A year ago we unveiled our theme and predictions for 2013 – MAKE or BREAK. We’ll be announcing our theme and predictions for 2014 soon.
But first let’s look at those 2013 Predictions which you can reread here. Did it turn out to be a Make or Break Year?
Well, it certainly did for Nokia and Blackberry with the emphasis on the ‘break’ bit. Also Windows 8 did not prove the salvation for Microsoft. Indeed they have had to produce W8.1 in response to all the criticism. Tablet sales now exceed PC sales. Balmer is departing (we described him as ‘well past his sell-by date’) So, although we’d never describe Microsoft as ‘broke’, it’s been far, far from the ‘Make’ year they had wanted and the new CEO now has an even more difficult job to fix it.
The same applies to Apple. We said that without a new product genre ‘Apple’s golden days could well be over’. We got no iTV or iWatch. Apple shares dived - and recovered but are still c30% off their 2012 high. Again, not ‘broke’ but not fixed either.
We said that Google, Facebook and Twitter had to finally prove they could monetise mobile. Google and Facebook scored a decisive ‘Made it’ here! Their shares soared as a result. Twitter soared on its IPO but the jury is still out on any kid of monetisation of the service.
We suggested that both HP and Dell would have ‘Make or Break’ years as tablets eroded their marketplace and ‘problems of their own internal making’ persisted. Dell went private as a result and HP saw its sales decline. However, the market loved the cost-cutting that Meg Whitman put in place and HP shares doubled in the year. Both far from ‘fixed’ yet.
We suggested that 2013 had to be the year when SaaS vendors had to prove they could make money from the model. None did – but the markets didn’t seem to care. We do. Reality will strike soon.
The offshore players, as predicted, were hit with a whole range of issues like exchange rates, staff churn, local wage inflation, slowing growth rates in India and corporate governance issues. This seemed to energise them to alter their models towards more onshore activities. They (mostly) got rewarded with higher placings in our ranking tables – but more because even their reduced growth rates were better than the rest! They also started to pick up HMGovt work.
In the public sector, the relationship between the Cabinet Office and the main SIs was indeed described as ‘broken’. But there now seems to be a sense that a more ‘mature’ attitude must prevail. Even the NAO agreed. But maybe a bit of ‘banging heads together’ is still needed though.
As far as the economy in general is concerned, 2013 certainly turned out to be a ‘Make’ year for the UK – now with the highest growth in the G7. Wow, that is something I never expected to say. But the economies in many other countries still aren’t fixed – which is a major on-going risk to the UK too.
So, our ‘Make or Break’ theme was certainly pertinent. The way forward is a lot clearer than it was 12 months ago. Our other long-standing theme – Diversity of Performance– clearly applied too. If you ‘Made it’ in 2013 you really do seem to be facing an ever rosier future. If you failed to ‘Fix it’ or just ‘Broke’ in 2013, the future looks decidedly gloomy.