Having founded a successful analyst firm 10 years ago, nothing seemed to derail us from continuous growth… every obstacle could seemingly be overcome by throwing smart people at it or investing time with your clients.  Net net – if you were good at what you did and had some smart people who believed in what you were doing and saw your value, you would always find a way.  You were always a safe bet, a sure thing, something to invest in for the future. 

You could ride out prosperous times and tough times because you influenced sales cycles and validated multi-million (even billion) dollar decisions. Whatever was going on in the world, you thrived off the one thing that kept the wheels on everything:  certainty.  Enterprise leaders, investors, politicians alike all banked on one thing – they had a reassuring view of the future, of where things were heading.  They could always make decisions to keep pushing in the right direction.

We’ve been given the worst corporate disease possible:  Uncertainty

Then along came something no one accounted for which caused the one thing that can destroy the status quo:  uncertainty.  Suddenly everyone is unfamiliar and uncomfortable with their environment – their certainty has dissipated and the rules for conducting business have gone out of the window.  Unless your business is something they have-to-have you may find yourself out in the cold so quickly by the time you realized your perilous position, it may already be too late.

And the scariest part of all this is the immediacy of your potential demise.  If you’re not Zoom, Microsoft, Amazon, Nintendo, Instacart or Occado – who have immediate opportunity to exploit the situation – your whole business model is immediately wracked in uncertainty.  Whoever you may be.  How do you sell the same stuff when you can’t meet your clients, when many your key staff are surely too busy home-schooling their kids to commit to extra work, when your clients’ bosses are suddenly demanding things form your clients that don’t include your products or services?  What do you do if you are suddenly deemed irrelevant?  

As much as pandemics suck (yes, they really bloody do!) they give you a once-in-an-era chance to make changes you never thought possible, or never even realized you needed to make.

Five things I have learned about leading in these times:

1. Moving everything to digital is not some crazy expensive investment – it’s the best thing you’ll ever do to your business. Seriously, can we please stop this bullshit that “digital transformation” is some insanely expensive cost that is just too much for your firm to handle. Shifting your core products and services to digital results in them being cheaper to deliver, cheaper for your clients, more efficient, faster and give you much, much better data to make better decisions.  If you can’t move some of your services to digital, then they were probably ready for the analog scrap-heap in any case.
2. Choose your team you need to take with you on this journey – and do it fast.  This is where it gets hard, but deep down you know what you have to do.  This is probably the only rare time you can make painful – and sometimes unpopular – decisions to shape your business around your digital present and future.  Now you can make decisions and take actions that could have resulted in a rebellion pre-March 2020.  Just make the changes and move on fast, you just gotta do it – and be honest about them.  Sure, they’ll probably paint you as one huge asshole and write something about your “toxicity” on Glassdoor, but you know you made a painful – but professional – decision – and so did they deep down. 
3. Invest in trust with your chosen team. The old rules about managing people are all over the place.  Once you have decided who you need and who you want, this is the motley crew that is going to get you through this.  So don’t just select the people you know you have-to-have, select those who will be up at 3.00 am with you thrashing out proposals and executing for your clients, listening to your quasi-insanity as your turn over every damned stone to keep the wheels on into 2021… Just make sure you have people who know what they have to do, who you trust, who trust you, who are on this road to somewhere with you.  This means you will need to share a level of transparency with them which made you uncomfortable in the past.  This means the old metrics need to be sacrificed for a simple “we just need to get this shit done”.  That’s what real trust is all about.
4. Family comes first, business second. Then business wins.  These times will define you forever as a leader. This isn’t about being nice, or kind, or even generous – this is about being human.  If anything good came out of 2020, it’s the value of our families around us as stabilizing forces and responsibilities. We may be breadwinners, but we are also mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, sisters, and brothers.  We have to make every possible accommodation for our fellow workers to look after aging parents, home-school their kids, support their spouses, etc.  Clients can wait an extra day or two if they need to – they have similar pressures and will understand.  The old 9.00-5.00 is pretty much gone for now… so trust your team to prioritize family needs and find the time later to finalize their critical work.  We all find the time when we are committed, when we feel trusted, when we feel good our family is finding their way through this with us.
5. Manage extreme emotions with humility and forgiveness. If you are not flying off the handle in this environment on the odd bad day, you are definitely not human.  We are all mentally drained, we are all operating at the edges of our tolerance, and emotions are frequently being stoked.  But that’s not all bad – we get to see the human side of each other a lot more than we ever expected. And arguments are not always bad if we resolve them – that what families do, and that’s what colleagues can do too… just be cognizant that people are human and we’re just seeing everyone function with less of the emotional filters on. I guarantee when this is all over you will have better and closer working relationships than you ever thought possible.

Bottom line:  Staying relevant means staying energized, staying committed, and being damned smart.  And being very human.

Roll on 2021 when we slowly pick up the pieces of 2019 and before, coupled with the experiences of 2020 which changed the world ever (and are still not over).  There are new rules for almost everything: how we treat our clients, our staff… and most importantly our families. And there are other changes emerging we have to figure out, such as how we shape our approach to politics, to endemic racism, to inclusion and diversity, to climate change.  My main hope is we are just more human, more pragmatic, more tolerant, and more transparent as our future unravels around us… there is already enough for our aching brains to handle. 

Peace out =)

Posted in : HR Strategy

OneOffice is no longer a pipedream – almost overnight it has become a “have-to-have” business environment to operate and compete effectively in this virtual Pandemic Economy.  There is no waiting around for things to revert to the analogous way we used to run things in 2019.  Especially when new HFS data shows only 37% of the Global 2000 intends to revert back to the same office-based environment in the future.  If you can survive on a third of your client base in the future then good luck to you!

Creating a true OneOffice experience is the very foundation of operating as a digital or virtual organization, where there are no stovepipes, no silos, no breakpoints that prevent processes functioning end-to-end, and data to flow freely across the organization.  A virtual OneOffice experience will give you a huge chance of thriving in this new reality, provided you have figured out how you are pivoting your business.

Digital is the only language operations now understand

OneOffice is where automation becomes a native competency, where human performance is augmented by unleashing creativity and personal interaction, where the immediacy of data creates insights to support decision-making that can make or break the firm. In fact, if you can’t operate your organization as one integrated unit where data flows freely back and forth across your process chains from your customers to your employees, from your front office to what you used to call your back office, then you probably won’t survive much longer in today’s brutal Pandemic Economy, where digital is the only language operations now understand.

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The Virtual OneOffice Organization is the foundation of the virtual workforce that encompasses both physical and digital entities

Our Virtual OneOffice Experience is the foundation of the ‘virtual workforce,’ where automation tools augment the employee’s digital capabilities and the workplace becomes a “plug-and-play,” work-from-anywhere scenario . It is all about creating touchless, frictionless digital experiences and connecting the front and back offices to facilitate them within a virtual setting.

Increasingly important to HFS’s OneOffice Experience is that any business strategy must align and equally consider both employee experience (EX) and customer experience (CX). Even more so in this virtual environment, the lines blur between who the customer is and who is servicing the customer. Leaders need to focus on the positives they will glean from this Paradigm Economy by putting customers’ needs at the core of their strategy.

Focus on human experiences to unleash people and drive business results

There is an evolution of thinking about experiences underway, from the traditional thinking in siloes — customer, partner, and employee — to a more holistic human experience-focused strategy. Based on the premise that human connections generate satisfaction and loyalty, aligning the goals and experiences across all of your company’s stakeholders will serve to create an impact on business growth and success.

