyer and a seller. Over that period of time I have found that the key things that make companies successful are really focusing on what they do well, executing to a plan and in some cases having the courage to go and do things that are important. And I think that brings a lot of experience when we’re making judgments.

Another important point I believe is that as a company we’ve been able to bring several other key executives who, like myself, have 25 or more years of experience and have been very successful in putting together software businesses. Terry Ewing has had a very successful career in sales and marketing building and running world-class field operations groups. Bob Fortelka, is one of the best people running a product operations group that I’ve had the good fortune to work with. Given the quality, caliber and maturity of the team relative to the size of the organization right now we are well poised for us to grow over time. That’s will be important to us making decisions in the near term about our business as well as growing it over time.

WSR: Could you address one or two misnomers, misconceptions that people might have about FORTEL and also about the space?

FRTL: I think one of the key misnomers in the market place is that there are numerous companies with messages that sound alike. When we look at other companies in the space we break that into four or five levels. There are the companies that do network management, companies that do server management and companies that do Web management. Many of these companies have similar top-level messages that sound like Fortel. However, the difference is that one does a great job on the networks, the devices and the lines, but they don’t do anything with servers. Another does a great job on servers but nothing with the networks. We actually cover all of those various components and bring that information together so that it’s truly end-to-end bridging all of these systems and components.

I also think that some people that look at the company are concerned about how we are doing financially. The answer to that very simply is that we are focused on what we need to do to make the company healthy and to be able to stand on its own two feet and to prosper in the coming quarters.

WSR: What message would you leave with our audience today about FORTEL? What would you say to your existing and potential shareholders and as the CEO, how do you intend to enhance the shareholders’ value?

FRTL: I think the key there is to be focused on the continuing improvement in the operations of the company. Our technology is solid and continues to improve. We have a number of exciting new capabilities in the works. We believe our financial picture continues to improve and are looking forward to the next few quarters