Lanny Cohen, Capgemini's global chief technology officer (CTO), has said that the firm has moved from advising its clients on how to improve and make adjustments, to an organisation that aims to help them meet their goals for global growth.
Cohen, who was speaking at a Capgemini press event held in New York today, claimed that the firm has had to shift its focus to reflect growing economic optimism among its clients as they look to prosper in a "digital future".
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"Most CEOs are seeing the competitive advantages of technology. Of course the back office side of it has been clear for a long time, but now [companies are looking] on the growth side and on the revenue generation side of things," he said.
"Companies used to hire us to look at them and give them advice and tell them what to improve, but now [they come to us] on how to use technology and solutions to enable their global growth agenda," he said.
Capgemini has changed, he said, from implementing "big ERP systems, big middleware technologies" to a company that looks for industry-specific solutions, as it now works with smaller specialised firms as well as its long-time partners such as Oracle, Microsoft and HP.
"A lot of the intellectual property we have got is important. Some of the firms we've acquired are industry-specific solution providers. Our work with Amazon on SAP EnergyPath, our acquisition of ExtremeApps for retail on SAP HANA and SkySight solution in collaboration with Microsoft are some examples of that," he said.
Cohen said Capgemini's role in the formation of the Marine Well Containment Company exemplified this new approach.
"Everyone remembers the BP [Deepwater Horizon oil spill] a few years ago. At the time the [US] government got very involved. It brought major oil companies together and said we have got to fix this, and prevent this and do a much better job of what we do in the Gulf of Mexico. They put together a consortium and it selected Capgemini to work with," he said.
"A lot of the time it is about how you can work together [in the industry] and with a systems integrator," he added.
