Firstly, we are not going to shut ourselves at home and lose our minds for the next few weeks. This is the first time we are experiencing a truly global pandemic and we’re all learning what the hell to do. However, rather than staring into a paralyzed abyss of a suspended reality of virtual conference calls, binge-watching the entire five seasons of the Wire (again) and watching your son’s best friend’s mom forbid them sharing Pokémon cards, take a deep breath. This thing is not going to ruin our lives. We just can’t let it.
Getting from abnormal to normal… quickly
The next 3-4 weeks we’ll figure out what’s going on. Firstly, we just don’t have all the data points yet. We don’t know how many people will get infected, and the speed that this will move – but it’s getting clearer everyday. In 3-4 weeks, we’ll all have much better data on the longevity of this thing, and how to manage ourselves accordingly for our families and our jobs.
We must quickly find our steady-living-state where ‘abnormal is normal’. Once we have a clearer picture, and we’re all taking sensible measures of self-distancing and avoiding risky gatherings, we can start planning our life again. We’ll know many people with whom we can meet, the houses we can visit, have small gatherings with colleagues we all know are observing sensible routines, even clients we can visit with in non-crowded sanitized offices, meeting rooms for hire which are Covid-19 compliant – or even each other’s houses, if the relationship is that good. We won’t be hopping on planes for a few weeks, but we can make the most of our social and professional networks around us.
Its time to get to work rapidly framing our new future, or we could quickly get left behind. Economies are changing, and most clients’ needs are radically changing with it. Business models that may have worked just a couple of weeks ago may already be dead in the water. Emerging technologies such as effective automation suites and the need to redesign processes will be more needed by companies more than ever. The hyperscale cloud will be the platform where global business is done. Turmoil forces change, and the current maelstrom will create rapid opportunities for some, and significant challenges for many caught in the headwinds. Keeping right on top of this is critical, and having research, advice and validation to support quick decisions has never been so critical.
This may not be going away anytime soon, so we just have to learn how to live with this. When reading what the experts in viruses are researching, it’s pretty clear that things thing will probably dissipate in warmer weather, but is highly likely to return again in the winter. In fact, it may just become a really nasty strain of flu that comes back in phases – and many of us will become immune because we had a strain of it, while there will also be preventative drugs and (touch-wood) a “Covid-19 shot” we can take that will negate our catching this.
We’ll emerge into a more virtual, hygiene-conscious world, and I really hope we’ll all be wiser for the experience as the whole value equation of society changes for the better
I’d be very surprised if this comes and goes in several weeks and we never hear from it again. It will take weeks to dissipate, there’ll be recurrences in various geographies, and there’ll be constant speculation about new strains emerging. Yes, this is a huge pain in the backside. But it’s here and will likely lurk around our lives and society for much longer than we expect. However, it has raised awareness of core hygiene issues so many people always ignored, and it has made the issue of fake news and lack of real, credible data the most critical issue today. It is also forcing many countries to address their woefully underfunded health systems and may even create a new value system where critical issues like climate change become more important political issues than merely the growth of the stock market.
The Bottom-line: it’s time to face up to this new normality… and we hope a new societal value equation
We’ll be back on planes eventually and grandstanding the next awesome technology innovations at conferences. But I hope we’ll all emerge a little more humble, human and socially conscious than we once were.
However, what we can’t do is wallow in paranoia, fear and allow ourselves to get sucked into a vortex of negativity. The stock market will most likely get hammered, we’ll tackle a difficult recession and many people will likely lose their jobs. However, our global economy will recover and we’ll find prosperity again. Let’s just hope it’s a world where we care more for our people, our health, our education, and our planet.
Highly-respected writer Tomas Pueyo conducts a bone-chilling analysis on the speed of Coronavirus spread if we don’t act now. Just observing the cases in China show how rapidly the virus stopped spreading as soon as it was locked down. These were his conclusions:
Let’s examine some of the data highlights from his research – all based on real-time data being reported in the virus spread. Firstly, see how quickly the number of cases in Hubei Province declines once the government implemented its lockdown:
The Bottom-Line: Social distancing policies reduce the exponential spread to the most vulnerable
In short, we need to buy time to make sure the elderly and young people do not catch this. The data from Taiwan already shows how effective social distancing and travel restrictions can be if implemented immediately as the country currently has the lowest incidence rate per capita. The broad data set from Hubei clearly tells us that, although the government acted late, its impact on decreasing the spread was massive.
While most businesses in our industry must be commended for enforcing swift travel restrictions and events cancellations, the same cannot be said for many governments which seem to be adopting more of a “wait and see” policy. Will we regret not acting swiftly enough? Only time will tell…
When the legendary Chandra moved on from his TCS leadership role three years ago, his successor had a very big pair of shoes to fill to lead, not only India’s most valuable company, but also to sustain its position as a truly global IT services heavyweight that could rival the likes of Accenture and IBM on any deal. Step up Rajesh Gopinathan, a quiet unassuming man who had focused on designing the internal workings of the firm for 16 years away from the spotlight.
So when presented with the rare opportunity to get time with Rajesh at the recent NASSCOM event in Mumbai, we couldn’t resist grabbing the chance to get him to share some of his views with the HFS audience… no scripting, just straight from the heart. Within his words you’ll find his formula for success, key areas of focus, commitment to people, ability to engender both transformation and regeneration, all while maintaining a commitment to make technology work for its customers…. enjoy.
Phil Fersht, CEO HFS Research:Good afternoon, Rajesh. It would be great just to hear a little bit about you and your role at TCS, and how you’ve evolved in the company. Maybe you could just give us a little bit about your background, where you started out and whether you ever expected to be doing this job that you’re doing today?
Rajesh Gopinathan, CEO TCS: That’s an easy one, the last part of it. No. [Laughs]. I am an engineer by education; I did an MBA and then joined the Tata Group, and, pretty much, that’s been where I have been throughout. But I moved around within the group, worked in a few of the operating companies, and then the last 20 years have been with TCS. And, in fact, as is the culture in TCS, I have moved across multiple areas, so I’ve been in operations, I’ve been in sales, then I was in finance, and finally ended up in this current role. When I joined the company, we were less than $400 – 500 million, so it’s been a phenomenal journey.
The good news is all of us have worked together right from the beginning, so none of us quite knew what the future held, but it’s always been run by aspiration, you know? We saw the possibility, and we knew that this is something that can be attacked systematically, going after it one after the other. That’s the biggest part of TCS. Right? That we have all grown together, and different people are in different roles throughout. …It’s a unique company, to that extent; I don’t think, of this size and scale, there are too many around.
