European Summers Are Back?
Over the years, I have found myself writing articles around this time of year maligning the August slowdown in Europe while the entire continent vacations – often for up to a month (Imagine that Americans?). Last year however, I noticed no change in email and workload through the summer months concluding that COVID meant most were not taking vacations and remained at their home-based desk working. This year, however, I see a bit or a return to normal and after doing a couple of interviews with vendors this last couple of days, this is shared by them too. Euro summer vacations are plainly back!
The sources I spoke to also noted that there has been a noticeable slowdown in procurement activity in the last couple of weeks. Despite that, many of the procurers out there are apparently targeting year end for implementation. That means any summer slow down will certainly tighten schedules because even assuming a 90-day implementation (most are significantly longer), if no selection is made until September, that deadline looks in serious jeopardy. If you assume that you can more of less write off December due to seasonal holidays, then the deadline looks undoable. Many of the deals in pipelines are of the smaller variety so perhaps 90-day implementation is on the long side? On the other hand, if it is a remote implementation, you can add 20-30% to the time line anyway just because it is less efficient to implement remotely. Essentially, those ad hoc communications have to be replaced by organised conference calls and so on.
Meanwhile, most vendors are reporting that there are now more larger buyers out there who at least have pencilled in targets of year end to make a selection. Most who deferred their procurement plans have drifted back into the market despite the lockdowns and a reasonable prospective for a repeat performance this autumn. Most vendors remain bullish when I talk with them especially in the CTRM, CM and risk analytics areas. We will reflect some of this later in the year, when we update our market sizing forecasts.
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