OneOffice Experiences require EX and CX alignment to elevate the human experience

While the concept of ‘CX’ has had most of the fanfare in recent years, your employee experience is just as important and inherently tied to CX (whether or not you’ve made efforts to align them.)  The HFS Virtual OneOffice Experience is all about how customer, partner and employee experiences are coming together to drive a unified mindset, goals and business outcomes.  Organizations need to ensure they find the right balance of optimizing the use of emerging technology with a robust business case to improve CX to the long-term benefit of the business.  This means getting the right information flows in place, eliciting strategic advantage and ensuring exceptional CX to drive loyalty and growth.  The OneOffice approach centers on the optimization of the all human experiences involved in an enterprise ecosystem and in improving the use of technology in support of these experiences.

The more connected workers are to their organization and its values, the more empowered they are to support customer and partner experience

The OneOffice approach has become even more important as companies navigate these new virtual workplace experiences with blended physical and virtual environments. Technology change agents that augment and support people can be the glue that connects employee and customer experience, by making data and insights easier to access and decisions easier to make.   When so many decisions are made based on emotion, it’s critical to ensure that people have the best data and information aligned to the shared values to support decision making.   The more connected workers are to their organization and its values, the more empowered they are to support customer and partner experience. 

The Bottom Line:  OneOffice is first about your talent and your business model.   Then it’s about how successfully you deploy digital technologies to make it all happen

OneOffice illustrates what true digital transformation is all about – pivoting your business model around your customer’s needs (and anticipated needs) and ensuring your whole organization designs its processes right across the operations to achieve these goals with your staff motivated by the common outcomes. This means making similar investments and priorities to ensure your employees are as engaged digitally with your organization and your customers.  You can’t get away just focusing on an exemplary customer digital experiences if your employees are not embedded into the same experience.

OneOffice is not just about improving engagement and productivity, but fundamentally about ‘unleashing people,’ and enabling passion and creativity for a new world of work where different skills are required.  At HFS we have categorized these skills into the following:

Being a Virtual OneOffice Organizaton will give you a huge chance of thriving in this new reality.  It’s about pivoting your desired business model around your people an bringing them all together with your customers and partners in one virtual environment.  

Posted in : Digital Transformation, intelligent-automation, OneOffice

Gone are the bells and the whistles.  Gone is the sugar-frosting… even that lovely cherry on the top.  Those are the things that only appeal when your organization’s core is not under threat… because addressing that critical core of the business is boring, it’s stressful, and it was not great for your career to expose what was truly dysfunctional in your organization.  Now all the frilly paraphernalia has been cast aside, and we have no choice but to focus 100% on that core.

Why we didn’t address the core and focused on nice-to-haves

Having to deal with critical issues like security, making processes flow and work better, helping train staff to stop doing things the same way they have for 30 years, addressing why your service providers never deliver any of the stuff they claim they do on their PPT slides, asking difficult questions why your firm spent millions on software they simply failed to deploy… those were the things we knew deep down we needed to do, but most the folks around us just didn’t care, and would have thrown us under the bus if we’d agitated for real change.  So we did the safe thing… pushed initiatives that promised some incredible future value as long as we threw around some cash and made everyone look good.  Plus, the steak dinners with decanted wine always helped… After a while, we just convinced ourselves what we were doing was critical even if our firm didn’t really have to have any of it.

Addressing the core of your business is the only thing to save yourself… and your business

We have absolutely zero choice but to address these two actions to survive and win our in today’s environment:

• Finding our “bottom” and devising a financial plan to survive the cross-winds of recession. As much as we can play with sexy terms like resilience, we cannot avoid the one reality of surviving what were are currently experiencing – having a decisive financial plan to survive.  Without it, we’ll continually panic and flounder and never be able to attack our markets with a game-plan to come out of this on top.
• Finding that chink of light to guide our organization to the market leadership position we crave. Once we’ve achieved a financial plan to survive, we are now in a position to get focused on the services and products customers simply have to buy, because they have no choice, as their cores are under threat without them. That means focusing all our investments on making damned sure that happens.

The Bottom-line:  Identifying your customers’ have-to-haves is the only path to follow in this market, but only once they know what they are!

It’s one thing to identify what our current customers (or prospective customers) have to buy from us, but it’s another to make sure we are not wasting our valuable time and resources on those who haven’t yet worked out their plan to survive this market.  There are still many organizations out there who are still scrambling to fathom what is going on, holding out some hope for a magical imminent V-shaped bounce-back.  As lovely as that prospect is, holding out for that miracle will likely end in tears.  What’s more, you are also a terrible customer, as your firm is too nervous to invest in anything serious. 

So find your bottom, find your chink of light, then identify your customers who simply know they have to buy what you are selling.  It really is that simple.

In Part II we’ll get into what customers have-to-have.  You know you have to read it =)

Posted in : Cloud Computing, Cybersecurity, intelligent-automation, OneOffice

Thierry Delaporte, the new CEO of Wipro Limited – accompanied by colleagues Milan Rao, Gurvinder Singh Sahni, and Laura Langdon – gives HFS the story behind the story as he sets sail with Wipro.

Strong operator… tough decisions… aggressive changes. That’s a triptych summary from my recent post which drives into Wipro’s bold appointment of industry titan Thierry Delaporte as CEO. The course now turns from firm to fluid with the story behind the story from Thierry himself – who guides us on his journey of navigating north stars, surprises, principles, and people. And breaking walls…

I once called for a ruthless CEO with teeth at the helm here, and while I stand by that reckoning, I do believe we’ve met the human in the middle of the sea change… 

Phil Fersht, CEO and Chief Analyst, HFS Research: Thanks very much, Thierry, for getting some time with us today; I know you’ve only been in the job, what is it, like, two or three weeks?

Thierry Delaporte, CEO, Wipro: Three weeks.

Phil: Three weeks! So, it would be great to hear a bit more… I learned a lot more about you, when you took the job, and the one thing I learned a lot was that you’re a very international person, you’ve lived in a lot of different countries and experienced a lot of different cultures – it would be great to hear a bit more about yourself, and where you came from, background, and then your career. Did you always intend to do a job like this? And was this your expectation, in recent years?

Thierry: Okay, sure. So, you’re right, … although my accent keeps reminding everyone I’m French, I’m probably one of the least French people you can find in France. I spent most of my life abroad. If you look at my career, 25 years, I’ve spent 21 years of those 25 years abroad. I lived in the UK; I lived in Switzerland, in Zurich, in Spain. I lived in Singapore and in Sydney, Australia. I lived in the US for 15 years, and, every time, my wife and my kids were with me, so four kids, a wife – incredibly resilient, as you can imagine, following every new adventure, with a lot of energy and passion.

And, frankly, you know, I was known at Capgemini as being one who’s really tried, pretty much, everything. I’ve been a finance person… Actually, I started as a member of the Internal Audit team for two years, and then moved as a CFO of subsidiaries in different continents, and then [moved on] to cover sales. I was the Head of Sales, at some point in time, for about a third of the group of Capgemini, which I’ve never seen a finance person becoming a salesperson [smiles], and then managing operations, in different places, or different businesses across the organization. So, I’ve been in consulting, I’ve been in outsourcing, and I’ve been in the apps world of Capgemini. And then, from that experience in operations, spent time in running a business in BFSI, before coming back to Paris to be Chief Operating Officer of the group.  This year, I completed 25 years with Cap Gemini. It was an amazing ride, but it also got me thinking that it was time to pursue new adventures outside the organization.