Phil: We talk a lot with clients about what got them here and the journey they came on for the last ten years to today. So, as you look at where you’ve come from, and where the company’s going, do you think the same formula is going to work for the next five years, that worked in the last five? Or do you think things are changing radically?
Rajesh: There are formulas that have worked for the last ten years which will continue to work in the future, and there are formulas that have worked which will not. The formula that has worked, and which will continue to work, is this unrelenting focus on the customer, and unwavering belief in our own talent. As long as you stay very close to the customer, don’t get too coy, or too ahead of trying to think that you know what’s better for the customer. Stay very close to the customer, stay relevant and be in cadence with them, one step, two steps ahead. I keep characterizing our business in this way, that, if you think of a product company, a product company, by definition, needs to be ten steps ahead of the customer. They need to reimagine what the future is. They need to think about the possibilities, and they need to take a bet on where the future will be. I would say a more management consulting-oriented company needs to be five steps ahead. It needs to have answers and frameworks for when a customer starts to think about things. A technology services company needs to be a couple of steps ahead of the customer. It should be ready to be able to provide the customer with a trusted place where they can experiment with the things that they want to experiment with.
These are three different business models, and you need to be clear in your head which business model you are operating with. So we have been very, very focused. It’s like surfing the wave. The waves will keep changing, but you need to define yourself as surfing the current wave. And, as the wave changes, you’ve got to keep on readjusting yourself. But the value proposition is unwavering in its focus; it’s to make technology work for our customers.
Phil: Rajesh, do you think there’s a distinct shift happening, from technology change to culture change, to business change?
Rajesh: That’s an interesting way of putting that question, Phil. From a technology perspective, there was a period of massive heterogeneity, and now it’s coalescing, which has been the nature of technology. It keeps getting compressed; therefore, we need to equip ourselves to be able to deal with it again and again. So the way we think about it is, every time we hire a kid out of college we believe that the person will have a 30-year-plus career with us. So, with the speed that we are going, you are going to see three, four, five, eight cycles.
We have to be able to make sure that we can get our talent through each of those cycles. How do we build both the culture for that, as well as the infrastructure and the systems? That is the focus, so we massively invest in training. This last time around, we have taken a very fundamental relook at our training infrastructure. We have always been leaders on training, but we have built up a training infrastructure which was optimized for the last generation – large training campuses, classroom training, a course curriculum, three-month training, three-week training, those kinds of areas. About five years back, we started relooking at it. We said, “How do we break this up and align it to the current learning culture which is more tool based?” So massive changes. We broke down the course content, which was more aligned for this kind of push training, to be more pull-based. We changed our learning management system. We were on an off-the-shelf product; we threw it out and rebuilt our own training management system, completely reimagined it, gamified it and integrated that with our social platform internally, called Knome, that’s similarly gamified.
We changed the infrastructure. It’s a cloud-first, mobile-first approach, it’s available, on the fly, anywhere. So across, you know, seven, eight different dimensions of learning, we completely changed it, and scaled it massively. We’re talking around 300,000 people being trained in 12, 18 months. So massive changes. So, it’s not just culture; you’ve got to back it with infrastructure and with the systems to be able to do it.
People are inherently open to change. There’s a saying that we use: There’s a flood. And as floodwater started going up, all the people got on top of a building. And there was a very god-fearing person. So, as the floodwater rose, a boat came along. A lot of people there jumped down and got into the boat, but this guy said, “No, no, God is going to save me,” and waited. The floodwater increased. Then a raft came along, quite a few people were on the raft. They said, “Come on, jump; we’ll take you along.” Most people left. The man said, “No, God is going to save me.” The floodwater kept on rising. A log came around, with four or five people hanging on to it. They said, “Jump. We’ll go together to safety.” “No. God will save me.” Finally, the floodwaters got to him; he drowned. He goes to heaven and says, “I was such a god-fearing person, and how come, god, you didn’t save me?” God said, “I sent you three saviors that you didn’t use.”
The individual has an onus to change. And the organization has a commitment to make sure that it won’t sink. But that jump has to be done by the individual. So that’s the culture that we’re building internally, that change is inevitable, but it is something that we as the business will facilitate, and there is a lot of emphasis on retraining.
Many organizations, Phil, when they think about talent, it is something that is going to come from outside, they create a sense of fear internally. We have a very supportive culture, and it gives us the ability to regenerate internally, which puts us in a unique position because we can then retain knowledge, and acquire the new knowledge. Knowledge is not something to be used and thrown away. It is to be invested in. Our retention rates are the highest in the industry – that’s our biggest competitive advantage. We are almost 10 percentage points ahead of the competition on retention, and that’s where our advantage comes from. We are very focused on that.
Phil: If you had one wish – from God – to change the services industry for the better (beyond salvation from floodwaters), what would that wish be?
Rajesh: Slow it down a little bit, [Laughs] and give a bit of breathing space.
I think that’s about it. But, to some extent, it’s self-correcting. Unlike consumer tech, enterprise tech needs to work in the context of what exists. And new technology comes, by definition, not from the people who understand how to make it work. So, before technology gets permeated inside an enterprise, there is a real physical lag, and that is the period of time that you have to scale it up. And the fact is that, if it is not scaled up, enterprises cannot use it. You can’t just infinitely change technology at an enterprise level the way it happens in the consumer [space]. At least that’s the belief that I have.
We need to find what that sweet spot is. But we will, we can – we can afford to change faster than what we are changing today. We are not in a situation like processors or memory where you are constantly on a collapsing timeline. I do believe that we have some physical boundaries that we can rely on.
Phil: Well, thank you very much, Rajesh. It was wonderful to hear from you for the first time here. Am sure our readers will be very excited!
First of all, we are not epidemiologists, healthcare professionals or medical experts. Sadly, in our industry right now, this important distinction is moving into a grey area as everyone chimes in with their opinion.
Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one… especially when you can back them up with fake data
This post is a disillusioned response to the materials, opinions, and general wonderings now prolific on social media from people who, like us, don’t know anything outside of what their favorite newspaper columnist or news channel is telling them. If you want genuine medical advice about Coronavirus/Covid-19, please consult your local medical experts and healthcare practitioners – you won’t find much use in the musings of the technology analyst community, regardless of how passionately they pepper their opinions over social media.
