Posted in : OneOffice

Nigel Edwards is Chief Client Officer, HFS.  Click for LinkedIn and Bio

While we can speculate all day long about what businesses can do when they are given the huge amounts of someone else’s money to burn, how about those that are employee-owned and make their own investments using the hard-earned money they actually earned themselves? 

When you look at the growth and success of HFS over the past 11 years to tackle competitors hundreds of times our size, there is one constant throughout the whole experience – the collective array of people who’ve made it all possible.  While you can buy successful brands, IP, methodologies, APIs, and algorithms, the most important asset you can accumulate is your people.

One such individual, whom I have known since the days just prior to founding HFS, is Nigel Edwards – an enthusiastic and affable character who’s weathered the best of the Indian-heritage service providers namely Cognizant. Wipro and EXL, after earning his business and IT services stripes at Accenture in his earlier career.  It was time for “Nige” to take nearly three decades of blood, sweat, BPO and captives and lend it to HFS’ long-suffering clients, crying out for a sense of reality and to exploit the current market turbulence.  Now there isn’t too much to say about Nigel beyond the fact he’s a lifelong Foxes fan (Leicester City), has played cricket with David Gower and gets beaten up in a boxing ring by his son almost daily… so let’s hear a bit more from HFS’ Chief Client Officer, Nigel Edwards:

Phil Fersht (CEO, HFS):  Before we get to all the work stuff, Nigel, can you share a little bit about yourself… your background, what gets you up in the morning?

The honest answer is that it’s a combination of my 6-year-old (the youngest of my 3 boys), the dog, or the sound of the refuse collection folk reminding me that I did not put out the recycling…

Seriously though, it’s the opportunity to do something creative.  My dad was in the construction industry for many years and he doubled up as a highly accomplished artist, sculptor, and writer. Even at 78 he is still pushing out new ideas each day in his quiet, unassuming but engaging manner. I guess this appetite for creativity has continued throughout my career as I have always been interested in what is coming along next: from buying outsourcing services to BPO, to automation and now digital. I love nothing more than launching a new service, entering a new market, or initiating a large new client engagement.

Nigel Edwards (Chief Client Officer, HFS):  How did you end up in the process services industry as a solution leader across the likes of Accenture, Cognizant, Wipro, and EXL?  Did the industry change a lot during these times, or is it really only going through real change now?

Honestly, I never set out with a plan.  I wanted to be a professional cricketer or a rock star, failed at both, so I logically settled on a career spanning technology and banking /& insurance! But like many things, if you keep an open mind, and look for opportunities, then door after door opens.  I remember when, around 31 years old, I was asked to lead a major £250m account – probably as there was no-one else available! But I grabbed it with both hands while secretly being scared to death of failure – I’m pleased to say that we had a great team and I think we managed to pull it off.

But wow the industry has changed in the last 30 years.  When I was with PwC, BPO was all about capex-heavy SI (SAP, Siebel), followed up by onshore shared service operations before setting up in Netherlands and Poland – real transformational stuff for those days.  Then along came offshoring with a Leanops approach and the market grew significantly.  Consequently, we made hay with the big wave of BPO and I moved into the world of deal-making as a Partner within Accenture’s Market Maker team.  And quick as a flash, the Indian heritage players caught up and I spent some amazing years with Cognizant where we looked to combine the core IT strengths with BPO and leverage into key vertical segments in BFS and Insurance, Pharma, and Healthcare. More recently I ran the UK/European Business Process Services teams in EXL and Wipro where the industry and CX focus was critical to profitable growth.

What did you love and hate about those times?

It’s tough to polarise because they are often both sides of the same coin!  On the plus side, the chance to meet amazing clients, to travel, and work with people from all over the globe has been something that I will always be thankful for. The more you travel, the more you see what unites us.  Seeing a deal or a project come to fruition is one of the most rewarding things, not just because of the outcome, but also because of the deep knowledge and relationships we have built.

The downside?  The time away from friends and family, and the quarterly cadence of large corporates take its toll, and for that I thankful to work in a privately-owned research business. 

That said, lockdown has left me with a deep yearning to travel again!

So what, Nigel, drove you to look at the analyst industry at this point of your career?  What are you hoping to achieve?

A couple of things.  First, the intellectual challenge of deciphering a truly complex and rich marketplace.  And second, the opportunity to leverage my experience working with some great minds and great people. 

HFS really leads the way in forward-looking research, unafraid to call the big plays, so it really was a no-brainer to sign up.

What role do you see analysts playing as we emerge from this pandemic?  Same old game, or is something new brewing?

Oh look, the world has already turned and the pace of digital feels exponential.  The last 9 months have seen change on a seismic scale that we have delivered and never thought possible. Who would have thought that we can work, learn, consume and create from home on such an unprecedented scale?

But the challenge is how to navigate and retain engagement while assuring our mental health.   What is our purpose? Where do we start? Who do we start with? How do we differentiate? What skills do we need? And do I make, buy, partner, or acquire?  Mostly, we need to have the courage to leave behind old practices, old comfort zones, and address the change management agenda seriously for once.

From the discussions I am already having with our clients, this is how we can help.

What do you think we’ll be talking about when we gradually revert to a world beyond our screens?  Will we get a resurgence of energy and excitement, or will we crawl out of our caves blinded by the sunlight?

I studied European Political History at University – I had the pleasure of standing on (the remains of) the Berlin Wall when it came down in 1989!  And if there is one thing I l have earned is that life has a way of course-correcting. As a natural optimist, I am sure that life will emerge richer.  We will find ways to engage digitally on our own terms, to work in jobs that are fulfilling, and to lead a life where work and pleasure exist in harmony – they are by no means mutually exclusive.  Yes, it’s a little cheesy, but I think it’s a good goal to have, and I truly believe that our role as analysts will help pave the way for this correction.

It’s terrific having you as part of this great team, Nige!

Posted in : Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), Global Business Services, IT Outsourcing / IT Services, OneOffice, Outsourcing Heros

This injection of money is intended to expand HFS’ cutting-edge research coverage across all core geographic locations, plugging the gaps the firm missed in recent years.  “Thank God we got the extra cash”, exclaimed the firm’s President for Research and Business Operations, Saurabh Gupta.  “With the recent pandemic, not being able to cover dynamics in emerging countries like Turkmenistan and Laos was holding us back.  Now we can really hit Gartner where it hurts most…”.

HFS is most famous for inventing the industry known as RPA in 2012, before famously killing it off in 2019, only to see its memory kept alive by Gartner and Forrester, which persisted in believing the revenue numbers of firms that were eking out the last of their PR cash.  “I am so excited to fully restart the RPA myth now we have enough cash to throw at it,” stated the HFS Founder and CEO Phil Fersht in a recent press conference that was barely audible over Webex. “Without RPA, we had to pretend technologies like Cloud were making a comeback, and even our sustainability analyst has been trying to muscle in on the action.”  Later on, Fersht managed to resume the discussion over Zoom, where he added, “All we had to do was promise Hoden we’d bring RPA back to life and we’d get a sizeable check to invest pretty much anywhere we wanted.  I’ve convinced my head of research the next wave can be found in Turkmenistan and am funding a trip to escort him out there to view it first-hand.  Apparently, they scraped the government’s mainframe green screen and managed to get a script to reproduce the content in a Windows app.  Now they’re just waiting for Microsoft to give them a free bot to share it over their cloud network”.

Details of the investment plans will be available soon when the firm applies for its long-awaited IPO, where it’s rumored to claim it is worth at least $10 billion.  There is no reason why HFS will ever be worth anything close to that amount, but at least it gets PE firms excited enough to throw them more money and put out more meaningless press releases.

To learn more about HfS Research, please email [email protected].

# # #

Note to editors: Trademarks and registered trademarks referenced herein remain the property of their respective owners. 

MEDIA CONTACT:

Trevor McTrevor

HFS Research

[email protected]

And of course… this was an:

Please, please don’t tell me you fell for this again for the TWELFTH time!  …And I know some of you did =)

And while we’re reminiscing about falling for April Fools’ gags, here is 2019’s classic:

Quantum set to destroy blockchain by 2021

And 2018’s

How blockchain will change the world in many more ways than you realize. It’s cataclysmic

And 2017’s

Yamazaki, Macallan and Redbreast lead the inaugural HfS Premium Whisky Blueprint

And 2016’s

HfS launches new unDigital magazine

And 2015’s 

HfS announces its entry into the outsourcing advisory market

And 2014’s 

HfS and Blue Prism partner to develop automated analyst solutions 

And 2013’s 

Phil Fersht steps down as HfS CEO

And 2012’s

Merriam-Webster to remove the term Outsourcing for IT and Business Services

And 2011’s

Painsharing exposed: HfS to reveal the worst performers in the outsourcing industry

And 2010’s:

Horses for Sources to advise Obama administration on offshore outsourcing

Oh, and here’s 2009’s which I really hope you didn’t fall for too (and many did):

Horses Exclusive: Obama to ban offshore outsourcing

Posted in : Digital Transformation, OneOffice

It’s been quite the year hasn’t it, folks!  I don’t know about you, but this has proven to be a voyage of self-discovery for me personally as we build businesses that can thrive in a world where it doesn’t matter where you are anymore, where the rules of the game are being re-written in a way we could never have imagined a year ago. 

