Guidewire's Growing Partner Base To Boost Business Prospects

Guidewire Software, Inc. (NYSE:GWRE) recently announced that Shift Technology and Alchemy Technology Services are joining the Guidewire PartnerConnect alliance program.

As a consulting partner, Europe-based Alchemy Technology Services will enable insurers to design and deploy business-transforming strategies that reduce time-to-market considerably. We believe that Alchemy's association with PartnerConnect will expand Guidewire's presence in Europe.

Meanwhile, Shift Technology, as a Solution partner, intends to utilize Guidewire DevConnect software developer platform and design an add-on to enhance Guidewire ClaimCenter. Notably, Shift Technology’s strength in its fraud detection solution Force — which utilizes robust data science and AI capabilities to identify fraudulent claims — bodes well.

An expanding partner base in the PartnerConnect program is likely to boost the adoption of Guidewire’s offerings that is expected to drive the top line in the foreseeable future.

Moreover, the latest partners to join PartnerConnect enjoy significant exposure to insurance industry, which is a positive. In general, the integration accelerators developed by consulting and solution partners enable insurers to reduce costs, efforts and risks pertaining to the implementation of business strategies.

Markedly, with the PartnerConnect program, insurers can easily access Guidewire’s Marketplace that helps them to introduce innovative solutions and adapt to changing market demands.



These growth initiatives are instilling investors’ optimism in the stock. As a result, shares of Guidewire have gained 18.5% year to date compared with the industry’s 11.7% rise.

What Investors Should Know?

Guidewire’s PartnerConnect alliance program is an innovative partnership program, which enables the company to expand its business. In fiscal 2018, the company validated approximately 85 partner-developed integrations that are also branded as “Ready for Guidewire.”

Guidewire is benefiting from the strong adoption of several cloud-based products as insurers are trying to digitally transform their business processes.

Per Gartner, the global Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) market is expected to reach $143.7 billion by 2022 compared with $80-billion valuation in 2018. This reinforces Guidewire’s business prospects in the domain.

The company’s initiatives to enhance offerings via product enhancements, inorganic strategies as well as collaborations and partnership programs are enabling it to expand clientele. This bodes well for the top line.

Wrapping Up

Guidewire PartnerConnect program has been implemented worldwide. The program is assisting customers in the property and casualty insurance industry.

Moreover, the company has increased investments to enhance insurance software products via collaborations with leading on-demand cloud infrastructure vendors that include Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) Web Services and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Azure.

Notably, the cross-selling of the product suites has increased customer base and revenue generation.

However, increasing expenditure on product enhancements and marketing initiatives is likely to weigh on margins at least in the near term.

Zacks Rank & Key Picks

Currently, Guidewire carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Some better-ranked stocks worth considering in the broader sector are Anixter International (NYSE:AXE) , LogMeIn (NASDAQ:LOGM) and Perficient (NASDAQ:PRFT) , each flaunting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Long-term earnings growth rate for LogMeIn, Anixter and Perficient is currently pegged at 5%, 8% and 10.75%, respectively.

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