Ovum Ltd.

Ovum

Industry	Research
Founded	1982 by Tim Johnson
Headquarters	London, United Kingdom
Products	Research Consulting Events
Parent	Informa
Website	ovum.informa.com

Ovum is an independent analyst and consultancy firm headquartered in London specializing in global coverage of Telecommunications, Media and Technology industries. It began operations in 1985. Ovum is present in 23 countries and has offices in Beijing, Boston, Dubai, Hong Kong, Hyderabad, Johannesburg, Melbourne, New York, San Francisco, Sao Paulo, Singapore, and Tokyo amongst others. Its main competitors are Analysys Mason, Gartner, IDC, and IHS Markit.

History

Ovum was created in 1982 by Tim Johnson, technology journalist at the Sunday Times in London, working from home.. In 1985, Johnson was joined by four ex-colleagues from Logica (Ron Sasson, David Lewin, Richard Key and Jules Hewett) and moved into its first office in central London. From this point, Ovum grew rapidly in the telecom and software sectors, enjoying 16 years of uninterrupted growth, and opening several offices around the world. Jules Hewett was Ovum’s longest serving Chief Executive, from 1988 to 1990 and from 1994 to 2001. In 2000, Ovum achieved revenues of £19 million, and made its first acquisition, Richard Holway Limited.

Chris Dines, previously Finance Director, took over as Chief Executive in 2001. Ovum suffered during the tech crash of the early 2000s, but had recovered by the mid-2000s and was able to float on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM in March 2006[2] but was acquired by Datamonitor in December 2006 for £42 million in cash. Datamonitor was itself acquired by Informa in 2007. Despite the company having been acquired, the brand has been maintained. In 2011, Ovum has separated from Datamonitor to allow the company to focus on strengthening its core technology and telecoms offerings and growing its presence in key markets. Currently Ovum operates as a standalone company, but remains a part of the Informa Group and has been aligned with Informa Business Intelligence.

Merger

Ovum and Informa Telecoms & Media research (ITM) announced on 7 April 2014 the completion of the merger of the two companies under the Ovum brand. The merger created the leading analyst firm for telecoms research and fourth largest technology research firm globally, providing the most comprehensive research view across the converging worlds of IT, telecoms, and media.

Ovum focuses on tracking digital disruption in enterprise, consumer, and service provider infrastructure markets. It also offers a vertical market research in the following industries: Education, Financial markets, Government, Healthcare, Insurance, Payments, Retail, Retail banking, and Utilities. Ovum also has a growing number of global CIO clients who use Ovum to support their sourcing process. The company is renowned for its business planning and strategy services through its databases tracking technologies adoption of fixed, mobile, TV and Internet services. In over 200 countries.

The newly merged company will be an important part of Informa’s Business Intelligence division which has also just announced a re-structuring and will see Patrick Martell, formerly of St Ives Group, take over as CEO. Ovum is part of the Informa Group and works across its conferences businesses, to provide clients with marketing services delivering turnkey integrated marketing

Media coverage

Ovum analysts are frequently quoted in the media over various global channels when technology and telecoms news stories are reported.^[1][2]

Top Level Organisation

• Aneil Rakity: President & Managing Director

• Adam Campbell: Finance Director

• Jean-Marc Mezin: Marketing & Customer Success Director

• Marty Schecter: Director of Product Management

• Ramsey Hashem: Chief Commercial Officer

• Richard Mahony: Global Director of Consulting

• Tim Jennings: Chief Research Officer

References