If you’d told me we’d be doing multi-million dollar deals over Zoom and holding the attention of a global industry captive for an entire day online while we shared experiences of vaccine brands, I would seriously try and shake myself out of this bizarre dream.  Not to mention the spate of billion-dollar-plus deals being constructed on the back of an envelope…

In fact, I may still be having the same bizarre dream while I sleep-write this, and will wake up shortly to check my seat and meal-selection on my next trans-Atlantic flight, so I hope my ten learnings from the past imaginary year of bizarreness are worth a read:

1. Take control of your career. Whomever you are in today’s corporate world,  the playing field has been leveled – however, almost everyone you know relies on the same vehicles to get things done. You have more time than you’ve ever had to focus on covering all the bases of your professional and personal lives, so make this time count and prepare for the future with a new attitude of self-assurance and confidence.
2. Be a great communicator. During his career heyday, my father was a world-famous scientist in protein science and biochemistry.  His one (career) piece of advice to me was “always assume stupidity in your audience”.  People love to hear you talk about the basics of what we do and build from there.  I have never veered from this advice and it always serves me well… and those who engage in my narrative have proven to be anything but stupid!
3. Make a concerted effort to develop your relationships. While nothing beats a great dinner or a few glasses of good wine, beer, or whisky, the people you knew before the big change are still as important as ever, and you need to do what you can to keep them close and keep the camaraderie moving along.  Relationships got you where you are, and during these new times, it’s even more important to keep the dialog going.  Make time for the people who matter, and develop deeper relationships where you can.  Also, focus on more one-to-one dialogs with people than sitting through hours of turgid discussions with too many people… nothing beats the intimacy of a direct conversation where you can see each other and share your genuine thoughts, ideas and feelings. 
4. Keep learning new things. No one has any excuse to keep doing the same old things the same way, and in today’s environment, you really don’t want to become a dinosaur… post-covid world is definitely not dinosaur-friendly! If you are in sales, learn to sell over Zoom;  if you’re in marketing… learn cool new apps to run promos, get familiar with analytics that help you understand your market, and make publications look awesome;  if you’re in finance, put yourself on some data science courses;  if you’re in IT learn how to cloudify business functions and understand the context.  And if you’re ready to break free of the corporate treadmill, there is no better time to start your own business and reel in some clients.
5. Show your emotions more freely. Don’t you prefer to know how people really feel about things?  Or if you’re pissing someone off?  And doesn’t it feel good to get things off your chest, instead of letting them simmer for a long time until you blow up like a pressure-cooker?  We have no choice but to preserve/build digital relationships with people, so be more expressive, and people will know you better, and maybe they’ll be more expressive in return. 
6. Demonstrate your true values. We can peek into each others’ homes, hear our kids screaming and dogs barking… so why not peer a bit deeper into what makes us think the way we do?  There are just too many issues conflicting our world these days, and it helps to share some of our views and beliefs – when it is appropriate.  While it’s wise to avoid politics (unless it’s plainly apparent you’re with like-minded people), it’s healthy to discuss how to manage people better, the culture in which we like to work, how to cope better with stress, how to get a better balance between work life, health and family life.  It’s also healthy to discuss how to balance diversity issues in the workplace, ensure equal opportunities for candidates when we are hiring for roles, respect our planet more, and what we can do collectively as an organization to address sustainability issues.  Because if we never share our values, we can never learn from each other, and we can never evolve with how we think and act. This also means we need to avoid public shaming of people for behaviors that some people may construe as racist or sexist. That only creates deeper divisions between people and does nothing to promote better attitudes.
7. Make peace with people you value. It’s so easy to fall out with people these days when tensions and stress levels are running high… but it’s also just as easy to smooth things over and get relationships in a better place.  It’s also easy to reconnect with folks you’d fallen out with years ago and find new areas of common value – bury that hatchet!  The modern business culture is so relationship-driven these days, so drop the ego and cultivate relationships with people who matter. 
8. Move on from people who don’t appreciate you. And on the flip side, those people who just use you when they need something… aren’t you just sick and tired of the take, take, take, and never getting anything back?  These people are already getting left behind, and you need to move on from them.  It’s all about valuing each other, listening to each other, sharing ideas, and mutually helping each other out.
9. Take the higher ground. How many times do you get pulled into petty squabbles, and you suddenly realize “why am I bothering? This really isn’t important to me”.  Always take a deep breath and think about your higher goals and consider whether you need to fight every battle and distract yourself from the war you need to win?  This isn’t being “political”, it’s simply smart about how you handle yourself.
10. Don’t forget those who got you here. One of my most important rules is never to forget the helping hands you’ve had during your quest for greatness.  People who supported you know what they did and really appreciate it when you recognize them for it. I have lost count of all the favors I have done for people over the years, but I do remember when someone mentions they appreciated it – even if it’s years later.  However, those who just “take, take, take” get struck off my list pretty fast these days – who has time for the entitled liberty-takers who want whatever they can get when they ask for it?

 Peace Out… 😉 

Posted in : Digital Transformation, OneOffice

Posted in : Digital Transformation, Social Networking, social-media

I spoke with HFS Research CEO Phil Fersht for his thoughts on gender diversity and building inclusive organizations, why we need women at the workplace, how the industry has evolved over the past decade, and ideas for the future to make significant progress for the case and cause of #womenatwork.  A one of its kind and exclusive interview in which Phil shares unfiltered reflections and intriguing insights.

Nischala: So Phil, firstly, thanks for your time to do this interview with me. As you know, the topic of #WomenAtWork is very close to my heart.

I’d like to start with a basic question – Why do you think we should have more women in the workplace?

Phil: Thanks for doing this, Nischala. Appreciate all your initiatives around women at the workplace.

Coming to your question – Firstly, I think that there’s a shortage of talent in the workplace, particularly creative talent. I work in a knowledge industry, where we need creative people – good writers, thinkers, and communicators. In many cases, women are outstanding in these areas, especially writing and communicating.

If women aren’t an active part of the workforce, I do feel that we’re missing out on a lot of talent, which is critical for business growth. I do recognize that many women disappear from the workplace when they have kids or caring for the needs of the family – and they don’t come back.  Some women come back, and a minimal number are tremendously successful, but not nearly enough.

Now having a stimulating, rewarding career is essential for many, many people, and they should have a choice on whether they want to continue that or not. So I think we’re in a world where people need to make their own choices, we need to have more talent available within our businesses and companies so we can be successful, and when we look at the availability of talent – it tends to be, often, predominantly on the male side, particularly in technology areas, because of the way these industries have evolved, and the way society has almost dictated how people should run their lives.

Nischala: Thanks Phil for that perspective. You’ve been in the industry for more than two decades. What are some of the differences you see around women at work when you started off to where we are today?

Phil: It’s an excellent question. I don’t think this topic itself was talked about in the public domain when I started working. I think it was more of a private debate.

But when I look back and reflect on the stories I have heard – like the women’s toilets on the top floor and fewer of them in a building, and men’s restrooms on every floor – it sort of blows your mind on how we were back then.

In the early 90s – the sexism that went on was unbelievable; and this is for all industries and in all parts of the world. And so I think the most significant change today is that these issues are much more on the table, up for debate. People understand what is correct and what isn’t correct.There is a lot more awareness, openness, and sensitivity to talk about them. But most importantly, I see a genuine desire to make this a fairer and more equal society and workplace – which is the good news.

Nischala: That’s good to hear Phil. Coming to the company HFS Research, I was pleasantly surprised when I joined to see the such amazing women in the team – across all functions like Research, Sales, Marketing, Operations, and Finance. Can you talk a little bit about how we ended up here?

Phil: Honestly, it’s more by luck than design. I don’t go out of my way in thinking, “I’m going to build a company which is going to be as represented by men and women as possible.” I’ve always been merit-based – with analysts, and salespeople, and marketing people. I want to bring into the company the best talent – whether they’re male or female.

