HFS Challenger: MSRcosmos

At a glance

The first firm to receive the coveted Challenger accolade from HFS is MSRcosmos, thanks to its focus on delivering digital transformation services across its four pillars (cloud, data and AI, automation, and enterprise applications) to mid-market clients, particularly in North America, with a nimble and agile mindset. In addition, MSRcosmos reports an impressive growth journey, and it has ambitious plans for the coming years. Enterprises have an opportunity to nurture a strong relationship and get a foot in the door early to join MSRcosmos on the growth journey.

Founded in 2008, MSRcosmos is one of the newer entrants to the IT services market, but its impressive growth journey means it reports approximately $170 million in annual revenue today. The provider has deep domain expertise in manufacturing, where it originally plied its trade. Still, it has recently made notable strides in industries like consumer goods, retail, and life sciences.

The four pillars of MSRcosmos services business

The biggest of MSRcosmos’ four pillars is cloud, where it boasts more than 250 cloud experts delivering everything from advisory and consulting to infrastructure management, automation, and optimization. While MSRcosmos covers the entire cloud value chain, it specializes in supporting enterprises on their journey through SAP modernization. For example, MSRcosmos migrated an entire SAP S/4HANA system from a third-party data center to Azure in just 15 weeks for a global windows and doors manufacturer, reducing infrastructure hosting costs by approximately 30%, among other benefits.

In addition, MSRcosmos has over 120 experts tasked with supporting clients with data and AI, its second pillar, typically making the best use of clients’ existing data foundations. To do this, MSRcosmos brings its catalog of proprietary tools, including its real-time social analytics platform Vinci360. It also pulls on an armory of emerging technologies, including predictive analytics and generative AI. MSRcosmos told us how one client, a global life sciences and healthcare provider, was shackled by a complex legacy big-data platform. MSRcosmos modernized the client’s entire data and AI ecosystem in six months, reducing operating expenses by approximately 50%.

MSRcosmos’ services business is complemented by product offerings

To complement its services business, MSRcosmos developed a catalog of go-to-market products; two examples are TrackEx and MSRvantage. TrackEx is a travel and expense management application allowing enterprise employees to book travel and accommodation directly through its built-in engine, automatically generating and submitting expenses in real time. The latter is a blockchain-based track-and-trace solution that delivers enhanced visibility for enterprises.

When we connected with MSRcosmos’ executives, they explained that enterprises typically come to them for services around one of its pillars and gradually adopt the remaining three. This is particularly relevant for the mid-market clients, where MSRcosmos reports the most success, as it allows clients to balance the need for cautious investment with innovation because the success of early investments can fuel expansion into MSRcosmos’ other pillars.

Executives have their sights set on expansion-fueled revenue growth in the coming years

Moving forward, MSRcosmos has ambitious plans. With a constant focus on continued revenue growth, with a $250 million annual revenue target mooted, the provider plans industry and geographic expansion, nurturing more profound domain expertise in a handful of industries and targeting expansion into Latin America, which could prove a significant growth lever given its heavy focus in North America. But MSRcosmos isn’t opposed to inorganic growth either. In March 2022, it acquired Synapsis Group, and executives advise they are interested in pursuing more acquisitions in the coming years.

Client case studies

Key differentiators

HFS has identified MSRcosmos’ ability to deliver its four pillars with flexibility and agility at the core of everything it does. This is particularly important given the providers’ focus on mid-market clients, who often require more personalized support, guidance, and elasticity from a service partner. It’s an approach that seems to be paying off, and MSRcosmos’ market-leading growth rates are a testament to that, but the long-term relationships it has nurtured with clients prove that it is resonating well.

HFS’ take

Enterprises looking for support around any of MSRcosmos’ four pillars of offerings should take the provider very seriously. There is a window of opportunity for enterprises to partner and join MSRcosmos on its growth journey, helping them shape their offerings and go-to-market and getting their foot in the door, cementing their position as one of the provider’s preferred clients. Moving forward, enterprises must ensure their vision and roadmap align and benefit from MSRcosmos’ expanding scale—which we expect to bring improved outcomes—while also enjoying the agility and flexibility that define MSRcosmos today.

Challenger fact sheet