“One of the lessons I’ve learned in life, Phil, is that you must let life surprise you. The only thing you have to do is don’t miss opportunities.”

I don’t think you can ever say that you were born to be a CEO. One of the lessons I’ve learned in life, Phil, is that you must let life surprise you. The only thing you have to do is don’t miss opportunities. So opportunities will come, and many will surprise you, but just not saying no is a good enough decision to make, in order to not miss these opportunities that come. And so I try to apply this in my life.

Phil: Excellent. So, as you looked at opportunities, and you obviously saw what was happening with the economy and the pandemic, etc., and then the Wipro thing came up, did you immediately think, “Yes, that’s the one for me”? Or was it kind of a long, drawn-out thought process, on [moving] from Cap to Wipro. You were at one company for a very long time, and the cultural shift…. Was it an immediate decision, that you thought, “This is what I want?” Or did it take some time to cultivate with you?

 “So, I’m going to tell you in full transparency what happened.”

Thierry: So, I’m going to tell you in full transparency what happened, Phil. I made up my mind mid-Feb and informed the CEO and the Chairman of Capgemini.

“I had the plan to sail transatlantic, from Newport to Brittany, in May. So that was my plan. I had the boat, I was going to do it with a friend of mine…”

My immediate plan was to take a six-month sabbatical – I haven’t had a single day sabbatical since my career started, so this was going to be my “me time.” And I’m a sailor ­– I had the plan to sail transatlantic, from Newport to Brittany, in May. So that was my plan. I had the boat, I was going to do it with a friend of mine, and that was the plan that I had sold to my wife.

“But then, literally, days after I went on sabbatical, my phone started to ring.”

But then, literally, days after I went on sabbatical, my phone started to ring. And it’s very interesting, and more of a surprise, because there was no announcement of me leaving. It was just being on sabbatical, that, actually, the industry knew it rapidly. I was starting to get calls on opportunities. And I knew that if I was going, it was for something I wanted to do. And I was not in a hurry. I really wanted to make the right choice.

“And I knew that if I was going, it was for something I wanted to do. And I was not in a hurry. I really wanted to make the right choice.”

I’ve known Wipro for twenty plus years. As I said to the team several times, I’ve been competing with Wipro many times. I won often – I lost often, as well. And so, I’ve really learned to respect tremendously this brand, the people, and the success of this company. I still remember the time when Wipro was still a rather small company, but growing every year at an exceptional pace.

“I don’t know any other company that has such a sense of purpose, where it’s not only about delivering the numbers… The fact that this is a company where 67% of its profit is going to philanthropic activities is very much talking to my view of what capitalism should be.”

Then I had conversations with Founder Chairman Mr. Azim Premji and Chairman Rishad Premji. This is when I felt this is a unique company, because I don’t know any other company that has such a sense of purpose, where it’s not only about delivering the numbers – it has a much broader ambition. The fact that this is a company where 67% of its profit is going to philanthropic activities is very much talking to my view of what capitalism should be.

“And then I felt, ‘Okay, this is an incredible company.’”

So I went and met both of them… actually, I started with three hours with Rishad, and it was really an outstanding, natural, easy connection between us, and then I met Azim Premji, and then several members of the board. And then I felt, “Okay, this is an incredible company.”

“And so, with humility, I would say I’m convinced – I’m seriously convinced – that there is a good match, and that we have a wonderful page to write. And so then, the decision was made – everything based on principles.”

I feel that the challenges that this company has, I can really have an impact. And so, with humility, I would say I’m convinced – I’m seriously convinced – that there is a good match, and that we have a wonderful page to write. And so then, the decision was made ­– everything based on principles. It’s people, of principles agreeing on things, and I think we were very aligned, culturally very aligned, on many, many different fronts.

Then I started to engage with the team before July 6, which is the official day one. I met all the members of the Executive Committee, I spent hours with Rishad, and engaging with Saurabh (President and CHRO) connecting on many different fronts, so that, you know, when I actually started, on day one, I was immediately hitting the ground. The Executive Committee has 17 people. By the time I officially joined, I knew all of them and what they did. So, it was a really great start.

Phil: And obviously at an interesting time, Thierry. I’m getting tired, talking about the shock and the change. I think what’s happened has happened – now we’re in a new world, and we just have to play by different rules and expectations. Obviously, digital has gone from being aspirational to something that is suddenly forced upon us. And we have a very different economy; one that’s not going to change any time soon. So, does this level the playing field? And is this an opportunity for Wipro to get ahead of the market? Do you feel that everybody has kind of a clean slate? Or do you think this is just going to be a very challenging time, and we just need to hunker down and see through the next year or two?

Thierry: So, there’s no doubt that we are at a moment of our history where you cannot imagine that what we’ve been through, over the last five months, will have no implications. I believe that what we’ve learned over the last five months is that, in a context where you are suddenly not able to connect physically with people every day, that there is a need to connect always more; connect more with your clients, connect more with your employees. In the context where, basically, it’s no longer about going and visiting, but connecting.

“The dimension of trust is more important than ever, and I am convinced that one of the implications of this crisis, going forward, is that the length of relationship will matter more than ever.”

The dimension of trust is more important than ever, and I am convinced that one of the implications of this crisis, going forward, is that the length of relationship will matter more than ever. So I think, more than jumping from one partner to another for 3% of savings, I think our clients will value more than ever the value of commitment and long-term partnership. I think it’s true for our employees, as well.

I think that we’ve also seen that companies that have not moved fast enough in their digital agenda have been struggling, and I think they didn’t expect to have such a brutal event confronting their own strategy. I think the reality is that there will be an acceleration of the rotation of the offerings, of the rotation to digitally transform organisations across industries.

So, yes, it’s going to change things for us, because what it means is that your legacy offerings, I would say, the more traditional offerings of the past, are going to shrink even faster. You need to accelerate your rotation to the new, because this is where the investments are going to happen. So, I absolutely agree that, yes, I feel that in arriving at this point in time, I have an incredible opportunity to reset the stage, somehow, for our business, and make some bets.

“I am a great believer in strong partnership. I have built my success, over the last years, in focusing on a few strong partnerships, and it has paid off multiple times. And so, I’m convinced that it will be even more important in this new world.”

We are going to make some bets, I cannot tell you which ones, you know, this is what I’m working on right now, to define where I want to make the bets. I believe we will see efforts, or focus, on simplifications.

We will see focus on rationalisation, on consolidation, to build bigger partnerships. I am a great believer in strong partnership. I have built my success, over the last years, in focusing on a few strong partnerships, and it has paid off multiple times. And so, I’m convinced that it will be even more important in this new world.

Last, you know, looking at the market, but also looking at our employees… when I look at our employees, this is our asset. Right? This is what makes us different. It’s very weird, to start with, because I have no clue how long I will have to wait before I can actually physically meet people from Wipro. You know? They might wonder if I’m a real person, or if I’m just a hologram [laughs].

“I think connecting with our people will be my obsession for the next weeks. One of the beauties with Teams or these tools, is that you can actually break a lot of the hierarchy. Everyone on the screen is equal sized, and there’s no one ahead with people standing in the back. It also breaks a lot of the walls; walls between one office and another, or a business unit and another, or a language and another. And so, it’s wonderful, because you really can now drive a lot more alignment. So, I will use this new world to the benefit.”