It’s been more recently that you become more conscious of the ratios because it’s more discussed. Right? Also, we do a lot of industry-facing conferences – so when you’ve got half your company on display in front of hundreds of your clients, and hundreds of your network, you suddenly realize, “Ooh, everyone can see what we look like”. And yes, we do want to have a good array of different races,  genders and personalities. The underlying value is that we want to be as equal and fair as possible. And that’s how things have evolved!

Looking back, I grew up in the analyst industry where there’s always been a healthy proportion of women than many other industries. In general – the best analysts I’ve worked with happen to be female. If I could list out the best ten analysts in our industry right now, probably seven of them are women. I’m not going to do it, as I don’t want to upset anybody J. And some of them are in this company. So they do make good analysts and good communicators and good writers and I’m very proud of all of them.

Nischala: That’s great, Phil. What I personally like about you is that you are very vocal about expressing appreciation, and giving credit to both men and women when they deserve it. I was ecstatic when you send me a personal message saying, “I am proud of you” a few days back for the work I did. I think that’s truly remarkable as a leader.

You work with women leaders across the globe – from different backgrounds, roles, cultures and power profiles. What, in your view, are some of the critical skills that make a difference, especially for women leaders to get to the top?

Phil:. What are the skills for women leaders to get to the top?

I don’t think they’re any different from the skills that men need to get to the top, to be honest with you. I think it’s an ability to communicate well, to be socially and empathetically intelligent – so social intelligence is vital these days – an ability to demonstrate drive and hard work and leadership are really the traits that we look for.

At least in our industry – like research and analysis. So a lot of this might depend on industry, and industry makeup, and the way these have evolved, and inherent traditional biases that have come from the past.

Nischala: Sure. That’s an interesting perspective. So what, in your view are some things which organisations can do to forward the case and cause of women in leadership more effectively?

Phil: Well, many things.

So, firstly – let’s start with hiring. There has to be a clear focus on consciously ensuring that women are applying for these positions or want these positions. And if not, understand why? Don’t these women exist? Don’t they know about these jobs? Or don’t they want them?

So one way of doing this could be in the way we shortlist candidates. So let’s say we want to shortlist 4, can we make two of them women, two of them men. Then if they can get some form of racial equality, that’s even better. But just keeping it down to gender means maybe spending a bit more time trying to dig out the gold from the minority of women who applied for that job. And then making sure you’re getting your catchment of hiring working effectively. So if you’re getting all your recruiting off LinkedIn and it’s giving you a very skewed view of men to women, then look for other avenues to get your candidates from as well. There are many, many other recruitment businesses and sites and things that you can source profiles from. So, address your recruiting.

Make sure there’s an equally distributed set of folks who are applying for the jobs. But also there has to be some element of meritocracy. So don’t just give a job to a person because she’s a woman; she also needs to be the best candidate. You just need to make sure you have a balance of candidates that get it right, and then, on the whole you’ll get a better balance of men to women in your business. It may not always be completely 50/50, but you’ll have a balance, and I think getting that balance and consciously trying to get that balance, is how to do this.

The next thing is to care deeply. I honestly will tell you that the reason why a lot of firms in the technology industry are struggling to get their gender diversity ratios right – it’s because they don’t really care. Because their clients don’t care either.

It’s only going to change when the clients actually say, “I’m going to go with this provider or this technology software company because I like how they handle diversity. When a provider is being down selected on a billion-dollar deal, the client needs to look at their diversity policy. I’ve never seen once a client make a decision on a provider that includes diversity as part of the inputs. So people look to leadership’s beliefs and values, and part of those values need to be diversity. Now, if the customers don’t care and they’re still going with providers who don’t have a fair and equitable gender representation, then that’s an inherent problem in our industry and not just the providers who are serving them.

Nischala: I am waiting for a day when this becomes a news headline. That a company lost business because of how they handle diversity. Phil, I would like to ask you  – As a powerful voice in the industry, what are some of the ideas and programs you are thinking about and planning around gender diversity.

Phil: As analysts and advisors and consultants, we have a place in this industry to make this point more prominent and important and relevant.

Some of the key ideas and programs we are driving at HFS Research are below

One, in 2021 we have started a dedicated focus on “Diversity and Inclusion”; and a part of your role is to champion this agenda. We will start publishing a lot more data-based insights around this subject for the industry!

Two, we are including diversity quotient in some of our research work. This means a company’s policies and actions around gender diversity will directly impact the HFS assessment of a company

Three, we are launching a podcast series, “The Shero Diaries”. As part of this, we talk with influential and powerful women leaders across the world.  In this series, we present ideas that matter, real-world insights and positive inspiration based on stories from corporate sheros. All this and more with leaders like Anita Mohan ( Executive Vice President & Chief Growth and Strategy Officer at EXL),  Allison Sagraves ( Senior Vice President, The New Normal, M&T Bank),  Eva Sage Gavin (Senior MD – Talent and Organization Human potential practice).

Four, I firmly believe that we have a unique opportunity in the industry to put the spotlight on women. So for all our events we actively and consciously identify women who can be invited to speak. Many times, when the opportunity presents itself – women lap it up. Interestingly, last year we did a panel on emerging technology with only women. It was not planned or designed that way, but ended up that way because the best speakers for the topic were women. Giving women more confidence to get up, take the lea and speak up is what we have to do here.

Five, we have just announced our first event HFS One Office Symposium this year; which is an exclusive digital conference for industry leaders in business and technology to gain access to the most expansive global community of pioneers, practitioners and peers. We commit that 20% of the proceeds from this event will be used to support two causes we believe in – the BLM (Black Lives Matter) movement and the importance of college education

Nischala: As you know, 2020 has been the year of change and chaos, and crisis for many of us. If you had to give career advice to young women professionals who are starting off their careers, what would you say to them?

Phil:

Be competitive.

Have no fear.

Follow your passion.

Don’t get swayed from areas because you feel you are disadvantaged as a woman. If a company is going to hire somebody because they’re a man, then that company isn’t worth working for in the first place. Many businesses out there are very fair and equal with their hiring procedures, and they hire the best. They’re not hiring on race, or gender; they’re hiring on the best. So make sure you’re the best.

Make sure you’re in there, your voice is counted, make sure your views and values are shared as well, and be proud of being a woman in the workplace.

I think this is a good time for women to be more recognized for their contributions. I think smart companies are actively looking for more women because they want to get a better balance and its just better business!

Posted in : policy-and-regulations

We’ve been pushing our concept of Native Automation hard these past few weeks, where it’s imperative for organizations to embed an attitude to automation workflows deep into their operations. So what better to promote this native adoption, than to get it for free from the world’s juggernaut desktop software institution, Microsoft?  And does this spell trouble for the likes of UiPath and AutomationAnywhere’s desire to IPO… now RPA is practically free for all?  They now have little choice but to prove their value beyond RPA.

RPA is not dead, as previously stated. Thanks to Microsoft, it’s going mainstream.

In line with day one of its annual Ignite events, Microsoft announced that it would immediately offer a free version of its Power Automate Desktop robotic process automation (RPA) application. This is available for complimentary download starting today. Additionally, it will become a standard part of Windows 10 and subsequent versions on a go-forward basis. This seemingly modest announcement baked into a sea of other Ignite news has the potential to drive RPA mainstream through a bottom-up approach of democratized use.

Here’s a quick RPA history lesson on how we got here and why this announcement matters:

• 2012 – “Greetings from Robotistan” – HFS picked up on the RPA trend when we learned about a company called Blue Prism and how it was primed to shake up the offshoring outsourcing model with “robotic automation.” HFS, in fact, put the “P” in RPA.
• 2103 – 2016 – A market is born – Vendors proliferate such as Automation Anywhere (AA), OpenSpan (acquired by Pega), WorkFusion, Softomotive, Kapow, UiPath, and Blue Prism goes public
• 2017 – 2018 – The hype years – adoption but lots of unsubstantiated value claims and insane UiPath and AA valuations
• 2019 – RPA is dead – frustrated with the lack of transformation and scale, HFS declared RPA dead and advocated for the Triple-A Trifecta approach of integrating AI, Automation, and analytics to drive value.
• 2020 – The burning platform for Automation has arrived. The pandemic forced digital change and a ‘work-from-anywhere economy’. Automation is recognized as a critical value lever for those enterprises willing to change.
• 2021 – Native Automation supported by cloud-first. As we emerge from the pandemic, we have a once in an era opportunity to reinvent how we do work. The reinvention plan must embrace the skill of the cloud, the elevation in value of data, and the everyday use of automation technologies to power how work is done natively.

