A mandatory wave of change in Indian IT Industry

All of us would agree to an observation that the way business is being carried out has evolved in the past decade. Be it the effect of usage of information technology in aspects such as automation, integration, e-commerce or the effect of social media in our lives, the entire ecosystem is evolving. As a customer we expect better services & products and this is at the heart of this change. For the next five minutes, I present my view and analysis of this change on Indian IT industry.

For Indian IT Industry, the decade of 1999 to 2000 was largely marked as evolving of offshore-onshore global delivery model (read-in as the capability to deliver & capacity to scale and reap benefits of cost arbitrage). The next decade (2000 – 2010) efforts of the Indian IT majors were aligned towards the managed services model. Undoubtedly the last two decades turned out to be very profitable both in terms of revenues as well as reputation. In my opinion, all this happened due to an opportunity that was identified, benefits which were marketed well and human resources which were groomed towards a goal and leadership which had vision for next decades.

But as someone rightly said, “you can’t survive on your past glory for a long time”. This is now applicable to tier-1 IT companies to spot new wave for the next decade, reinvent their DNA and move up the value chain. The success from the last two decades has enabled (rather insured to an extent) tier-1 companies for free cash flow which is always required for an organization’s survival. I am sure that their existing business is going to be a lifeline for considerable time or rather a cash-cow as it’s taught in B-schools. Without any iota of doubt, this has been well understood and being worked upon. However the bigger (yaksh) question is, “had we discovered the idea and corresponding strategy to mobilize the idea?” In my opinion, most of the tier-1 IT companies were in self denial mode about the idea until it become inevitable. Nevertheless the workings have started but some players seem to be getting it wrong in terms of execution.

Time, experience and analysis has reinforced my belief that how important is it to identify and empower a leader for a team. As I write this article, I see helplessly a strategy being identified but being implemented in a very bizarre way. I have always wondered why these people in top management deliberately engage some people which they themselves know aren’t fit for the very purpose they are putting in so much time and effort. Guess they are beyond business and logical reasons and might be I’ll never understand that. May be I don’t want to !