I think connecting with our people will be my obsession for the next weeks. One of the beauties, with Teams or these tools, is that you can actually break a lot of the hierarchy. Everyone on the screen is equal sized, and there’s no one ahead with people standing in the back. It also breaks a lot of the walls; walls between one office and another, or a business unit and another, or a language and another. And so it’s wonderful, because you really can now drive a lot more alignment. So, I will use this new world to the benefit. It will never be the same, I think.

You will never be able to ask your employees to be at the office five days a week, if this is not what they want. But I think, equally, it will not be a time where, everyone is working from home every day, because you will miss a lot, in terms of connection, in terms of engagement. But I think it’s going to be a world that requires fluidity and agility; which is fine, I’m very comfortable in this environment.

Phil: Yes. And, to me, a new CEO within three weeks? This wouldn’t have happened, if we were back in the analogue days, right? It would’ve taken probably six months or something. [Laughs].

Thierry: [Laughs].

Phil: So…

Thierry: Phil, today… Today, I have spoken to six clients.

Phil: Wow =)

Thierry: And since day one, I have spoken to 35 clients already. 35 clients. When I say spoken, it’s basically I have met 35 clients. And, you know, I’m just increasing the speed. I’m engaging more than ever. If I had to jump on a plane for the meetings I have had today, it would have taken me more than a week because of the different locations.

Phil: And if I could tell you how our business as a research company has changed, it’s beyond belief, in terms of the speed we can get things done, the extra time our analysts have, because they’re not traveling all the time to deliver work. And the closeness we’re getting with our clients. This was terrifying for a couple of months, Thierry, and then we realized we have to move everything we have onto a digital setting. But once you get ahead of this, and embrace it, and realize this is how we do business, the benefits are just astounding and surprising. And I’ve been reading and hearing about entire transitions now being done on Teams. I mean, you can do a hell of a lot now that you didn’t realize you were capable of, without physically being with people.

Thierry: I absolutely agree.

Phil: …this is a huge, huge gamechanger in how we operate.

Thierry: Agreed, Phil.

Phil: Right. So I’ve got one last question, then. If you could have one wish for the industry, in the next couple of years, what would that be? 

“…the beauty of our industry is that our assets are our people – our enabler is technology.”

Thierry: One wish for the industry. Continue to maintain the balance between technology and people. So I think, you know, the beauty of our industry is that our assets are our people – our enabler is technology. And my wish is that we continue along this line, and we don’t take it for granted, or we don’t go in a world where technology replaces talent and people, because I think we would take the wrong direction.

Phil: Very good. That was excellent, Thierry, I really appreciated the time… and I know our audience will when they read this.

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

I don’t think any singular statement better described the world of technology in the last three decades:

“You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backward to the technology. You can’t start with the technology then try to figure out where to sell it.” 

— Steve Jobs 1997

Posted in : Customer-Engagement, customer-experience-management

Brian Humphries, CEO of Cognizant since April 1, 2019. In an interview with HFS CEO Phil Fersht, Brian moves beyond the business talk and straight to the deep end – the personal, the humble, the lessons learned – and the stakes set firmly in the ground.

I wrote a detailed business piece on Cognizant’s 2019 leadership change after losing its edge in the market: The Life of Brian: Prettying up a baby that’s got a bit ugly. One of our readers, Mike N, commented, “Don’t weep for Brian. I for one believe his hiring reflects the vision of a Cognizant and that he has the perfect timing and opportunity to shake up the old guard and culture. New day dawning!”

True indeed, but to now quote myself from the same piece, “When we’re asked what we think of the new CEO, our honest answer is we don’t know. He has, for all intents and purposes, kept a low profile externally, instead focusing his energies on extensive liposuction internally.”

I’ve managed to breach Brian’s low-pro firewall, finding a leader willing to engage beyond the business talk and go straight to the deep end – the personal, the humble, the lessons learned – as well as the stakes set firmly in the ground…  So, without further ado, let’s meet Brian:

Phil Fersht, CEO and Chief Analyst, HFS Research: Good afternoon, Brian. It’s great to get some time with you again today. I want to keep this conversation a bit more informal, and a little bit about you; not just about Cognizant; Did you ever expect to be doing this job today, when you set out, many years ago?

Brian Humphries, CEO, Cognizant: No, I did not. I’m from a relatively humble background, I would say, growing up in Ireland. I can’t say I started off wanting to be a CEO, Phil, because I probably didn’t have exposure to large MNCs until my early 20s. But I started working at a company called Digital Equipment Corporation, or DEC, which was acquired by Compaq and later acquired by HP.

So, for the first 18 years, I was there, and, subsequently, moved to Dell, became the President of the Enterprise Solutions Group there. I was most recently in Vodafone as the CEO of Vodafone Business, prior to joining Cognizant. So, I can’t say I’ve had a fully orchestrated career.

“I certainly made commitments along the way, in terms of moving internationally and throwing myself into the deep end of the swimming pool, more than once…”

I think, as the years went by, I had figured out paths of success. I certainly worked and invested in my career. I certainly made commitments along the way, in terms of moving internationally and throwing myself into the deep end of the swimming pool, more than once, to build out breadth and depth of experience. And along the way, you learn lessons.

And this is where, in a 25-year career, Phil, your ambition gets the better of you, and you realise through association with CEOs or other senior executives, that you have an appetite to not work for people anymore, but you actually have an appetite to lead. And that’s effectively what happened in my career over the years. Now, what I realised, becoming a CEO, is that now I have ten-plus bosses. I have a Board of Directors. So… it backfired. [Laughs]

Phil: [Laughs]. Right, right. So…

Brian: Fortunately, they are very supportive of everything I’m trying to do, so I’m one of the lucky CEOs.

Phil: [Laughs]. Well, that’s a good position to be in, compared to others, right? So what do you think it takes to lead a successful organisation in this industry? And, you know, maybe you could share a little bit about what you’ve learned in the first 15 months of this role?

“Look, it hasn’t been an easy start for me, let’s be honest.
…But I think we’re doing all the right things and the fruits of our labour are starting to show up…”

Brian: Look, it hasn’t been an easy start for me, let’s be honest. I inherited a quarter that was well below Wall Street expectations. I found out the news of that probably one hour into my first day at Cognizant. I’ve mostly been dealing with a lot of significant leadership changes, much of which I have initiated in our organisation, and then, of course, we had two exogenous events, with COVID-19 and ransomware. But I think we’re doing all the right things and the fruits of our labour are starting to show up, and I think Wall Street, and our employee base, will more and more give us credit for that.

Phil: And has your view changed about leadership since you’ve taken on this role?

Brian: I’m not sure that the principles I think about, in terms of leadership, have fundamentally changed. But certainly, I’ve learned valuable lessons along the way.

For what it’s worth, the principles that I have always adhered to, and I believe that I will continue to adhere to, relate to the importance of a purpose, of vision, of clarity of strategy, of having an operating structure where roles and responsibilities are truly, clearly defined, and accountability is defined within that; of having a culture that supports the focus on clients, and innovation, and collaboration – not just internally but with a partnership ecosystem. And then getting a leadership team around you that’s harmonious, where we pull in one direction. And, Phil, I know you’ve seen some of the changes I’ve made, in the last year, and will continue to make, across the company.