Based on the above timeline, Microsoft was decidedly late to the RPA market. By their own admission, this was entirely intentional as it waited to see how the hype played out. It first announced its entry into the RPA market in 2019 with Power Automate, its Power Platform rebrand of Flow with newly added UI Flow for RPA. It hit general availability (GA) in April 2020. And then, suggesting it did not quite have what it needed, Microsoft acquired RPA firm Softomotive in May 2020. Our view of the acquisition was that it would strengthen the legitimacy of the RPA industry and that if any vendor was going to achieve UiPath’s vision of a bot for every worker, it would be Microsoft. Perhaps the inherent RPA scale issue could be solved by making RPA the world’s next standard desktop application.

Softomotive integration ensued, and then in December 2020, Microsoft announced the general availability of Power Automate Desktop, the native integration of Softomotive’s WinAutomation technology into Power Automate. The GA announcement heralded the expansion of Microsoft’s RPA capabilities with added features such as a drag and dropped no-code visual designer, embedded web and desktop recorders (to record your work and automate automation builds), and a host of connectors to various systems. The resulting PowerAutomate product as it stands today is a hybrid of cloud-based API automation (flows in Microsoft vernacular) and on-premise user-interface (UI)-based Automation (aka RPA) with the availability of enterprise collaboration, governance, reporting, and integration capabilities – with the rest of the Power Platform (Power Apps, Power BI, and power Virtual Agents) as well as Teams at the top of the integration list. Its primary form is attended Automation – which is Automation triggered by a user. 

The resulting impact has been a rapid uptake in enterprise tinkering with the Microsoft tools, as 23% of automation decision-makers now view them as one of their primary automation suppliers, which our recent survey across 400 of the Global 2000 demonstrates:

Click to Enlarge

With so many enterprises under pressure from their leaderships to align all desktop software onto the plethora of Microsoft applications, it’s no surprise that interest and adoption in the PowerAutomate platform to be on a sharp increase.

So what is actually “free”, folks?

The PowerAutomate pricing you’ll find on Microsoft’s website shows a tiered approach going from $15 to $40 per user per month. This pricing stands, and Microsoft has essentially added a new, freemium option as the entry-level. The freemium provides access to Power Automate Desktop, the desktop-based attended RPA functionality – essentially the Microsoft version of the former Softomotive WinAutomation. The $15 price point is for cloud-based API automation (unlimited flows). The $40 price point is the combination of RPA functionality plus cloud-based API automation flows with an added enterprise governance and management functionality. Other enterprise options exist for unlimited users as well as an unattended offering.

Notably, this freemium version will be offered as part of Windows 10 and subsequent versions going forward. Microsoft is literally offering RPA to the world as part of its evolving standard toolset to get work done. With Microsoft’s reach, we may actually make some progress with business user adoption.

Bottom line: Native automation is not “Hyper”, it’s a must-have attitude and mindset, and we now have broad access to the tools to make this happen

Automation is not your strategy; it’s a necessary competency ensuring your processes provide data to deliver your business outcomes.  If your processes are not automated, you will struggle to run a work-from-anywhere business where front and back offices are blended to create OneOffice.  Automation must be native to organizations giving it the ability to apply AI to orchestrate these processes,  It is not “hyper” or even “intelligent”; it just needs to be native.  Your strategy is to have data to drive smart decisions to stay ahead of your competitors and refine your supply chain impact.

However, despite the business-led automation revolution that has been the hallmark of RPA, it continues to suffer from a fundamental adoption issue: no one knows how to use it and has not been incentivized to use it. Enterprises that have set up RPA programs, particularly those in the formative years, learned the hard way that trying to run and scale RPA without IT was a road to nowhere and/or required expensive perpetual use of external service partners. Initiatives to create “citizen developers” – essentially business users who could develop and manage RPA programs were lackluster at best. Seriously, “developer” is in the description, foretelling the skill set actually required to do anything more than build a simple task bot to answer email or do data entry.  

In the process of setting up RPA programs, the people whose work was being automated realized that their jobs may actually be at risk based on the hyped promises made by RPA vendors to transform business processes and eliminate manual work. Toss in a shocking array of images of physical robots and then sprinkle in confusing RPA licensing and you’ve basically created a product doomed to be implemented by IT, who don’t really respect it, and managed by a select group of MENSA business users who have dedicated their lives to its proliferation and talking incessantly about it. Maybe we’ve succeeded in “democratizing” business-led Automation, but we certainly have NOT brought Automation to the workers. Centers of Excellence have co-opted the revolution.

What if we tried the Microsoft approach – free and easy – native Automation for everyone using Windows (we’ll save our views on how Apple did this ages ago with workflows for another time). If it’s free, it becomes less about how the RPA vendors pay back their investors and more about how we actually improve how we do work. 

Posted in : Artificial Intelligence, intelligent-automation, Robotic Process Automation, robotic-transformation-software

Many of you saw we recently hired the analyst industry’s first “storyteller”… and do we have some stories to tell!  Nischala Murthy Kaushik has joined us to drive a crisp and enticing narrative for our industry during these turbulent times of change, which she will attempt to fit between her yoga and meditation sessions, and her amazing dinners with hubby Saurabh and young ladies Naisha and Tanishka. 

Nischala will curate the HFS 2025 vision and values to the industry using her substantial social media presence – she was recently named among the Top 20 LinkedIn Voices for India. In addition to working closely with our research team, she is a blogger, thinker, and provocateur in her own right including bylines in Huffington Post and The Economic Times, with a strong focus on inclusion and diversity.  So let’s find out a bit more about HFS’ latest acquisition…

Phil Fersht: Hi Nischala – we are extremely happy you have chosen to focus the next phase of your career with us.  But taking a step back, can you talk about your early years and why you chose a career in the IT services industry?  Was this the career you always wanted?  

Nischala Murthy Kaushik – Phil – Firstly, Thank you for being instrumental in my career shift. I look forward to working with you and the HFS team for the next phase of my career.

Time travel into the past is always a nostalgic experience. As a kid, I aspired to walk down a new career path in line with the seasons – from a genetic researcher to a doctor, to starting my own business venture (my extended family has lots of doctors, entrepreneurs, and some both!), to being part of the fashion industry to competitive sports!

However, the reality was that I have always excelled in Math and Science at school, and in India, one of the preferred career paths for kids who do well in these subjects tends to be around Engineering and Technology. In my case, there was a strong influence and a role model in my father – who studied at IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) and went on to do his Ph.D. in the US. When he returned to India, he chose to work with TCS as one of its initial set of employees!  And since I had seen him walk down that career path, I naturally gravitated towards it.

So my Engineering degree paved the way for a career in the IT services industry.  Once I started my professional journey, the penchant for ‘new and diverse experiences’ has fuelled my career taking me across the world to exciting and interesting destinations (US, Europe, India) for work assignments in strategy consulting, technology solution development and leading innovations. Over the past two decades, exposure to global companies, diverse cultures and work environments, different world views, and ways of working have shaped my career and outlook – giving me a holistic understanding of the IT industry.

After more than two decades with Wipro, what do you feel have been your greatest accomplishments, Nischala, and how do you hope to take these experiences into the analyst industry with HFS?

I have been fortunate to play many varied and exciting roles, Phil, and each has been a great learning experience. I strongly subscribe to the mantra – After every 3 years, one should change your role, boss, team, or company! Along the way, I experienced many leadership shifts at the C-suite, multiple organization re-structuring, M&A (Merger & Acquisitions), financial/economic lows to a global pandemic in 2020. Every experience has left me wiser with a lesson and two, and left a mark by leaving a white hair or two.

Looking back, my top 3 favorite work assignments are below:

Top on the list was the strategic consulting work I did at a global payments and technology company. This was exciting as I had the opportunity to create the roadmap around next-generation payment solutions and strategy. It is particularly memorable as the success of the program was pivoted on an executive leadership connect, which I anchored independently for a multi-million dollar engagement! At the end of my recommendation, the business leader looked me straight in the eye and said, “Where should I sign the cheque?” J

Two is around blockchain market positioning – an emerging technology area, new to the industry and the company at the time. The opportunity to create and execute the GTM strategy and an integrated marketing campaign to create mind-share in the global ecosystem was challenging and exciting. From defining the solution offerings to winning the first customer deal to all the media/press coverage to getting industry awards and analyst accolades, the entire journey has been memorable.

Three is being part of a successful corporate intrapreneurship initiative. Being part of the innovation life cycle was a unique experience! It is terrific to start with a small nebulous idea and see the metamorphosis and emergence into a tangible solution. The process of creating something new is always unparalleled. 

So tell us, how do these experiences apply to the analyst industry, Nischala?