As an employer where the health and safety of our employees, clients, families, and friends are paramount, we have been just as glued to the rapidly changing and seemingly unpredictable situation we find ourselves in. We were one of the first to postpone our flagship event out of an ‘abundance of caution’ – a new phrase that has entered our lexicon as we awkwardly feel the need to justify and apologize for recognizing the increased risk to public health that this virus represents.
Many friends in our much-loved community have responded to the initiative we have taken positively – most expressing relief that we not only postponed our summit and 10-year anniversary party three weeks in advance, but we also announced the rescheduled date later in June when we hope this situation is easing up. And – as more extreme measures sweep across the globe – including the recent move from a liberal western democracy to quarantine a quarter of its population – we have seen the rise of two distinct groups of commentators. Those that reaffirm everyone’s commitment to public health and safety – keen to keep their businesses running without endangering staff or clients. And those who continue to downplay the risk the virus and this rapidly changing situation brings.
We need to face up to my reality – this could get really bad
It reminds us of a small investment firm, made popular in the book and film The Big Short, which had a simple strategy: because most people optimistically avoid worst-case scenarios when making decisions, they could find a high statistical probability of success by betting on the worst-case scenarios. While this approach may seem cynical to all of us who haven’t made a living professionally gambling billions of dollars, it did see the firm survive and profit from the housing crisis – while everyone else lost out. The cognitive dissonance many of us employ is useful for us as we navigate a complex and hostile world – otherwise, we would never leave the house. But every now and again it’s important to recognize that, actually, things might be pretty bad. And we might need to prepare and alter our lives for the greater good.
Fatality rates – we just don’t know right now, so let’s hold off on speculating
Take, for example, the frequently cited case-fatality rates associated with Covid-19. Many of us are running to these numbers for reassurance – 1% to 4% seems like good odds to many of us. Especially those of us who don’t fall into the categories with higher mortality rates. The trouble with this, of course, is it’s an impossible number to calculate right now. The mortality rate overall could be much lower, nerfed by undiagnosed milder cases. Or it could be much higher, with even well-funded modern healthcare systems in impacted areas advising they are struggling to differentiate deceased patients from those that have died as a result of the virus. It’s also relatively new, and while recovery rates are high, our assumption that mortality rates in the first month of an outbreak will hold true for the rest of the virus’s lifecycle seems disingenuous. But as we caveated at the start, we’re not medical experts, and we’ll leave this part of the conversation to medical experts.
We can cover our kids’ eyes, but we must keep ours’ open
Where we will focus our discussion, instead, is on what we can do to help. First of all, while downplaying the extent of the virus and the societal and economic impact to children makes sense, doing so with adults who make decisions off the back of that advice is woefully irresponsible. We all have an obligation to follow government guidelines. And while the situation may be confusing in the US – where the president frequently misleads with diatribes indicative of him personally attacking and defeating the virus-like something from Homer’s The Odyssey – in regions that are taking real action to stop the outbreak and limit the impact on citizens, guidelines are nominally focused on limiting your exposure to the virus.
By taking preventative steps, we’re helping our healthcare systems cope with the potential onslaught
You are doing this not just for your own personal safety, but also for that of those around you, and to help already beleaguered healthcare systems cope with their normal burden by limiting this extraordinary one. While it may seem more in-tune with that dissonance plucky investment bankers exploited in 2008 to follow the advice of industry analysts with no track-record of handling a global pandemic who tell you it’s all an over-reaction, we would recommend you follow the health experts who, across the world are taking more and more extreme measures to contain a lethal virus. Presumably, and we’ll have to rely on the conspiracy theorists to correct us here, they aren’t doing so without good reason.
Analysts and pundits: focus where you specialize and leave it at that
We appreciate reassuring the public is important – in a world where panic-buying toilet paper seems to be a more immediate threat than the virus, it seems like reassurance would be a more effective salve. But the reality is, reassuring people with information on how they can take practical steps to control what they can control – as many healthcare providers are doing – is far more effective and responsible in the long-term. Listening to ill-informed analysts and self-proclaimed “experts” who by day track hyperscale cloud, or laptops-as-a-service, and by night are telling people to carry on as normal because Coronavirus is over-hyped, are misleading the public, and while many aren’t doing so out of maliciousness, they must realize that they have a voice and in some instances a powerful one. So, if we may be so bold, we would offer them some advice – focus on what you specialize in and leave it at that.
Bottom-line: Stay safe and stay in touch with each other
So, you won’t hear medical advice from us here at HFS, we won’t tell you it will all be fine, or that it won’t be. Out of respect, and frankly, common sense, we will leave that to the people who are qualified. We may analyze how it impacts the markets we cover, we may tell stories of how it impacted us, but that’s where we’ll leave it. As we covered in a previous blog, this is a new world for many of us – it may stick. Or we may return to normal in a few weeks or a month’s time. Who can say, but for now we ask you to stay safe out there, stay in touch with us and each other, and let’s do all we can to support the healthcare workers, government officials and real experts who are working to tirelessly protect us from this virus.
Well, what a difference a few weeks make! Our business environment had never become so social, so connected, so personal, so networked… Life had become a logistical quandary of constant air travel, hotels, conferences, meetings, workshops. Just doing one’s day job and spending time with one’s family was becoming a huge challenge for so many. Then suddenly it’s all changed overnight. Wow.
Welcome to the New Abnormal everyone…
As of March 3, 2020, over 90,000 cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed worldwide across 73 countries, with over 3,200 deaths. With over 100 cases now confirmed in the United States, including cases of undocumented origin, the virus is now spreading faster outside of China for the first time.
With the WHO, the CDC and various key government health bodies making it clear that this novel virus is “highly likely” to spread worldwide, we are now entering unchartered territory. While the current death rate seems to be hovering around 2%, indicating that while highly contagious it is not highly deadly, it is unclear how this virus will behave once it has a widespread stronghold in the community.
We have never before seen a respiratory pathogen that is capable of community transmission, but which can also be contained with the right measures. The unprecedented measures China put in place, albeit later than optimal, has helped curb the spread and taught us all the advantages and the perils of locking down entire cities or regions. Last week was a clear example of how emotions were guiding the stock market, as panic about manufacturing slowdown, fears of global recession and the unknown path COVID 19 will take, really set in. World leaders are trying to straddle the line between the strict safety measures that would halt spread, and not bringing entire economies to a halt.
Without clear guidelines, companies are trying to find their own balance between keeping their employees safe and not bringing their businesses to a standstill. Here at HFS, we are thinking of the same issues and are trying to find our own balance. In doing so, we wanted to share our thoughts on how we can all move forward in ways that protect both our businesses and our staff and without panic.