“Some of the things that I’ve been very focused on, in terms of leadership, are things like being a catalyst for change whilst being very respectful of the history and the pride of the company based on everything they have done.”

That said, joining Cognizant has been an incredible life experience for me, and the speed with which these events arise has been invaluable in terms of developing more as a leader. And this is somewhat unique for me, relative to my early leadership roles, in the sense that I’m the first non-founder CEO of the company, and I am also the first Caucasian CEO of the company. This is a company that’s had a remarkable track record, but, of course, in more recent years it wasn’t truly hitting its stride. So, some of the things that I’ve been very focused on, in terms of leadership, are things like being a catalyst for change whilst being very respectful of the history and the pride of the company based on everything they have done.

“I’m continuously trying to gauge how fast is too fast as a pace of change.”

I’m continuously trying to gauge how fast is too fast as a pace of change. My experience tells me, and when I speak with other CEOs, that invariably CEOs wish they had moved faster, not slower. For every CEO that wished they had moved slower, nine wished they had moved faster, but gauging that, implementing that, and contextualizing that to the organisation was really important. How to tap into the past as you’re thinking about everything that needs to change – that what is changing, what is good for the company, and what is good for the employees – is important, but also what doesn’t need to change. And, of course, figuring out which leaders still have a lot more to offer. Their context is, of course, very valuable, but making sure they still have the fire in their bellies to take it forward.

Then, of course, there is India. I’ve been exposed to India before, but Cognizant has a very proud attachment to India, with 200,000 employees based there, so it’s been important for me to really embrace India and to understand the culture more than ever before. And, for that reason, certainly pre-COVID, I was in India every seven to eight weeks for a week at a time.

“You know, there are lessons to be learned, and I can’t say there is any week that goes by that I don’t self-critique around a meeting that I could have conducted better, or a conversation I could’ve been more succinct in, or perhaps more motivational in, or perhaps be more searching…”

You know, there are lessons to be learned, and I can’t say there is any week that goes by that I don’t self-critique around a meeting that I could have conducted better, or a conversation I could’ve been more succinct in, or perhaps more motivational in, or perhaps be more searching, in my inquisitive nature, as I’m trying to conduct operational reviews, and client engagement reviews as well. But it’s all been good, and I feel more or less on track, notwithstanding everything.

Phil: Good. That’s good to hear. And looking at this lockdown we’ve been in, how has that treated you? What would you personally take away from the last three months of your life?

Brian: This is where the professional and private life of CEOs blur, because it is somewhat of a lifestyle, if you choose to become a CEO of a company; and you’re CEO of a company, yourself, Phil, so you know this. On a professional level, let’s just say it’s been an abrupt transition. Prior to COVID-19, I was travelling literally 90% of the time, and so we’re all now dealing with a massive new reality. And that new reality is very real for me, because naturally in the services industry, you’re dealing with COVID, not just in terms of the demand side of economics, but also the supply side, so the fulfilment side is very important.

“With 300,000 employees in the company, valued employees, talented employees – their health and wellbeing has always been top of mind for me.”

With 300,000 employees in the company, valued employees, talented employees – their health and wellbeing has always been top of mind for me. Those employees are also the intellectual horsepower of the company, and they are the people who do the projects, who do the coding, etc. So, as we started thinking about the demand side of COVID, by definition, the fulfilment side became very important, and enabling a work-from-home culture very rapidly was the first task we all had to deal with.

We had fortunately triggered business continuity very early in March, given what we had seen in the Philippines. As far as I’m concerned, our employees did a fantastic job; they conducted themselves very, very professionally, in what would’ve been very challenging conditions.

In the midst of all of this, on a personal level, I’ve found myself at home with my wife and two boys. And while it’s great to see them on a daily basis, between COVID and, in parallel, a ransomware attack, March and April are somewhat of a blur. Mornings blended into evenings, and nights, and weekends where they were one and the same as the normal work week. As I look back now, I think there were probably 60 days of seven-days-a-week working probably 15 to 18 hours a day.

The good things, as I think about it, are that we, as a company, rallied together. As a CEO, I always value the empowerment of the company. We have had the entrepreneurial spirit when needed, we’ve had structure when needed, we’ve helped our clients, and we’ve certainly invested heavily in society.

“What I have missed, what I would view as one of the bad things of COVID-19 on a personal level, is the human interaction that is afforded to you as a CEO. It’s one of the perks; you get to meet fascinating people in different walks of life and in different industries. I have missed that.”

On a personal level in the context of this, it’s been good to sleep in one bed for three months, as opposed to different hotel rooms every night, and good to see more of my family. And of course, it’s good not to be jetlagged for once in my life. The bad things, of course, come hand-in-glove with that, and impact on life and society will always remain top of mind, and the economy at large.

I do feel greatly for people running smaller companies, who may have very different liquidity patterns, and whose very livelihood could be taken away in this [environment]. But, on a personal level, I must admit, I haven’t missed flying. What I have missed, what I would view as one of the bad things of COVID-19 on a personal level, is the human interaction that is afforded to you as a CEO. It’s one of the perks; you get to meet fascinating people in different walks of life and in different industries. I have missed that. But, of course, we’re all getting used to Webex and Zoom.

Phil: Right. So, I mean, we’re at an interesting stage in second spikes of this disease, the economy is on a knife’s edge, supposedly. Meanwhile, Wall Street seems to be doing just fine, and tech is the star stock. Right? But how far do you think this is going to go, economically and socially, at the moment? As you look out, maybe a year, a bit beyond that, do you think this is going to hit us deeply, what is happening right now? Or do you still feel that it’s kind of unraveling, and it’s hard to tell?

Brian: Well, I think it’s both. I think it will hit us, and I think it is still hard to tell, because I believe the dust is still settling, and this is happening against the backdrop of racial injustice that we saw in the US which is giving rise to a lot of dialogue across the world.

Specific to COVID-19, I review the data on the Johns Hopkins website every day, and it’s clear we’re not through this. We’re talking about some of the biggest economies in the world, like the United States, where levels are still extraordinarily high and increasing, albeit in different states of the US. But the US, as you know, is porous, so if it’s happening in one state, it’s very easy to spread and have another spike.

And I’ve been very surprised by the equities markets and how bullish they have been. We’re almost back now to Q4 2019 levels, despite the fact that in November/December of 2019, nobody was talking about COVID-19 and the massive impact it would have on society.

“We’ve actually been doing better than I anticipated in early May. It’s still somewhat unclear as to why. …Is the macroenvironment better than expected? To be determined. Are we out-executing the competition; are we more competitive? Is our increased client centricity paying dividends? We will see.”

So, I think this earnings cycle is going to tell a tale around the extent of the damage. People are fixated on whether it’s a U-shaped, or V-shaped, or W-shaped, or indeed an L-shaped recovery. I think it’s too early to tell; many companies have withdrawn guidance as well. I will say that, regardless of the environment, my goal as CEO of Cognizant is to refine our strategy, make investments, and out-execute the competition by delighting clients at every opportunity. That is both from the commercial engagement point of view, but also from a delivery point of view as well.

We’ve actually been doing better than I anticipated in early May. It’s still somewhat unclear as to why. We will watch the earnings cycle and really try to understand what is behind that. You know, there are many reasons, of course. Is the macroenvironment better than expected? To be determined. Are we outexecuting the competition; are we more competitive? Is our increased client centricity paying dividends? We will see.