• One – these experiences help me understand how customers think, prioritize and make choices; and what factors and variables influence business decisions.
• Two, they help me understand how organizations work – in terms of people, process, policy, politics, technology, and governance.
• Three, having been on the client side of research – I also understand what kind of analyst insights and perspectives are valued.

The other exciting aspect about you has been observing your prolific writing and social media presence, despite having a full-time corporate career. How did that come about?

That’s a great question, Phil! I always say that I gave birth to my daughter, and she gave birth to the writer in me. I started publishing actively about a decade ago when on my first maternity break, and there has been no looking back. The sheer love for the written word has kept me going!

Over time, I have gained a deep understanding of my own writing process and the content life cycle process – both from the content creator and the content consumer perspective. And of course, experiencing the real-time global reach of words and the power of words to influence and make a difference is empowering and enjoyable.

I am particularly proud of my achievements as a writer and on social media as I started from Ground Zero. I have systematically, creatively, and consciously grown it to where it is.

As you get settled into your role with HFS, Nischala, how do you want to embrace the platform you have to make a difference?

It’s been just a few weeks at HFS – and I slowly and surely understanding the power of the platform – in terms of depth of research, breadth of reach, executive leadership mind-share and nature of influence.

One would be to create and anchor leadership dialogues, especially around what it takes to be a leader in this new decade, how leaders are looking at long-term strategic growth, short-term survival and what leaders can do to leave a strong leadership legacy. Conversations around the future of work, innovation, technology, and digital transformation would be interesting!

Two is around skills for the next generation of the workforce, a topic dear to me. How can we leverage our perspectives as we envision the future, especially to prepare the next generation talent for industry? Actionable insights on what students and young professionals can do to plan and prepare for meaningful careers and the kind of learning programs corporates and universities can design as they nurture the talent of tomorrow.

Three is definitely around moving the needle on the issues surrounding diversity and inclusion. Specifically, if we look at gender diversity – 2020 has been a particularly tough year for women at the workplace, so any ideas, insights, and inspiration to help women survive and thrive as we forge ahead would make a difference. 

Four is an opportunity based on my industry experience. Creating research and insights for the CMO / Marketing function around strategy, technology, and storytelling.

Lastly, Phil, looking at research and insights around corporate innovation for enterprises – simply because as we move in 2021 and beyond, sustainable innovation is going to be critical for enterprises across the globe.

And do you believe the analyst community can do more to promote the future path for the technology industry than it does today?  

I have been a consumer of analyst services for more than a decade. Fundamentally, to me an analyst is a blend of an ideapreneur, a horizon gazer, and a change catalyst. In general, analysts are fantastic in seeding new ideas and concepts which most industry professionals can’t even think of (sometimes because of the lack of time, or focus or the mind-set), and crystal ball gazing into the future. However, in reality – most organizations struggle with the realization of these ideas into business reality to drive meaningful impact.

I do think there is an opportunity for analysts to collaborate and co-partner with industry to accelerate the pace of change – especially since there is a view on both the supply and demand side. The progressive next step could be for the analyst community to take a couple of steps forward to help realize the change. For example: If we talk about blockchain as an emerging technology area, the question to ask is, “Is there a way that analysts can partner with large enterprises in the strategic planning and realization of blockchain projects?”

Finally, Nischala – what do you hope we’ll all be talking about this time next year – and what do you think we’ll be talking about…

I hope we will all be talking about the post COVID world in January 2022, and hopefully living it too! And in that paradigm, I think we will be talking about 3 Is – new Ideas, sustainable Innovation, and positive Impact to individuals, businesses, communities, societies, and the world at large.

Meet the Kaushiks:  Saurabh, Nischala, Naisha and Tanishka

Posted in : IT Outsourcing / IT Services, Outsourcing Heros

With companies the size and stature of Aetna, Amazon, Nationwide Insurance, Microsoft, and Unilever committing to the hybrid work model well beyond Covid-19, where home working is encouraged, you know a seismic shift to the corporate work culture is firmly underway.  Simply put, most firms are enjoying the lesser reliance on expensive corporate real estate, combined with the novel environment to design and automate processes in a cloud model – because there is simply no choice but to embrace digital head-on if they are to survive.

The true benefits of digital are all about scaling your business at a speed and cost-efficiency that keeps you ahead of your customers’ needs.  It’s all been about breaking the cycle where you had to keep adding people to ensure growth – for today and tomorrow, it’s about doing more business from the same (or less) resources. 

OneOffice is the mindset to put real digital transformation into action, and there has never been a burning platform like the Work-From-Anywhere (WFA) revolution to force this change

Some of the world’s largest enterprises still have up to 100% staff working from home and have managed as a remote workforce for a year now.  A recent HFS study of 400 Global 2000 enterprises reveals that barely more than a third of enterprises intend to return to an office-based corporate model:

Office-based environments will never return to pre-COVID levels: We will have a significant Work-from-Anywhere workforce

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It is very unlikely that most enterprises will return to full-time office work, and the ramifications are plentiful and we evolve into Work-from-Anywhere

This is a complicated puzzle to solve, especially for large enterprises with a wide breadth of business functions and roles.  This essentially leaves us with four pivotal questions to answer:

• The 9-5 workday is dead, but what does the new workday (and workforce) actually look like?
• How can businesses prevent burnout while ensuring productivity at the same time?
• How can workers adapt their skillsets that will stand them in good stead in this emerging environment?
• And how do they ensure employee satisfaction while making the right decisions for security and business stability?

The new mentality is all about measuring outcomes from getting work done, as opposed to the inputs of resourcing for work

The nature of work is fundamentally changing, and if companies manage this shift effectively, it will change the work environment for the better for ambitious enterprises.  What’s needed is a solid grasp on what the long-term pivot to a ‘work from anywhere’ means to businesses, and a plan to make the remote workforce a part of the Digital OneOffice mindset.   Ideally, these changes switch the mentality to an outcomes-focused model where all that really matters is that work gets done and customers and employees are satisfied, regardless of where either is physically located.

The why, the what, and the how of Work From Anywhere in 2021… and beyond

The “why” of work from home was starkly apparent in March 2020, when employees were compelled to work from home en masse to mitigate the virus’s spread.  Now, it’s a different story.  Now we’ve learned that when you have the right process and tools, work from home actually works.  In many cases, it works better than traditional office working models – if it’s done right. We have spent a lot of time talking to the top contact center services companies and their enterprise clients about how they managed the disruption and are sustaining the new remote model.  If these guys can master the WFA transformation while delivering incredibly high-touch services (which are rife with security concerns and imbued with a significant social dynamic in physical workforce spaces) – and make them work really well –   we all have some lessons to learn from these folks. 

The very basics of WFA success – the ‘what’ –  are the elements of employee setups that are required to keep the operation ticking: the five tenets of long-term work at home success (see below).  Each of these elements — health and safety, security, employee engagement, flexibility and agility, and technology enablement need to be pillars of your work from home strategy, or it will fall flat, causing frustration at best and disaster at worst. 

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The last few months have taught most companies how to stabilize and operationalize a work from home model.  But what’s next?  Now we need to formalize this, optimize it, and most importantly, adapt how we do business to the new(ish) remote dynamic that clearly isn’t going away any time soon.  Now, it’s time for enterprises to roll up their sleeves and learn the HOW – how to optimize for better performance, to drive business value, and to shift with the evolving needs of customers and employees.  How can you make work from anywhere a catalyst that helps your firm in its journey and mindset toward OneOffice, where traditional business siloes are broken down, employee and customer experiences are tightly aligned, and what matters most is clearly articulated outcomes?  Here are our top recommendations for strategizing on a long-term work from anywhere strategy.

