Engineering Services Namesakes

“What’s in a name?” asked Shakespeare in Act II, Scene II of “Romeo and Juliet” and we at HfS are asking the same question ourselves as we evaluate different engineering services outsourcing providers.

We are in the middle of developing our inaugural 2015 Engineering Services Blueprint, where we are evaluating the innovation and execution capabilities of 15 leading engineering service providers. There are two categories of service providers we are evaluating. The first category includes the specialist engineering service providers, and the second includes the broad-based IT service providers, which also provide engineering services. It’s the latter category that is using interesting names for their engineering services business units. Here are few examples of the different names that are being used for these businesses:

• Capgemini: Global Engineering Services (GES)
• Cognizant: Engineering and Manufacturing Solutions (EMS)
• HCL: Engineering and R&D Services (ERS)
• IGATE: Product and Engineering Solutions (P&ES)
• Infosys: Product Engineering Services
• TCS: Engineering & Industrial Services (EIS)
• Tech Mahindra: Integrated Engineering Solutions (IES)

The main reason for using different names by service providers for engineering services is to position their engineering services capabilities as something more than the low value activities such as drawing and drafting, which was what engineering services outsourcing was perceived as when it emerged more than a decade ago.

This movement in capabilities has proven to be true, as engineering services outsourcing in last decade has evolved from simple drawing and drafting to complex end-to-end product design. Now an enterprise which wants to enter a new market segment can partner with some leading engineering service providers, that can not only deliver complete new product design but that can even collaborate with manufacturing partners for additional benefits. Some engineering service providers are also collaborating on high-end R&D projects with the world’s leading research institutions and filing patents both on behalf of their customers and as well as on their own. (For details of engineering service providers’ transformation read the earlier HfS Soundbite here).

These naming efforts in engineering services outsourcing industry have a parallel in what has also occurred in the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry. Many services providers (and NASSCOM itself) moved to using business process management (BPM) as the default name for the service, while others in the industry are now using Operation Services to highlight the changing nature of work the industry is either currently doing or it aspires to do in future.

We feel that overall engineering services outsourcing industry will benefit if service providers adopt consistent names. Changing names is easy, but names can only go as far as the change in real capabilities will allow. So, what are the real capabilities of different engineering service providers? In our inaugural 2015 Engineering Services Blueprint Report (to be released in July 2015), we will deep dive into the capabilities of 15 leading engineering service providers including those cited above. Keep watching this space.