Or are we simply fortunate that our exposure to clients, and industries, and geographies, is a little bit more serendipitous than, perhaps, others’? So whether it’s industry alignment, we have less than 13% of our business in retail, travel, and hospitality, consumer goods; that’s very different from others out there. We are heavily North America centric, as you know, 76%, and, of course, we’re focused on Global 2000 clients, for the most part, which tend to be more resilient and have stronger liquidity and balance sheets than others.

But, I must admit, in early May I was quite pessimistic, I remain convinced that 2020 will be a very, very challenging year. Markets that may have been growing 5 or 6% as an industry may now be declining 5, 6, or 7%, so somewhat of a 10-point swing relative to prior expectations. And I actually think, it’ll really get us into Q2 2021 before we start getting into easier compares again, because, let’s not forget, Q1 2020 was reasonably good for everybody, because COVID kicked in only in March.

Phil: So, an area we’ve been talking a lot about is that one of the better outcomes of what we’re going through is this drive to unleash people, to really think about the talent we have that’s our lifeblood. What’s your feeling? What’s your view as we look out at the next year or two, in terms of empowering your people? We see this cross-pollination of talent across business domains and IT domains more than ever before. How do you see that evolving? And I know you guys have been very vocal with your support for Black Lives Matter and some other social issues as well. How do you see the whole people side of this evolving in our industry?

“Look, I think you hit the nail on the head. People are the core of this business model.”

Brian: Look, I think you hit the nail on the head. People are the core of this business model. While we will always have tooling and automation, at the end of the day, this is a people business, and our intellectual property is largely in the hands of the people we’re able to attract and develop in the company. It’s quite interesting, because I’m a member of the Business Roundtable, and we’re having broader discussions around this. Historically, you go and attract the greatest people you can into your company, and then you develop them, then you train them, of course, you clarify their roles and responsibilities, you empower them, you reward them, and you motivate them. Sometimes some of that motivation is monetary, sometimes it’s technical, but you ultimately develop them, and reskill them, and get them ready to always be on the front foot, and expose them to clients and execs, etc.

“Are we over-spec’ing roles, and are we hiring based on a cookie-cutter profile? Or should we be hiring based upon attitude, and competency, and approach? And that’s something I’m, frankly, spending a lot more time thinking about.”

There’s a big discussion right now, in terms of looking at the average job description of companies. Are we over-spec’ing roles, and are we hiring based on a cookie-cutter profile? Or should we be hiring based upon attitude, and competency, and approach? And that’s something I’m, frankly, spending a lot more time thinking about. As Cognizant, we have three quarters of our revenue in North America, and two thirds of our employees in India. We have been one of these companies that has been, I would say, an incredible story for talent in India: to join a company, be developed, to rotate, ultimately, from a delivery role into a more market-facing role in North America or internationally, and, lo and behold, to ultimately get yourself through to the executive committee of the company.

 I’d like to think that that path will remain. But, Phil, in the same vein, there are many things that are happening in parallel. Part of my goal is to globalise Cognizant. That includes how we think about the brand, whether we are associated with Indian pure plays versus how we think about Deloitte or Accenture, globalisation of the leadership team, who we attract, who we retain, where they are located; and, of course, diversifying the revenue base.

“For me, it’s also about how we distill ourselves down to be able to attract diverse [talent], and to be much more inclusive, as an organisation, around what is a leader in Cognizant, what does it take to be successful in Cognizant, and how do we think about attracting, developing, and retaining people.”

For me, it’s also about how we distill ourselves down to be able to attract diverse [talent], and to be much more inclusive, as an organisation, around what is a leader in Cognizant, what does it take to be successful in Cognizant, and how do we think about attracting, developing, and retaining people. What are the campuses, onshore, that complement our Indian offshore model? How do we think about diversity? And are we willing to impose more rules around that?

Our executive committee, as recently as last week, we formalised the notion – we are going to implement the Rooney Rule. The Rooney Rule will ensure that we have a diverse set of candidates for every single slate, and that starts with our Board of Directors. But it also starts with me, as the CEO, in terms of hiring a more diverse leadership team around me. So, we have a vision, and we have a notion of this. But a lot of this, ultimately, leads us to taking concrete steps to implement that vision.

Phil: Okay. Good. That was well explained. I very much appreciate what you are proactively doing in support of, I think, a very sensitive issue. To close out our conversation, I have to ask; where are you going to be, what are you planning to do, when Liverpool finally gets their chance to finish off the longest Premier League season of all time?

Brian: Well, maybe, Phil, I will go online and buy you a jersey so you don’t have to wear that Tottenham Hotspur jersey anymore that you seemingly cherish. [laughs] But…

Phil: [Laughs].

Brian: It seems like I’ll be here, watching it; albeit, I must admit, it’s not so enjoyable to watch football these days with empty stadiums and fake sound. I keep telling my kids that when I grew up, you were getting used to Liverpool winning every year, and it was almost a foregone conclusion. And now it’s been 30 years since the last victory, so I will certainly cherish it.

Phil: Brian, do you take any inspiration from Jurgen Klopp when you go about your job?  He’s certainly has a certain style about him!

Brian: It’s hard not to like Jurgen Klopp. He lives and breathes football and taps into the club’s rich history – so there are some parallels to be drawn. What I like about him is his intensity, his attack mindset, his competitiveness, and his focus on building a team rather than a collection of individuals. I’m certainly aligned! And of course, we all, like him, have to laugh at times!

Phil: There you go! This has been a wonderful conversation, I’ll look forward to another one soon, but I really enjoyed the time today, Brian. I appreciate your time.

Brian: Phil, thanks. Good to see you.

Posted in : IT Outsourcing / IT Services, Outsourcing Heros

 
Mike Ettling is looking to create a new trifecta by following Springbok’s 2019 World Cup win and Liverpool’s 2020 championship with a Unit4 ERP mid-market sweep.

Mike Ettling has a storied career in HR software and services and is looking to create a new trifecta following Springbok’s 2019 World Cup win and Liverpool’s 2020 championship with a Unit4 ERP mid-market sweep. Mike founded two of his own businesses, nurtured eight start-ups in the HCM technology sector, and led SAP SuccessFactors as President for four years. He also served as CEO of NorthgateArinso (when he spoke with us 10 years ago), one of the original HR outsourcing firms, which is now part of Alight. Speaking at the SuccessFactors 2017 Influencer Summit, Mike stated “no one will be logging into HR Systems in five years’ time.” As we rocket through an unprecedented 2020 towards the noted five-year mark, it’s time to check in on faceless ERP and discover the draw to Unit4’s “sizzle” and its people-centric ERP paradigm.

Phil Fersht, CEO and Chief Analyst, HFS Research: Good afternoon, Mike. It’s great to get connected again, after so many years. You’ve been a big legend on the whole HR software and services market, but now you’ve gone, full ERP on us. Can you give the lowdown to our audience about how you got started? Had you always planned on being a tech CEO?

Mike Ettling, Chief Executive Officer of Unit4: Interestingly, I stumbled into tech in an intriguing way. I did COBOL and Fortran at school – I still have my Daniel McCracken textbooks on Fortran and COBOL – but then I went down the path of business studies, became a chartered accountant, CPA, in two countries. When I started my life at what was then Peat Marwick, or KPMG, I very quickly got into the tech side. We were setting up this African Futures Exchange, and we designed the clearing system for futures trading, and then I started my own business at university, and it was all predicated on building a cool piece of tech to do something which people were doing manually. In those days, we were building stuff on PC networks, using Realia COBOL, which people were traditionally doing, very expensively, on mainframe. And that’s how I stumbled into tech.