Make this a Quarter of “Hunkering Down”. Unlike after Sept 11, 2001 or even the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, we are technologically poised to create a new virtual business environment. We have the technology to empower our employees to work locally or even remotely, as well as the ability to do very tech savvy virtual meetings. Strategy sessions, client visits, internal meetings – these are all things that can be temporarily moved to a virtual setting if and when needed, limiting travel to essential travel only. Without clear travel guidelines, this technology will allow businesses to let their employees choose which travel they are and are not comfortable undertaking.
It was estimated today that during the peak of COVID-19, an estimated 1/5th of all UK workers could be off sick at the same time. Allowing flexible virtual working environments by empowering employees with the technology they need to do it will undoubtedly help reduce the numbers off sick and help keep companies stable.
Discuss openly with clients and business partners what they are comfortable with. While some companies have strict new travel policies that have just kicked in, issuing a wave of what will be the new abnormal, for others it may be business as usual unless directed by governments to do otherwise. Discuss openly with clients and business partners their comfort level to travel and attend meetings/conferences and share your own polices. Make it very clear that in this new environment, most if not all work can be done virtually.
Discuss openly with your employees what they are comfortable with. Some of your staff will be gung-ho to risk the virus while others will be nervous to travel on business, especially internationally. Firstly fully understand your liability here – you may have to cover hotel expenses if staff are help for screening/quarantine periods (and some screening costs alone are in the thousands). Once you are comfortable with your exposure as an employer then you can work sensibly with your staff to make sure everyone is comfortable. In the coming weeks, everyone will be accepting of staff who just do not want to travel and those firms who are simply not willing to risk their staff hopping on planes. This is part of the new normal folks!
Invest in getting far more hands-on with the technology needed for this new environment. Companies must ensure that all employees have adequate access they need for teleconferencing and video conferencing capabilities. Make sure you have the tools in place match the need will be critical, as suddenly everyone’s going to have a lot more time on their hands behind their desks, so we need to use video far more than we were, get much more comfortable using sharing apps such as Microsoft Teams, Slack, Google Hangouts, Apple Facetime, Skype etc. In short, the culture of doing business is changing dramatically from the physical to the digital, and we have to get used to it fast. We’ve yearned for digital for so long, now we have to use it!
Keep up to date on information. From reliable sources like WHO, CDC, or government health agencies only. Not passing on misinformation will be critical to ensure that this virus does not become worse for our minds than our bodies.
Unfortunately, it is not all up to us as companies or individuals. As more world leaders try to straddle the balance between keeping economies going and keeping their country’s safe, concerns have crept in. In addition, it is unclear the path this virus will take and therefore uncertain if the emergency response will be enough at the peak of the pandemic. It is HFS’ opinion that all countries need to prepare.
Learn from the example set by China. While much data points to an initial Chinese cover-up in early December, it cannot be argued that China’s move to lockdown Hubei Province hasn’t helped stem the tide. Despite the great risk to their own economy and the global economy as a whole, China acted in a manner that has bought other countries time to prepare for likely spread. Global leaders must now be ready to do the same kinds of school and government office closures if needed.
Prepare for worst-case scenarios and nothing less. Over-preparedness has never harmed anyone. Ever. It’s been annoying and it’s been frustrating but it never hurt anyone. Governments must adopt this philosophy and put plans in place to prepare for possible office closures, school closures and travel freezes as well as the need for medicine, ventilators, doctors, hospitable beds, etc.
Make widespread testing available and accurate. After returning to Miami in January from a work trip in China, Osmel Martinez Azcue was developing flu-like symptoms, just as coronavirus was taking over the country he had visited. Recognizing the seriousness, he felt like the responsible thing to do was check himself into one of Miami’s largest hospitals. The hospital staff followed the proper protocols, took the necessary precautions, and put Azcue in a closed-off room. Fortunately, blood analysis found that he simply had the flu.
Mr. Azcue was rewarded for his diligence with thousands of dollars worth of medical bills. If governments are going to fight this via as much containment as possible, this cannot happen. People cannot avoid testing because they are afraid of the cost of finding out. What would happen when the coronavirus outbreak spreads in the United States if Americans avoid seeking medical care because they’re concerned about bills they can’t afford? It would be catastrophic in terms of containing the virus, devastating to the economy and even more crucial, critically dangerous for those who may become ill. Testing should be made available for all so we can all work together to contain and mitigate the risks facing the global community right now.
The Bottom-Line: Life just changed but at least we can finally become Digital with how we do business
When we polled 355 enterprise leaders across the global 2000, the shift to digital from physical / face-to-face ranked number one as their primary business pressure. Well now they’re going to be forced to make these pressures come true:
So – right now – it feels as if the whole fabric of our industry is being ripped apart all around us – and in some ways it is. However, this forces us to brave up to the world around us in a way we never envisaged…
Less travel = more family time and staff time. For me, personally, this is revolutionary. I was hopping from country to country like it was just normal …and this has made me take stock. Fortunately, I have spent so much face time with my clients, industry friends, and colleagues that I am sure we can survive for a while on videos and phone calls. I can also spend more time with my family who saw me as little as much of my team!
This will pass, but it may instill some better work and life habits… more time behind a desk means I can call all those people I have neglected, write more research pieces, think deeper about the future and where everything is going.
Just a few short years ago, the world of the mid-tier service providers ($500m-$3bn revenues) was a pretty depressing place – many clients were wary of using lesser brands with smaller scale and high attrition and preferred to stay loyal to the Tier 1 brands and beat them up on price. Growth was pretty stagnant and most of them just wanted a lucrative exit, such as IGATE selling to Capgemini, Syntel to Atos, Luxoft to DXC etc. Fast-forward to the last 2-3 years and suddenly the smaller service providers are in vogue, being seen by many clients as more agile, more capable of client intimacy, more flexible and eager to take on complex projects and avoid the exhausting turgid RFP bake-offs which squeeze the value out of engagements before they have even started:
EPAM ensures not all roads lead to India. While we have been overly-focused watching the success of the Indian-heritage IT service providers, the biggest standout performer is the predominantly Eastern-European provider EPAM Systems, which has quietly built out its app development capabilities over the years with its powerful access to tech talent in places such as Minsk, Moscow, St Petersburg, Katowice, Budapest etc. The firm’s focus on complex app development, software engineering, IT security and a recent investment in Blockchain is positioning the company well for strong growth in the foreseeable future. It’s also taken advantage of DXC’s acquisition of Luxoft’s to become Eastern Europe’s standout IT service provider.
