European Telecom Operator Managed Services Deals Survey: H1 2007

Forrester's third survey of managed services contracts signed by telecom service providers tracked 99 European service deals inked in the first half of 2007. The number of deals was down significantly from the 188 reported in H2 2006, but the total contract value of €1.5 billion was down only slightly from €1.6 billion in the previous half year. The majority of deals continued to be small, but the increase in the average deal size was the result of a small number of very large contracts. In the traditional telecom services category, the most significant trend was the huge reduction in the number of deals involving managed IP PBXs — present in only 3% of deals, compared with 39% last time. In IT services, there was an equally massive drop in the number of deals involving managed security services; the only IT service that recorded any increase was the provision of help desks. Overall telco IT services sales fell back — the percentage of deals with an IT services component was down from 31% to 22%.