And then I ended up getting called by a big company in the US called Neodata, which was the granddad of the back office fulfilment industry at the time. They were keen to see what was being done in client server land. At this point, I was still in South Africa. I remember getting this call, and I asked, “How did you find us on the tip of Africa?” and they said, “We heard from the Microsoft user groups that someone in South Africa is building this stuff in SQL Server.”

And that’s how I ended up at EDS. I joined Neodata, and then EDS bought Neodata, so I look at EDS as my school of technology. A very good school in that regard. I think what EDS was brilliant at was service delivery and delivery execution. That ex-marine culture, which Ross had built into that business, translated into how they did service delivery and ran datacentres and operations in that company. So, I stayed in tech, initially on the services side with EDS and then with Synstar, which HP later bought. My work with Unisys morphed to BPO when I went to NGA.

“I had this view that SaaS was melting business processes, and I wanted to do the melting, not be the melted. That was my transition from big-ticket outsourcing into software and the cloud.”

As SaaS came along and cloud came along, it became very clear that BPO was going to go through a fundamental transformation. I remember when I took the SuccessFactors role, HR outsourcing was shrinking because all the SaaS solutions, be it Workday, or SuccessFactors or Oracle, could do this stuff with far less people, far easier. I had this view that SaaS was melting business processes, and I wanted to do the melting, not be the melted. That was my transition from big-ticket outsourcing into software and the cloud.

What was really interesting were the parallels. In those days, there was no textbook for running a cloud business like SuccessFactors, which was $750 million and heading to 1.4 billion. When you’re looking for skill and talent, a lot of people you find who have the talent in cloud, up and down the West Coast, are working in 50 million ARR companies, or 100 million ARR companies. Finding people who have true enterprise customer experience at scale was interesting. Eventually, I learned to focus on hiring for scale and teaching them cloud was way more effective than hiring for cloud and teaching them scale.

“Those who came out of outsourcing, who understood scale, 100% availability, and that type of environment were keen to get into something new. They were great hires. …We were very successful in scaling by bringing those kinds of skills into the cloud world, and not just taking from the West Coast pool who really didn’t have a lot of the scale experience.”

Outsourcing and cloud are opposite sides of the same coin. On-premise and cloud are different coins. Those who came out of outsourcing, who understood scale, 100% availability, and that type of environment, were keen to get into something new. They were great hires. They knew scale, they knew enterprise, and, if they were smart, they’d learn the cloud side of it very quickly. So, we were very successful in scaling by bringing those kinds of skills into the cloud world, and not just taking from the West Coast pool who really didn’t have a lot of the scale experience.

That’s my story. I never planned to be a tech CEO, but I was always passionate about technology, and fortuitously stumbled into it.

Phil: So how has the lockdown treated you, Mike? You are in Boca, right? Have you enjoyed it? Are there some good things or not-so-good things you’ll take away from your experience?

Mike: I’m an eternal optimist, and I think there are a lot of good things that have come out of this experience. I’ve lost 8 kilograms and got fit again, running ten miles. At the start I was saying to people, “Now’s the time not to get paranoid; now’s the time to take on more goals,” because you will have more time, and if you don’t spend that time on something productive, you’re just going to fret about all the noise and the crisis around us. Family reconnecting and spending more time together has been a big positive. Since I started my career, this is the longest stretch of time I’ve been at home without traveling, which has been great. I think there have been some super positive things.

After just a week, I stopped watching network TV. Whether it was the US, or BBC, or any of the channels, CNN or Fox, I just stopped watching it. And, I feel very strongly about the fact that the modern-day news media has let the world down, in terms of how they have covered COVID, and, in many cases, politicised it, sensationalised it, and made it very hard for people to get facts. My father was in the media industry, in the press world; he was what you call a newspaperman. I was always brought up with this mentality of the integrity of journalism, and getting to the facts, and getting to the truth. That’s what he stood for.

I turned to print media, and reading, and data, to try and inform myself and to sift through the noise. That’s been one of the negatives of this whole thing, for me. Too much sensationalism, too much politicising of every aspect of this when, in fact, this was a health crisis which needed to be dealt with factually, and in health terms, not politically with sensationalism.

I would even say there are positive things coming out of this for business. The notion that you couldn’t work remotely for example. We’ve accelerated that concept, many years, by what’s happened in the last few months, and I think good things will come out of that.

Phil: Yeah. Good. So you’ll reappear thinner than you were a couple of months ago. [Laughs].

Mike: [Laughs].

Phil: Tell us a bit about Unit4 and your plans for the firm, and how do you think you’ll fare over the next year, as we try and weather this, not just economic storm, but geopolitical storm. This is the first time we’ve ever had to think about geopolitics when we make business decisions. Right? I’d love to hear a bit more about the firm and how you think you’re going to weather this.

“I was attracted to Unit4 by the strapline, “In business for people.” Having been in the HCM sector since 2009, it got me interested. …There’s really only a handful of us who have built ERP, where the core product has started with a people-centric business paradigm.”

Mike: I was attracted to Unit4 by the strapline, “In business for people.” Having been in the HCM sector since 2009, it got me interested. When you think about this industry, most people think of enterprise and you’ve got the big three, and then they think of midmarket and SME, and then the masses of others. If you now put another line and split that, and say, “we’ve got enterprise and SME/midmarket, but who is building ERP for people-based services businesses? Service-centric, versus who’s building ERP for product-based, manufacturing type businesses?” And now, suddenly, you put 80% of the pack to the manufacturing/product side, and there’s really only a handful of us who have built ERP, where the core product has started with a people-centric business paradigm.

There’s a big West Coast player who’s dominating the enterprise space, and then there’s us, dominating the midmarket space in terms of scale, and size, and reach. And then there’s a lot of single vertical-focused players. That really got me interested and excited about this opportunity, because I think Unit4 is a really interesting platform and positioned in a very unique way to go after and build a billion-dollar revenue-plus market leader, for midmarket, people-centric ERP in the industries we specialize in.

“If you look at the cloud offerings of the big players, I would say 75% are still single tenant hosted type cloud offerings, and there’s only about 25% which are true multi-tenant architected. We are one of those.”

The other thing which attracted me was Unit4’s cool technology. People really liked the product. But more than that I was excited about the strategy for moving the product to the cloud, taking it into the microservices architecture world, and making it multi-tenant. A lot of cloud products today are still single tenant hosted. If you look at the cloud offerings of the big players, I would say 75% are still single tenant hosted type cloud offerings, and there’s only about 25% which are true multi-tenant architected. We are one of those.

“The reaction I got from a lot of peers in the software industry was, ‘Unit who?’ It was a great steak with no sizzle, which was an attractive challenge.”

The reaction I got from a lot of peers in the software industry was, “Unit who?” It was a great steak with no sizzle, which was an attractive challenge. Not an easy one, but one I was eager to take on.