Hexaware, Mindtree, Mphasis, LTI, and NIIT lead the Indian-heritage Mid-tier growth spurt. With an IT services market barely growing at 5% annually, for the five Indian-heritage Mid-Tier firms to grow at rates between 13% and 17% is quite remarkable. Clearly, the bias over brands is reducing dramatically as clients seek greater intimacy, focus, and dedication to their needs. We can dive into all these firms to call out where each iswinning, but the main factor in common is the fact that client needs are changing – they increasingly demand shorter projects as opposed to these clunky frustrating multi-year relationships that take many months to set up. I cannot tell you how many executives from these firms have said to me that more and more of their clients simply want work done – and fast – and do not want to jump through all the hoops of the legacy outsourcing world. With the need for systems modernization, digital app development, data management, and automation at an all-time high, clients are more willing than ever to trust those IT services partners where they can still get the CEO on the phone, who understand them, and are willing to move mountains to succeed for them.
Let’s take a deeper look at what is going on at enterprise intentions when their current primary outsourcing contract expires:
Only 23% of clients are prepared to settle with their current partnership. The traditional model is only working for a minority of outsourcing clients today. If you’re a service provider leader and you haven’t identified who these clients are (and who are not), then you are in serious trouble. Smart Mid-Tiers avoid these clients – no point wasting valuable resources on lethargic clients who really only care about keeping the lights on.
Another quarter (26%) wants to move the needle but may opt for a hybrid model. Meanwhile, 27% are getting itchy to kick their service provider up the rear end and get them embedding some real automation and outcome-focus into their delivery if they are to renew with them. This means they want to see real commitment to reduce the dependence on the staff army and see real investments in process automation to digitize their delivery. These are relationships where Mid-Tiers are frequently being brought in to snaffle pieces of the pie to create competitive tension.
A third is more decisive and likely to make the switch. 31% have clearly got to know their current outsourcing provider only too well over the years and have zero hope they can get any real co-investment out of them. As we have discovered over the last couple of years, some providers have made real investments in competencies like automation and AI, while others have merely added a little sugar-frosting and persist with selling the same old model with some cost shaved off the package, and some added incentives for performance (i.e “outcomes”). Moreover, ambitious outsourcers and Mid-Tiers are heavily targeting their competitors’ disaffected clients and are willing to offer eye-catching deals to win their custom. This can include attractive pricing tied to aggressive delivery staff reduction over a 3-5 year amortization plan that is offset by efficiency savings due to automation and digitization. In other instances, clients are breaking up the provider mix and opting for multi-source relationships with shorter engagements to drive more value and innovation.
In some cases, it may also prove more attractive for the legacy provider to shed the business than fight to keep a client that will quickly become unprofitable (and the industry is littered with those engagements). In several services markets, we are seeing emerging offerings from providers where they are offering fully digital offerings (with vastly cheaper support), such as TaskUs in the customer call center market, or nDivision in managed IT operations, which can undercut traditional outsourcers so aggressively, there is no feasible way the traditional providers can compete. In addition, we are seeing several India-centric service providers offer $-per-chat support models for some transactional services that are essentially chatbots offering basic-level support services at costs as cheap as 15 cents a chat… we are finally seeing “digital disruption” attack the traditional outsourcing market that has somehow staved it off for years thanks to lethargic clients and lock-in contracts.
20% have given up and will just look at something very different. Maybe the cost of changing the model is just so abhorrent it’s time for clients to pull the work back and fix it themselves. Some are so fed up with the lack of innovation in changing anything they’ve realized they have smarter people on staff who are better deployed to take the work back, staff up to execute it while they explore all their digital and automation options. Maybe they will invest in an integrated automation platform, and use the funds saved by backsourcing the work to invest in a digital backbone that enables them to perform work in a touchless, smarter manner? Again, there are ample opportunities here for smart Mid-Tiers to pick up new client work and prove themselves to shrink legacy IT systems, develop new digital backbones and help their clients achieve real business outcomes.
The Bottom-Line: In this current climate, the time is riper than ever for these Mid-Tier service providers to grab more market share
The IT services industry really needs this healthy competition as it gives clients more choice and forces the Tier 1 juggernauts to change their delivery model and entire approach to engagements. And during a time when there is worrying economic uncertainty, global panic about some nasty flu virus, clients will need more support than ever to work with smart partners which can support them remotely, jump in to help critical situations are a moment’s notice, and show the ability to really listen to their needs.
Seriously folks… there’s the hype, then the excitement, then even more hype… and then the realization that it wasn’t quite what you thought… and then, finally, coming to terms with the fact you’re no longer going to hit that elusive jackpot. To hear some people still showering us with cryptic unaudited revenue numbers, and from neolithic analysts still parroting their marketing, just spanks of desperation to keep faking a market that simply isn’t there. Can we just push the off-button on this charade, please?
What, exactly, is “dead” and where are the signs of life… when it comes to process software and enterprise automation?
The RPA that “died” is the poorly-defined “RPA” that got hyped up to create hockey-stick growth excitement for investors. It wasn’t defined correctly, was a mash-up of desktop automation with pure-RPA (unattended back office) and all the deals that got signed were “attended” so weren’t even “robotic”.
The pieces of RPA that survive are the process orchestration tools (discover, design, automate and mine) that form part of what we see as the evolution towards “Intelligent Digital Workers” which augment human experiences and help with real customer-to-employee intimacy. Let’s also not forget these apps also need to be enterprise-grade, compliant with ITIL and security factors etc. Scale only occurs when the business designs and IT enables… The winners in the future are smart enterprises with leverage technologies to anticipate where their customers are going… often before their customers even know themselves.
It’s been a year since we declared RPA “Dead”… so what’s been happening since?
It’s been nearly a year since we penned our now-infamous blog “RPA is dead. Long Live Integrated Automation Platforms”. Coming from the analyst firm that first introduced RPA to the world in 2012, this caused quite the stir. In fact, one of the leading service providers even shutdown its RPA practice as a result and most of the others are left scratching their heads still trying to figure out where the money really is…Since the “dead” post, we’ve seen a swift realization from investors that the RPA “market” was being engineered by a small handful of marketeers attempting a reincarnation of the dot-com bust era where everyone goes nuts over robot butlers and a bunch of naïve enterprise clients who’d been oversold too many RPA licenses that they had any idea how to deploy.