Formalizing your Work From Anywhere operations as a strategic element of the OneOffice journey

1. ‘Wellness’ has a deeper meaning in a remote environment. Understanding what wellness means in a virtual world is knowing that it’s much more than temperature checks and making sure people ‘show up’ for work.  While we must first ensure that people are healthy and have the proper conditions to do their jobs, the dynamics of working remotely raise new and sometimes less tangible concerns.  Mental health issues are strained in quarantine and lock-down circumstances.  Zoom fatigue is real, where exhaustion levels plague productivity and staff are given little time to focus on executing work, away from the constant obsession with having video-meetings on every topic imaginable.  You must have a formalized proactive outreach to ensure people have are ‘OK’ and if they aren’t, provide or recommend resources to help them deal with the trials they’re enduring.  Some leading service providers have implemented biometric tools that can use things like keystroke patterns to detect if someone is getting fatigued.  It sounds a bit Orwellian, but consider the relief of an exhausted worker who gets a pop-up notification suggesting it’s time to take a much-needed break.  As with any new tech, it can seem scary until people see the benefit to their lives or jobs.
2. You must formally track employee engagement in a remote model. Apart from general wellness, employee engagement and performance management is an entirely different beast in a remote environment.   Take the contact center, for example; these are folks who are used to several team ‘huddles’ a day, regular one on one coaching, often from floor walking managers who are picking up on physical cues to sense the need for help, not to mention the socialization of breakrooms and camaraderie with colleagues. This has been one of the most disrupted of the enterprise functions, and flipping all this to a virtual model means setting up collaboration tools and workspaces that enable a semblance of this kind of engagement. Not everyone works well in this environment, especially those that thrive on a social element.  You will need to re-evaluate what a successful talent profile looks like for remote work, as well as make considerations for talented staff you want to retain in a potential hybrid scenario (see #4).  This is where your data and analytics must take a front and center role to better track not only performance management but also recruitment and hiring data, and employee satisfaction.
3. Collab tools and environments won’t work without a culture of collaboration. So you’ve put the tools in place to enable collaboration, but will people want to?  You need to have the kind of culture where people feel as though their voice is actually being heard and their input is considered; otherwise, they will not be incentivized to contribute.  If people struggled with collaborating in person, this could be exacerbated in the sometimes awkward, stilted venues of Zoom chats and Teams meetings.  People need the confidence to share ideas and know that they are valued.  It is now even more critical for leaders to listen in order to motivate. 
4. Embrace flexibility and agility, as ‘normal’ continues to shift, and varying degrees of hybrid will ensue. Just as retailers have pivoted to find the right balance of options for the shopper that encompass both safe physical experiences and seamless e-commerce based on consumer preference, companies must also adopt a flexible mentality to cater to employee expectations.   Salesforce’s recent announcement offering ‘flex’ plans for employees to decide what makes sense for their work and risk situation is an example of this.  Also, as you roll out hybrid programs, be prepared for the impacts of fluctuating pandemic conditions and local government regulations, which may suddenly shift everything fully remote once again.
5. Design virtual employee journeys from start to finish.  We are entering a new world where there is a potential that a person could be educated, graduated, recruited, hired, trained, promoted, etc., COMPLETELY virtually.  Employers must think about which elements of these steps are fundamentally different for remote and what elements of the employee journey you can replicate online.  Top service providers have shared effective strategies including employee persona development and journey mapping (just as we do with customers), virtual recruitment lobbies and job fairs, and virtual break rooms where people can unwind and chat (sans pool table, of course, though some have created gaming rooms where employees can challenge their colleagues to a lively round of Jeopardy).  Some of these elements are practical – the typical skills assessment, as having always been administered, is now accompanied by device qualification and ISP bandwidth testing to ensure suitability for WFH requirements.
6. Automation and self-service should be embedded in the employee journey. Just as we expect intelligent virtual assistance and seamless password resets in our consumer lives, we expect similar experiences with their employers.  We have seen some fantastic examples of digital associates assisting with recruiting and onboarding new staff.  Also, think of the disruption to IT service desks over the last year – automation and self-service can help to make those interactions seamless. Moreover, when employees don’t have easy access to these tools, their direct supervisor often becomes the default IT helpdesk.  This is obviously not aligned to the manager’s skill set but also takes away from the precious time of coaching and development of employees.  Speaking of coaching and development, we’ve even seen digital assistants being used to help trainees practice the skills required before leveling up to practice with supervisors and finally go live with customers.  These tools must be designed to help kill mundane work to make workers more effective and to augment and support the employee experience.
7. Now is the time to really dig in and consider diversification of the workforce. This is one of the shiniest examples of a silver lining that the massive disruption of a global pandemic has resulted in.  Now that work from home is normalized, companies can stop paying lip service to diversity and really rethink their diversity strategies to start recruiting from pools of labor that were disenfranchised in a brick-and-mortar environment; think the differently-abled or working moms, for example.  Not to mention the potential for penetrating untapped labor markets without the need for giant investments, including onshore destinations, which can help with often longed for localized resources.  Diversity should be an essential component of doing business in 2021 and beyond.
8. Last, but perhaps most crucial: drive performance through the lens of humanity. I was struck by a recent quote from Howard Schultz, which described the culture of Starbucks as “performance-based through the lens of humanity.”  Businesses need to perform financially to survive and thrive, but as leaders, it is also important to take a step back and consider if our decisions are aligned to more holistic principles, including impact on our people, their local communities, and our global society.  We have learned more about humanity than we ever expected in the last year, and our personal lives bleed into our work and vice versa like never before. We’ve learned to see each other in a more human light.  Not just as colleagues, mentors, or resources, but as parents, caretakers, siblings, citizens – as people.  While we are physically remote, we cannot settle for a remote culture where we keep each other at arm’s length; remote working in the long term requires constant communication and transparency to ensure that employees know the company’s values and their role in influencing and delivering on them. 

The bottom line:  work-from-anywhere has become part of the fabric of company operations rather than an afterthought and a reaction to a crisis

This is true beginning of the OneOffice, five years since we introduced this mindset to our industry.  Now we must make remote working an agile and future-proof business model where talent is embraced and given the freedom to develop, outside of the confines of cube-farms and rigid 9.00-5.00 work structures.

Posted in : Contact Center and Omni-Channel, OneOffice, Talent and Workforce

It’s time to make Sanjay Jalona a services household name in the IT services industry. He made the jump from leadership positions at Infy to CEO and Managing Director of LTI in 2015. When I pulled up their stock chart I had to rub my eyes – thought for a moment that I was looking at the acceleration of COVID across the globe. But no, that’s the 5-year snap of LTI’s stock growth. Sanjay has lead LTI through an IPO in 2016 to continued momentum in growth across capabilities today.  

The COVID landscape has created massive pivots across the industry, so I was deeply curious where he was taking risks and deep dives for the future – as he will say, the capabilities where he’s “throwing the kitchen sink.” And speaking of the kitchen sink, we touch on everything from leading and learning with Shoshin (a beginner’s mind) to the positive changes sweeping India. Let’s begin:

Phil Fersht, CEO and Chief Analyst, HFS Research: It’s great to see you again, Sanjay, and have you join us for an HFS conversation. This is the first time we’ve had a “live” discussion, so it’d be great to have you introduce yourself a bit to our network – a little bit about Sanjay Jalona, how you ended up running a business like LTI, and a bit about how you started out. Did you always want to do this, and was this what you dreamed of? And then we’ll talk a bit more about the industry and where things are going there.

Sanjay Jalona, CEO and Managing Director of Larsen & Toubro Infotech (LTI): It’s always a pleasure to talk to you, Phil. I grew up in a small town, up north in India – six hours’ drive from Delhi in the foothills of the Himalayas. My father worked for a pharma company all his life. I studied there in a Hindi Medium school, and then went to study computer science at BITS Pilani. After that, for the last three decades, I have been involved in nothing else but the technology business.

So, I guess I’d reckon that I would completely be useless outside this industry [laughs]

I have done a lot of coding in my life; I have run delivery functions; I have run large, critical programs for our customers, so I have traversed both sides. I have been here at LTI for over five years now – time flies when you’re having fun, right? – but for the 15 years before that, I was at Infosys.

“I have been very lucky, for the last three decades, to work with great, great leaders and mentors.”

I have been very lucky, for the last three decades, to work with great, great leaders and mentors. I started my career at Wipro, and I got a chance to work with some of the brightest leaders there. Then I worked with a lot of leaders at Infosys: Kris, Shibu, Nandan, Mohandas Pai, BG Srinivas, Ashok Vemuri, and the likes, a very close association, and I learnt a lot from them. It was a great, great experience.

“The world was changing dramatically; the digital technologies, or exponential technologies, as I call them were coming into the fray, and there was a need for a new kind of a tech company, a solutions company. And I saw that as an opportunity…”

I thought I would retire from Infosys, frankly, but, lo and behold, there comes a time in everyone’s life when you say, “What next?” The world was changing dramatically, the digital technologies, or exponential technologies, as I call them, were coming into the fray, and there was a need for a new kind of tech company, a solutions company. And I saw that as an opportunity and met with Mr. A. M. Naik. I went with the simple mindset to go and meet an industry stalwart; I had no interest in leaving Infosys at that time, but you just cannot meet him and not be influenced!

I have worked with some great people who have built India in a definitive way, and I have enjoyed every single day of my work and life here. I thought CEO would be a lot easier, but we have seen so much happening in the last five years; the onslaught of exponential technologies, Brexit, COVID, all kinds of problems all around the world, the protectionist environment. There’s not been a single dull day, ever.

So that’s who I am. I’m grateful to be surrounded by great people. If there’s one thing that I have learned, very early in my life, it was that leaders have to have at least three – if not four – people who could potentially replace them at any given point in time. And I’m so blessed to actually have what industry experts have called a dream team, and we have stuck together. I’m lucky to be working with them to bring the company to where it is now.

So that’s who I am in a nutshell.

Phil: Fantastic. So, you’ve come through some of the biggest names in the industry, you know, I recognize a lot of the people you’ve spoken about, like Shibu, and, in particular, Nandan. What did you learn from these guys that you took into LTI and maybe tweaked a little bit? What did you take from the ingredients from these earlier champions in this industry that you felt you could infuse into the firm you’re in now?

Sanjay: Many things, Phil. Some 25 years back, I was at Wipro and overseas somewhere. I think I was in the US, and Premji had come visiting. And I was really a newbie with three or four years of experience and was finding it challenging to schedule executive meetings for him. He turns around and says, “I’m happy to meet the Project Manager. He is the one who’s putting the bread on the plate.” So that kind of humility is the first thing that you learn when you get into the professional world.

“Humility is the first thing that you learn when you get into the professional world. …And frankly, you learn a lot from very difficult bosses…. Dealing with being flexible, learning in the most difficult situations, and working with customers to find solutions are some of the things that I learned from these mentors.”

High aspirations, building teams, and working with limited resources, to get the best out of people is what I learned at Infosys. And frankly, you learn a lot from very difficult bosses, as well. Right? So, dealing with being flexible, learning in the most difficult situations, and working with customers to find solutions are some of the things that I learned from these mentors.

Phil: Interesting. And then let’s get to 2020. I think many of us feel that we learned more in 2020 than ever about ourselves and our qualities, and maybe where we need to improve, as well. Do you feel last year has been the biggest learning year for you as a leader?

Sanjay: Oh, in many ways. I think we are frankly rediscovering, or have rediscovered, some dimensions of us that we never knew existed. If you were to ask me if I felt the same way in February/March last year, when COVID actually hit the first time, I would have never imagined that we would be here. There was a sense of panic. I was truly scared at that time about how we would keep our promises? How would we keep our employees safe? How would we grow? If you are a publicly listed company, you are expected to grow. And none of us had ever experienced anything of this sort in our lives before. We had never seen this before.

I think there was great character shown by “LTItes” going that extra mile. We had cases of people picking up their computers in the middle of the night, a seven-months-pregnant lady coming at midnight; there are people ferrying computers all over the place; there are customer calls, people following simple basic principles, like call five new people at 5pm, every day, for five days. This exemplifies the social fabric that binds us all together that has come to bear.

“We never thought we could connect with as many people as we are able to do today. There are days where I connect with four, five customers from all across the geographies. From a single click, I am connected more to people inside our organisation, our 30,000-people organisation, than I ever was in the last five years. So, there are lots of positives.”

We never thought we could connect with as many people as we are able to do today. There are days where I connect with four, five customers from all across the geographies. From a single click, I am connected more to people inside our organisation, our 30,000-people organisation, than I ever was in the last five years. So, there are lots of positives.

But there are things which you start to miss, as well. That social fabric that has bound us together. The individual productivity might be high, but we need ideas flowing in a setting where people are working together, they are fighting, they are arguing, and they bring their best to bear.

“But we need ideas flowing in a setting where people are working together, they are fighting, they are arguing, and they bring their best to bear… I think that energy is what we start to miss.

I think we have discovered that there are great characters all across, be it customers, be it employees, who have all come together to solve a problem and take care of one another, and I think that’s the big positive.”

I think that energy is what we start to miss, but I think we have discovered that there is great character all across, be it customers or employees, all came together to solve a problem and take care of one another, and I think that’s the big positive.

Phil: Interesting. We can talk about some of the challenges, but, I mean, we were predicting 8 to 10% decreases in the services industry back in March, and I actually think it’s been flat to a small growth increment this year, believe it or not. Despite everything, we’ve actually still grown the industry, and I feel very blessed to be in this space.

Are we lucky to be in this space? Do you think this will continue to be a blessed area, where companies will always depend on us? Or do you think this is commoditising and we need to wise up, and be prepared for tough times as well?

Sanjay: I think we are coming to the next phase of the growth curve, Phil, if I were to call it that, and this is definitely a dichotomous world today. On one side, you have a COVID-related impact; there are macro and microeconomic issues. But on the other hand, every industry and every company needs to operate in a new operating model. Insurance companies need to do remote insurance for people, and distribution of insurance, and digital claims. A bank needs to be able to digitally onboard a customer, you or me, without ever seeing us. A retailer has to have the ability to order online and pick up on the curbside.

“I think we are coming to the next phase of the growth curve, Phil…. But today, it’s about survival for everyone, so I think it’s opened a plethora of opportunities for IT companies to operate in.”

There are things which are required to be done for every single company. But today, it’s about survival for everyone, so I think it’s opened a plethora of opportunities for IT companies to operate in.

You are seeing industries that were typically B2B becoming B2C. You are looking at new operating models; you are seeing people looking at cutting costs so they can fund all of these. Cybersecurity gains even more prominence because people are totally distributed. This is going to lead to tremendous opportunities in fewer areas, cloud, and data, for example – two predominant things that come to mind in a very big way.

“Speed of execution is very important, but the most important thing is the ability to co-create with the customer. And if you don’t have the depth and the knowledge of that vertical, I think you will struggle…”

Speed of execution is very important, but the most important thing is the ability to co-create with the customer. And if you don’t have the depth and the knowledge of that vertical, I think you will struggle to have a discussion on what the target operating model for the customer would look like. And there are many verticals which we don’t operate in. This is not a good time to start in a new vertical because what would you go and tell them? But the depth in the verticals that we do operate in, I think there is room for doing more in our totally trusted advisory kind of a capability, co-creating the solutions.

It’s a great opportunity, but it’s very difficult to do this. It’s easier to do it in our asset base, our customers. It’s even more difficult to go outside that asset base and do that. And that is the tricky situation.

Phil: But is that because we’re only just getting used to the fact that we can actually build relationships with people on a video screen? I know it’s not ideal, but we’re going to have to get used to it for a while, and it’s easy with people you have relationships with, which takes me on to something else, which I think is very pertinent.

The one thing I see in spades from a lot of customer conversations recently is that decisions are getting made much faster, and they’re actually being made, and customers are executing now. Between 2010 and 2020, when cloud appeared and digital evolved, and AI, and everything… we spent a lot of time figuring out what is possible, but we didn’t really execute on it. It was a lot of time just figuring it out.

Suddenly, it’s, “Okay, all that great stuff we talked about, a lot of this now has to happen, and very, very quickly,” with the conversations on the client-side leading to a rapid, rapid desire to execute. I think there’s a focus on, “We need partners who can get us there. They don’t necessarily have to be the best or to have the greatest technology, but they need to be able to get us there. And they need to have the ability to do it fast and understand us as they do it because we need to operate in a cloud environment. We have to automate processes, so they function in a cloud environment; we have to figure out what those are, and then we have to then look at things like AI so that we can orchestrate those processes effectively.”

“Everything is sort of in a cloud model now; it’s much more standardised. …If you’re on the IT side of things, you’re spending more time trying to figure out how to apply this to what your business customers need than to figure out how to actually just make it work.”

Your business customers are trying to figure out, “What is it we do need? How fast can it scale? We don’t have to know how the technology works, per se, but we need to know how it enables these processes to run.” So, we’ve got this rapid change, from great ideas to speed, to get-it-done-fast-and-don’t-mess-it-up.”

Sanjay: Yeah, speed is very critical now. Very critical. And Phil, you’ve got to remember that companies that had adopted the cloud were able to go to remote working a lot less pain than people who had not adopted the cloud. Today, if you look at the kind of roadmap and the speed at which even regulated industries like banking, insurances, life sciences, etc., are moving in the adoption of the cloud, it is next to none.

“We have created a separate unit focused on AWS, a separate unit for Azure, and GCP, and we have taken all our investments… We want to divert the bulk of the investments for the company to all things cloud. The second area where we are investing bigtime is all on data products.”

This is where, Phil, we have created a separate unit focused on AWS, a separate unit for Azure, and GCP, and we have taken all our investments… We want to divert the bulk of the investments for the company to all things cloud. The second area where we are investing bigtime is all on data products. We have great IP in what we build, Mosaic, and Leni, which is an augmented analytics piece – really, really cool, you should look at analysing that.

“We believe there are great opportunities in the marketplace, so we have created these two new growth engines. Looking at COVID, we had to expedite this in a big way, so we are throwing the kitchen sink at these two ideas for the future.”