We weren’t helped by a small handful of analysts who really should know better than to pontificate false marketing in exchange for an ego-stroking and glittering robo-stardom they’d never before experienced… and a great big Vegas party that precipitated the most embarrassing collapse we’ve seen in the history of process technology. Many good people had bet their careers on hype, false hope – and blatant lies – and are still on the job market trying to get their lives back on track. In fact, the whole fiasco very nearly destroyed the real market that these tools can help catalyze, if they are allowed time to develop and form part of a broader, integrated solution. Our recent HFS Top 10 covers this form the view of 300+ current adopters, however, this market is changing very quickly and it won’t make sense in the future trying to put a lot of products in the same “market” that is changing into one that encompasses so much more than basic screen scraping, macros, and process loop recorders.
Instead, we need to focus on the development towards an intelligent digital workforce that help us deliver real customer and employee experiences
What isn’t dead is the fact that RPA created the path (and conversation) to a much bigger market that’s evolving, once you get real about business process issues and the true path operations leaders need to take to make them awesome. But, if you can’t accept we’re in the early stages of a marathon, not midway through a 110 meters hurdles dash, we can define an exciting future for the world of automation. But a “bot for every desktop”, or “hyper-automation”? Really, folks? Can we just start talking again in plain English about what is actually realistic, what works and how we need to change ourselves to get there? Can we start talking about an Intelligent Digital Workforce? Can we start looking at how to move from dumb admin bots that keep old process loops and apps stitched together, and how enterprises can invest in intelligent workers that help us achieve much more intelligent interactions and experiences? Can we focus on intelligent digital workers tuned to deliver (and learn) superlative experiences from processes we have designed to bring our customers and employees together?
The emergence of an Intelligent Digital Workforce is a key component of developing a OneOffice Experience. RPA creates the foundation, but the next phase is to evolve to Intelligent Digital Workers
This shift toward intelligent digital experiences is a foundational element of HFS’ OneOffice Experience for Employee Experience (EX) and Customer Experience (CX). CX will increasingly be considered an umbrella term for the experience interacting with an entire organization, whether it’s the customer, partner, employee or any other entity. An EX culture is one where people work together shifting from transactional interactions to deeper relationships. Organizations need to ensure they get the balance right; which includes optimizing the use of emerging technology with a robust business case to improve CX to the long-term benefit of the business, getting the right information flows in place, eliciting strategic advantage and ensuring exceptional CX:
The HFS OneOffice Experience typifies how customer, partner and employee experience are coming together to drive a unified mindset, goals and business outcomes. OneOffice conceptualizes how customer-centric experiences can be designed and supported by end-to-end processes across what we used to term front and back offices. Today’s RPA bots essentially are embedded in the “Digital Underbelly” where they form part of the foundational processing layer for enterprises, while the emergence of smarter tools that can truly augment humans are where the future of RPA lies. Iftoday’s current crop of software providers can develop their bots beyond the current static tools that really just keep old processes chuntering along. Digital Workers are emerging as the enabling technologies that are slowly becoming a critical component of developing CX design and delivering on the experiences smart process operators are designing processes to support.
HFS highlights five important principles of using Intelligent Digital Workers that all companies looking into implementing these solutions need to consider:
The Bottom-Line: Intelligent Digital Workers are a powerful tool for connecting customer and employee experiences to drive a unified mindset, goals and business outcomes. The RPA vendors need to get there if they want find their edge in the market
Experiencing a OneOffice enterprise with Intelligent Digital Workers looks different for every organization, but considering the HFS 5 principles will help your company define and execute on a strategy that benefits all of the stakeholders in your ecosystem rather than just having a “tick the box” approach to the technology. Some companies will focus first on customer-facing, others will start with making internal processes easier and more intelligent. Implemented well, Intelligent Digital Workers can better connect CX and EX, helping to provide the digital insights and intelligent support that a OneOffice experience requires. This is where the real market for process automation is heading… whether the current cast of RPA characters can make this shift is not inconceivable, but do they have the time and patience of their investors and clients to make the shift? Time will tell… but not much time!
Not quite middle-stump, but India’s bowling a better line these days, as NASSCOM is graced by cricketing legend Kapil Dev
After last year’s effort, our expectations were set at a pretty low bar for the annual NASSCOM extravaganza in Mumbai last week. The IT services industry had surely reached its rock-bottom when it comes to death by PowerPoint and the same old bleh!
But no… we were pleasantly surprised that bottom has – seemingly – been reached and we’re actually clawing our way back!
Ten Takeaways from the NASSCOM India Leadership Forum 2020
1. Coronavirus…. what Coronavirus? Unlike those wimps crashing out of Mobile World Congress, the IT services dignitary did not think for a second of finding a germophobic excuse to bail… In fact, attendance was visibly up from last year. I did suggest to some suppliers that they should dish out face masks brandishing their logos, but no-one seemed to care.
2. Start-ups and emerging service providers and were out in force. One of my personal gripes with NASSCOMs past has been the dominance of the old guard services founders and less of the emerging slew of providers and startups. This was the first time the emerging Indian IT sector drowned out the marketing glitz from the establishment. Here’s a decent survey on the Indian startup sector from the Reserve Bank of India.
3. Big, big focus on changing talent needs. One key theme that dominated conversations was the recognization that Indian service providers must invest very heavily in training their talent which really understands business processes and applies it to IT. Only having business process understanding… or only IT… was a fast track to legacy. “We have enough IT guys” was stated by more than one senior executive.
4. “Experiences” dominating the conversation. The rapid growth being exhibited from the mid-cap service provider sector (Hewaware, LTI, Mindtree, Mphasis, NIIT, Persistent, Virtusa, Zensar et al) is being driven by enterprise clients’ desire for great intimacy and experiences from their services partners. The days of big, bulky, multi-year contracts are being replaced by rapid, high-impact projects where customers have quicker routes to outcomes and can demand greater value and complex support. Brand is being superseded by expertise and speed-to-market and the mid-cap sector is clearly benefitting. Five years ago, working in a small-scale provider was depressing, with the sector stagnating from flat growth and an inability to compete with the tier 1s. Now the mid-sector loves taking on the juggernauts in deals where the client has deep intimate requirements warranting immediate attention from the A-team.
5. Some big hitters (and bowlers on stage) energized the whole event. Hearing from Tata’s Chandra was a much-needed boost for NASSCOM… he still cares about his first love of IT services, even now as he lords it with world leaders at Davos these days. It really was terrific to hear the energy from Rajesh Gopinathan (CEO, TCS), Salil Parekh (CEO, Infosys) and Rishad Premji (Chairman, Wipro) duking it out on stage, and we also were treated to a strong session from Tech Mahindra’s CEO, CP Gurnani, on the FutureSkills Prime initiative. However, none could surpass the awesome appearance of one of cricket’s all-time greats from the Hadlee, Botham, Viv Richards era… Kapil Dev (pictured above).
6. Lack of presence from BPMs (BPOs). Only WNS, the industry’s highest growth services firm, was out in force. The other emerging BPM firm of note was Datamatics, which is making a determined effort to get noticed. Very little from EXL, Genpact, Sutherland etc. which is disappointing considering the rapid blending of process and technology in client engagements.
7. Lack of presence from non-Indian centric service providers. While it was great to have Capgemini’s India head, Ashwin Yardi, grace his presence, there were few hitters from the likes of Accenture, IBM and DXC present, despite their seismic armies of Indian IT talent. NASSCOM needs to be about embracing global business investing very heavily in India (and close to half of the employees of Accenture, the IT services leader, are India-based).
8. Automation fading fast from the agenda. Perhaps the biggest surprise was the noticeable lack of presence from the automation firms. A couple of sales booths for AA and UiPath were seen, but the only leaders from any of the automation firms to grace their presence were Govind Sandhu at AntWorks and Atul Soneja of EdgeVerge. The days of cheesy robot posters and embarrassing robots on stage seem to be in the past as automation software becomes part of the fabric of services, as opposed to a major differentiation point. Are the marketing coffers of the automation firms running dry, or do they feel they need to focus on marketing themselves beyond partnering with service providers these days? Hmmm…
9. The gossip surrounding Wipro’s successor dominated the chitchat. Whether or not this is a good thing, the rotating cast of personalities leading the heritage Indian service providers dominates the headlines in India. Whether Wipro likes it or not, they have now achieved an Infosys-level feverish status in the gossip columns, regarding Abid’s successor. I think about 30 executives from Wipro’s competitors have now been linked with the job…
10. The lack of Cognizant executives also added to the gossip circles where their former one-zeros are heading… from Frank to Raj to Gajen to Prasad… people want to know where all these dudes will end up. Surely not Wipro =) Speaking of former Cog-natives, we were also lucky enough to meet MindTree’s new CEO, Debashis “DC” Chatterjee (a former Cognizant leader) who’s clearly enjoying the challenge of driving one of the mid-caps in Mindtree, and Harish Dwarkenhalli, who recently joined Wipro as President of Cloud Enterprise Platforms.
The Bottom-line: The energy is back as growth picks up and clients really need agile IT services partnerships
For the past three years, we’ve all argued whether India’s IT services growth was going to be anything more than a puny 2-3%. Suddenly, we’re back at double-digit levels for the market leaders and most of the mid-caps, while the profit margins seem to be holding true. There is a broad services industry recognition that quality of execution and the ability to deliver real client experiences trumps a few cents on the rate-card in a bullish global economy. The reality is, with IT, the more the India-heritage IT service providers invest onshore near its core enterprise clients, the better this is for India’s growth as the IT services industry’s dominant home. Coronavirus? What Coronavirus…
When Wipro’s CEO Abid Neemuchwala announced his resignation it was a shock for employees and the industry as a whole.. but it was less of a surprise to those who knew him well. Abid’s a humble, really nice guy with an incredible work ethic and intelligence. He also has a smile that lights up a whole room.
The poor man was clearly exhausted after four grueling years trying to steer an oil tanker that clearly needs a more aggressive leader with a clear mandate to make painful changes. Don’t mistake us here – Abid is one of the service industry’s greatest strategists and inspirational figures, but Wipro is not ready for this type of leader. It needs someone who can drive aggressive change – and fast – to a company that has lost itself in its heritage culture and is slipping behind several the India-heritage services leaders in this cut-throat market. Being a “safe pair of hands” is table stakes these days for offshore-centric services, and the winners are moving aggressively with onshore investments and outcome-driven delivery models to win the hearts and minds of clients. While Wipro has its bright spots (read on), it’s lost ground to some of its competitors and its next CEO has to make some deep changes to personal, structure, leadership and strategy if it wants to closes these gaps quickly.
With the recent CEO changes at IBM and Cognizant, Wipro needs to look more at Cognizant’s recent changes if it wants to set itself on a new course for growth
Meanwhile, leadership changes elsewhere in the market have seen IBM change CEO’s – a prospect that could see the lumbering firm recover market dominance and growth after several years of confused direction and taking a pounding from the likes of Accenture and TCS.
In addition, Cognizant went through a similar situation with Francisco D’Souza, who’d overseen an incredible rise of the firm, but struggled to make painful changes as the firm’s leadership became complacent and lost their edge in the market. Their response has been to appoint a dynamic young leader in Brian Humphries, whose goal is to reenergize the firm’s leadership and culture. He has already made many leadership changes, brought in several outside executives and created a culture of urgency right across the firm. “It was like Cognizant suddenly woke up after falling asleep” was the feedback we received from several of its clients.
While both IBM and Cognizant seek deep changes within their internal culture with new leadership, they are very different beasts and require very different leadership styles. IBM requires someone who’s lived and breathed the culture and knows how to make the right changes to align with the right strategic direction. Cognizant needed a leader to shake up a terrific firm that had become a victim of its own success and was suffering from complacency.
Wipro’s board must seize this opportunity to redefine itself – and fast
However, that change was planned, Wipro’s doesn’t seem to have any real plan behind it – and belies a degree of chaos and anarchy that could become disastrous for the firm. In a complex and unstable global political environment, clients look to providers to bring stability and simplicity – impromptu leadership changes and boardroom dramas, while fodder for analysts and journalists, go straight to the top of the risk register in existing engagements and can see some clients back our before the ink is dry on new deals.
Infosys learned this the hard way, when its leadership troubles became an almost comic roadshow in 2016/2017. Wipro already has enough to contend with in a market gripped with buyer cynicism, hyper-competitive incumbents, and geopolitical uncertainty – at the very least it must find a replacement for Abid who will get the firm back on track and reassure the market that 2020 will be a year of progress, not chaos, for Wipro. In addition, the next CEO must have the empowerment to make tough decisions without the constant micromanagement of the Wipro board in order to making rapid improvements to its…
Current vulnerable market position;
Mostly middling performance across market segments;
Articulation of “Why Wipro” to clients, partners and prospects.