We believe there are great opportunities in the marketplace, so we have created these two new growth engines. Looking at COVID, we had to expedite this in a big way, so we are throwing the kitchen sink at these two ideas for the future.

Phil: And in terms of who clients are picking as partners now, it feels very different. “Brand” is kind of out of the window a bit now; it’s who understands us, who knows us, who can get us there. How are you making sure that LTI is on that final three trusted list with your key clients? Do you feel that you’re there at this point, that you’re in the place you want to be? Or do you think this is still a lot of jostling for position where everyone’s kind of looking at each other trying to figure out what to do?

“We want to be positioned very simply as small enough to care, but large enough to deliver… We strongly believe we have the depth in capabilities.”

Sanjay: We want to be positioned very simply as small enough to care but large enough to deliver. So as the deal sizes have shrunk, we strongly believe we have the depth in capabilities, and that’s the part on which we have seriously focused over the last five years. You would not find anybody who has probably built as many alliance partnerships, as many capabilities internally, or acquired six companies all on capability – none of them more than $15-20 million – but really creating a niche for ourselves. We were the first ones to build up with Snowflake, for example. We have the lead partnership there.

“If you have the capabilities, people will come to you. And, frankly, we like the positioning of the number one challenger. For us, growth is a lagging indicator; capability is the leading indicator.”

If you focus, if you build the roads, people will come on the roads. If you have the capabilities, people will come to you. And, frankly, we like the positioning of the number one challenger. For us, growth is a lagging indicator; capability is the leading indicator. Do we have the right capabilities?

Five years back, if you reflect, we had zero capabilities on core banking. Today, we are the second-largest partner in the world for Temenos, for example. Second largest partner globally. And this would not have been possible if we did not methodically go on filling up these white spaces, so to speak. And that’s what we believe we do well.

“Customers used to source for scale. But now, companies source for excellence, source for capabilities. And that is the difference.”

Customers used to source for scale. “Which company has the ability to serve me globally? Can give 5,000 people at any given point of time?” But now, companies source for excellence, source for capabilities. And that is the difference. This is a phenomenon that has changed in the last five years.

Phil: Yes. It’s been a rapid, rapid shift. And I think we will continue to have a tough winter during the next few months, I think people are getting savvier on the length of time it’s going to take for a big global population to be vaccinated, but at least we know it is going to happen, right?

Sanjay: Yes, exactly.

Phil: And 95% success probability. So, this means this situation will drag way into the latter parts of 2021. I’m hoping we open up a little bit, at least, because there was a period this year when we had some ability to move around a bit, but there’s a long time ahead for us here. This is a situation now where we have to look after ourselves and look after our jobs, and our friends, and everything. So, what should we do next? Because I sense a lot of people are getting fairly tired; they’re struggling. I spend most of my day trying to motivate people.

My 11-year-old son tries to motivate me. [Laughs]. But this has got a long period to run still. The good news is there is an end, but there’s still a long period to run, and I think we’ve held up amazingly well. Can we keep doing this? Or do you think there’s going to be some rough patches in the next few months?

Sanjay: You know, I hope this thing gets over a lot more quickly than probably what you’re pointing out, and we are at least able to meet people. We need a social fabric. There are kids who are starting colleges and who are starting their professional lives at this time. A lot of us have survived because of the connections that we had built earlier.

Lots of them have to build them still, to do well, and to understand who they are. So, life after COVID, I hope it starts very rapidly. But, frankly, there are a few things that I am concerned about. One is health. So, within our boundaries at LTI, I write a lot about people needing to find ways and means to exercise and eat healthily.

Mental health is a very big issue in these times. How do you connect with more and more people? We are starting some initiatives on mental health and the ability for people to call one another, having a central desk for people to call up, and so on and so forth.

“I am a big proponent of something called Shoshin, which is a beginner’s mind, and this is a great time for people to invest in themselves. How do you learn? How do you use this time to learn new capabilities?

It’s very easy to go to that next email rather than investing some time in yourself. So, I’m talking a lot about people creating “me time”…to learn new things at this time and to just connect and be there for one another.”

I am a big proponent of something called Shoshin, which is a beginner’s mind, and this is a great time for people to invest in themselves. How do you learn? How do you use this time to learn new capabilities? Because it’s very easy to go to that next email rather than investing some time in yourself.

So, I’m talking a lot about people creating “me time” and applying the basic principles of Shoshin, a beginner’s mind, to learn new things at this time and to just connect and be there for one another. It’s very important for all of us to do that. Frankly, I think productivity is very high because people are paranoid, but I think people need to have more than just work and focus on some of the things that I have just said.

Phil: Yes. Well said. I very much agree with some of this. And I’m not as pessimistic about next year as other people are. I think April, May, maybe June time is about the time I’m hoping to at least do a little bit of travel, a little bit more face to face. Just getting out and seeing people once or twice a week has been huge for us, by the way…

Sanjay: Well, I’ll tell you my thinking, Phil, on this. My wife decided over the weekend that she was going to book our vacation for next year. This is the summer before my daughter goes to university, and we are optimistic. We need to be optimistic! We have made a booking and will see what happens. Hopefully, we’ll still get to travel in the summer.

Phil: Certainly. So, we’ve spoken about COVID, and the industry, and things like that. Let’s look beyond that. We talk a lot about the new dawn, and the fog lifting – new ideas, new paradigms, energy, recessions end, and things replace them. What do you think, honestly, when this thing lifts, and we’re back in a world where we can do everything we want again? What do you think are going to be the differences from what life was like before?

Sanjay: Look, I don’t think we would ever go to 100% people working from the same offices, but I do not think it’ll be 70% or 80% working from home, either. There will be a hybrid model. It will allow you to get to the best talent which might not be able to come to locations, but I think it is important for us to have the exchange of ideas and flows there. We are not in an individual sport; we are a team sport. And it’s very important for people to ideate together to make this happen. So that is the first change that’ll happen.

It will create a gig economy. It’ll create the ability for people to tap out, you know, “Phil is an expert in some technology, which is good, but he lives in a nice, fancy place which he doesn’t want to leave and come to some part of the world where it’s required. But it’s okay, Phil can be tapped into this model, and it’ll be perfectly fine.”

“I think there is a big change coming for India, and I think it’s a positive change. …We have not created very many women leaders.

…They don’t need to have gaps anymore. They can continue to work even when they are pregnant or when they are working from home. We need to create an umbrella and an opportunity for them to do that. This should create a lot more leadership from women, and I think the world will be a lot better place…

As the COVID response itself has shown us, that wherever you have women at the top, the response has been far stronger and far better.”

I think there is a big change coming for India, and I think it’s a positive change – and I’ve talked very passionately about this. I think one failure if I have to associate one with my work for the last 30 years, we have not created very many women leaders. And I think this gives an opportunity for women, who have a bigger role in India, because of lack of social security, and frameworks in there, where they play roles of not only professionals, but wives, and mothers, and daughters, and daughters-in-law, and a lot more responsibility falls on their shoulders.

They don’t need to have gaps anymore. They can continue to work even when they are pregnant or when they are working from home. We need to create an umbrella and an opportunity for them to do that. This should create a lot more leadership from women, and I think the world will be a lot better place… as the COVID response itself has shown us, that wherever you have women at the top, the response has been far stronger and far better. So, I think that will be a positive.

I think things that will not change Phil; if you have a story to tell a customer, the value definition might change, but value creation will not. Customers will always find the money for you to work on that. That will never change.

“I think being passionate about clients’ success is never going to change. …We are in a people industry; valuing our own people is never going to change. I hope one thing will change is that we start to think in a much more unconstrained way.”

I think being passionate about clients’ success is never going to change. It might morph itself into something different. We are in a people industry; valuing our own people is never going to change. I hope one thing will change, is that we start to think in a much more unconstrained way. You know, humans, and more so probably the IT industry, think in a much more constrained way than we should, and hopefully, all of us have had some downtime to think about things that can dramatically change for all of us.

Phil: That’s wonderful. Well, I think we’ve conducted a lot of conversation, and I really look forward to sharing this with everybody. I think it’s been fantastic to hear your views, where you came from, where you want to go, the challenges, the opportunities, and Shoshin, and some of your values as well. I’ve really enjoyed hearing from you, and I’d love to catch up again with you soon because we have some great stuff coming out of our company. And maybe, when it’s nice and sunny again, I’ll be back, hopefully, stateside, and we can have a chat in person.

Sanjay: I look forward to doing that, Phil. I’ve really enjoyed our conversation, and we hope to build an even greater partnership.

Posted in : Cloud Computing, Digital Transformation, IT Outsourcing / IT Services