The market reacts to the shock exit of Wipro’s CEO
Unsurprisingly, the market has reacted somewhat negatively to the impromptu departure of a leading IT services firm’s CEO – stock price dipped on the news after a relatively healthy opening to 2020. Under Abid, the firm pushed hard into the digital services space – and since he took up the mantle in 2016, closed the acquisition of cloud services firm Appirio, as well as design agency DesignIT among others to support the firm’s strategy to move out of highly commoditized IT Services and BPO, and take a bite out of the more lucrative and rapidly growing, albeit ill-defined, digital technology and services market.
The firm push to build out digital and design capabilities has, to date, had mixed success. While the firm has been able to blend technology, strategy, and design successfully for some core clients – it has struggled to expand at the same rate as some of its competitors (see below). Furthermore, its traditional IT services business came under more pressure from the hungrier mid-tier firms, such as LTI, Mindtree and Mphasis, while its closest market competitor, HCL, has been playing a market-cap neck-and-neck race with the firm as it elevates its reputation in the market.
Under Abid, Wipro also struggled to keep its market share – falling further and further behind the rapid growth of TCS and Infosys. A market signal not lost on investors and market commentators when the CEO announced his resignation.
Unlike some of its competitors – such as Infosys – which have managed to keep their heads above the double-digit growth waterline for the majority of recent quarters, Wipro has only just managed to keep itself in positive growth territory. Under Abid, growth accelerated briefly at the start of his tenure, but has been on a bumpy decline since as the firm struggled to make the most of its digital acquisitions and take on rivals in the highly competitive IT services market. Even with relatively high margins, the results just weren’t healthy enough for an industry that thrives on scale – and its subsequent success is marked on revenue growth. With the last few Quarters in mind, it’s not hard to imagine the pressure Abid was under to make siloed and fiercely defended business units perform and rejuvenate what was one of the most promising firms in the industry.
Part of its struggle to maintain market share is it’s become increasingly tough to figure out what Wipro stands for. It’s marketing patter touts its Big Bets in Digital, Cloud, Engineering Services and Cyber Security, but while Wipro has a strong footprint in most services but has struggled to stand out from the crowd as a leader in any.
Wipro’s on the hunt for a new CEO – and much like Cognizant, plans to look outside of the firm and industry
After having his teeth kicked-in by over-powerful business leads, entrenched siloed service lines, and acquired design agencies that, if we’re honest, must have just felt awkward in meetings with old-school traditional IT Services leads, Abid decided enough was enough. And now the search is on for his replacement. After a nail-biting wait from analysts, employees, and the media, Wipro announced that the “board of directors has initiated a search to identify the next chief executive officer. Abid will continue to hold the office of CEO & managing director until a successor is appointed for a smooth transition and to ensure that business continues as usual.”
The word on the street is the board are looking outside of Wipro and potentially out of the industry to find Abid’s replacement. Cognizant, following a similar strategy has found relative success by bringing in Brian Humphries, an unknown in the IT Services space. Wipro could do the same, a fresh pair of eyes on the sprawling and undoubtedly messy delivery network could find opportunities and solutions internal talent could not.
What’s a must have on the new Wipro CEO’s to-do list
A new CEO will be in an unenviable position – Wipro’s market share is diminishing, it has a sprawling and, for many, confusing delivery network that needs rationalizing, and disparate business leaders all pushing in different directions. Getting on top of this is a major challenge – and one even a talented leader like Abid struggled with over four years. To turn Wipro’s fortunes around they must:
Rationalize, not acquire: At least for the first few months, opening up the war chest may seem like the natural way for a new CEO to make a stamp on a firm. But with Wipro, acquisitions have a checkered past, and even those that have worked have taken several years to fully embed. Instead, the firm should focus on turning around creaking business lines – and above all, get them talking to each other. A process Abid started, but sadly failed to finish.
Build a truly distinctive vision for the modern enterprise: KPMG has its powered enterprise, TCS has business 4.0, HCL has Mode 1,2,3 – what’s Wipro’s vision, and how does it plan on delivering it. In a complex world where buyers are battered with bullsh*t, a clear vision goes a long way. A huge part of this process will be deciding which service lines to really push talent and resources into – being a leader in everything is unrealistic, Wipro new leadership needs to carefully prioritize.
Listen to the market: Wipro’s biggest issue right now is it’s looking at it’s closest competitors – and throwing a tantrum when a big deal for HCL pushes them above in market cap. Instead, Wipro’s leadership must listen to the market, speak to clients and look at solving real problems. A new CEO from outside the industry could go a long way to bringing fresh perspective – and a fresh lens to view and plan for Wipro’s success.
Be unafraid to cut deep to re-energize the culture: Many of the longstanding senior Wipro managers remain in place – and some have lost touch with the market. While this situation is not too different from other heritage services firms, Wipro’s leadership has not had the courage to remove many of its leaders who are struggling to stay ahead of the curve. It’s time Abid’s successor shakes up the status quo and bring in new blood with aggression to take on the competition and hustle harder than ever to win new deals. The firm needs to move away from rigid leadership stagnation with too many stale decade-plus veterans who are impeding progress.
Re-organize the firm around how clients want to buy, not how Wipro’s become structured over years of fiefdoms: Far too many clients complain that working with Wipro on solution architecture is challenging – each solution area often requires different policies, procedures, pricing etc. Wipro has lost many deals because its rigid structure often impedes its ability to take a portfolio approach to address clients’ needs. While there has been some progress made to structure relationships around business outcomes, for example in business process services and digital, the firm needs to re-think how it goes to market and services its clients if it wants to hit back hard on the Infys, HCLs, Cogs and TCSes of this world.
Bottom Line: Abid’s Impromptu departure belies a degree of chaos at Wipro – and his replacement will have their work cut out for them.
Ultimately, Abid’s rapid departure tells the market one thing – chaos is brewing at Wipro. Radio-silence from the firm about the departure, and the fact many employees found out when the business media picked up the story is doing little to settle nerves in the market that Wipro is in utter disarray. The board must rapidly find a replacement to calm nerves, and one that will bring much needed fresh perspective to a firm that for the last few years has grappled with a modernizing CEO taking on the mammoth task of turning the fortunes of a traditional IT Services leviathan. Whether they opt for an internal or external candidate is not nearly as important as ensuring the next candidate has the juice to fire low performers and bring in staff to work tirelessly to restore Wipro’s former glories.