We had a really good Q1, and we’re tracking well in Q2. We are approaching that tipping point, in an on-premise to cloud transformation, where our cloud subscription revenues are going to be equal to our maintenance revenue. 70% of our revenues are recurring, in the business, between cloud and maintenance. We’re getting to a cloud scale which is interesting, and that builds resilience in the business. And the fact that it’s ERP helps. People aren’t going to rip out their ERP in a crisis – that has a double-sided impact on us, it’s good for retention, but makes it harder to find new customers, but overall, we’re weathering the storm well.

Unit4 was originally a Dutch company, so when this crisis started, there were a couple of key things in our approach to it. We agreed from the start we wanted to avoid layoffs. That created a focus in the management team to look at an offensive and defensive strategy. Using a Dutch term, we decided to build dykes to protect us against the wave. We didn’t know how big it would be but let’s build those protective dykes to avoid the water getting to the last dyke (layoffs). We took out tens of millions of cost, immediately, within the first two weeks of lockdown starting.

We also decided that no one in the team was going to get bogged down with scenario planning. We have a budget, and we’re going to go for the budget, and yes, it will be harder, but we’re going to go for the budget in terms of top-line and bookings. If you try to consider, “is this a hurricane? Is it a tsunami? Is it a small wave? Is it a big wave?” you end up picking one and talking yourself into that one. The whole approach was about getting on with delivering the budget. We’ll put all the dykes in place immediately, and if we achieve the budget, we’ll be tens of millions over our profit target. If we miss the budget, there’s a buffer and we’ll probably still make our profit for the year. That approach has enabled us to be more united, more resilient.

“I’ve been on a lot of CEO peer calls, …and what I’ve seen is a lot of people go straight to the defensive stuff, ‘We’re taking headcount down, we’re taking costs out, we’ve got these three scenarios.’ You psychologically talk yourself into the worst case. We’ve taken a very different approach, which has helped in fostering resilience so we can weather the storm.”

You make a really interesting point that this is a health crisis and an economic storm, that is creating a geopolitical storm. The worst one – for me personally – will be the geopolitical storm.

I think we’ll cope with the health crisis. We have, we’ve figured it out. In many countries, there were pockets, like New York that breached their capacity for ICU beds. But if you look at the rest of the US, for example, no other state breached capacity or got near capacity. Countries like Germany, Sweden, and most of the European countries other than pockets of northern Italy, didn’t breach capacity. So, we’ve coped with it quite well from that perspective.

The economic crisis is very different from 2007-08 where you had a financial industry fundamentally causing the crisis. I think you have what I call a consumer-driven economic crisis happening, and particularly for countries like the US, which is a consumer-driven spend economy. I can’t reconcile the stock market and 40 million people out of work in the US. think that consumer-driven dynamic will have to have some impact. But then, if things come back, you could see the W, you could see a W with a U. There are more signs of economic recovery than I expected, at this stage.

“I’m not an economist, but there are some really interesting challenges, definitely a subject for Freakonomics 2 to be written around this.”

The biggest one I’m most scared of is the geopolitical consequences, and how countries now start engaging. You see it already, Japan putting a billion dollars into the subsidies to de-risk and remove themselves from China supply chains. What happens if the balance of payments in China goes negative for the first time in decades? Who then buys the US debt? And you start looking at the bigger geopolitical impacts of this… I’m not an economist, but there are some really interesting challenges, definitely a subject for Freakonomics 2 to be written around this.

Phil: Looking back, we could’ve bailed ourselves out of any type of financial crisis by throwing money at it. This is the one thing that is going to set a whole different sequence of events happening. A lot of uncertainty.

Mike: Yeah.

Phil: And what’s interesting now is that you can get cash in this market. It’s not getting cash that’s the issue; it’s how you deploy that cash. So…

Mike: No, you can get cash so quickly. And, you know, you’ve got governments… the UK issued a government bond with negative interest recently. So, things are really topsy-turvy at the moment when you look at traditional economic metrics and all.

Phil: Do you think people are going to start buying software and services differently, as a result of this? Do you think people are really changing fast now, how customers are viewing their relationships, and how they want to pay for this stuff? How they want to consume it?

Mike: Yeah. I think a lot of things are going to be accelerated, and I think there will be change which we don’t yet foresee. Looking at what happened after every major recession in history, and you go back to the early ‘90s, there was a new tech boom, or tech trend, which escalated. In the early ‘90s, you then had client server. Then you had the 1999-2000 post-millennial recession, and you had mobile and the internet. Then you had 2007-08, and, post that, you had the cloud wave. We have yet to see the wave of tech shift post this recession.

“We have some views around faceless technology, faceless ERP; no one’s going to log into an ERP system, or a core HR system anymore.”

We know the future is faceless technology, faceless ERP. No one’s going to log into an ERP system, or a core HR system anymore. I look at my landing page paradigm. Three months ago, I’d spend most of my day in Outlook; now I spend most of my day in Teams. And when I look on my Teams, I’ve got a little button on the left which says, “U4 Wanda”, which is my Unit4 chatbot, which prompts me with a Teams message, saying I’ve got invoices to approve for example. That’s what I mean by faceless ERP. We’re not going to want to log in to these systems anymore, and we’re going to want to access them from wherever. As a midmarket ERP company, I am certainly not going to take on competing with Microsoft, and ServiceNow, and Google for the landing page ownership; but I can compete with owning the transactions, and the insights, and the data, and enabling people to work better. I think that’s where we’re going to see big change.

“Work-from-where-you’re-comfortable is the future of work. That will help with the myriad of health and safety rules and regulations, by country and personal preferences. It’s too complex to try and write the manual for returning to work.”

It’s clear working from home is here to stay. I think we’re moving to a work-from-where-you’re-comfortable policy and model. We’ll have offices where people can go to hang out, do meetings, and see clients. But if you’re comfortable working from home, work from home; if you’re comfortable coming into the office for a day a week, work from here; if you’re comfortable sitting on your boat and working, work from there. Work-from-where-you’re-comfortable is the future of work. That will help with the myriad of health and safety rules and regulations, by country and personal preferences. It’s too complex to try and write the manual for returning to work.

The rule of business will change. We’re already saying, from our board down, “We have six board meetings a year. Let’s do three this way, going forward, and we’ll do three in person. Out of ten leadership meetings a year, I’ll do five like this, five in person.” We won’t see a return to travel as it was before. In fact, for 2021, we’ve budgeted just 50% of our pre-COVID annual travel budget.

“The other acceleration we’re seeing is… Data residency has now suddenly gone down the ranking, almost to the bottom of the pile.”

The other acceleration we’re seeing is less of a focus on data residency in the cloud, particularly among many European public sector clients. Pre-COVID, data residency trumped GDPR EU compliance. But data residency has now suddenly gone down the ranking, almost to the bottom of the pile. We’re seeing a lot more dialogue around needing resilience, and needing to be in the cloud, irrespective of where the datacentre is in Europe for example.

Phil: Wow. That’s good. Very good. So one final question. How did you celebrate Liverpool winning the Premier League and as a big fan, was it hard not to be at Anfield to see it?

Mike: I watched it from home, the whole family are Reds fans. There was a lot of debate, and some sharp language from my sons about some teams in the Premier League, suggesting they shouldn’t award it at all this year. I’ve been a very patient Springbok and Liverpool supporter, and the Springboks paid off last year, and Liverpool paid off this year, so all in all, it’s been a great time for my sport.

Phil: Alright. There you go…. as a Spurs fan I just wasn’t this season to end. [Laughs].  Thanks for your time today Mike. I really enjoyed the conversation.

Posted in : Cloud Computing, HR Strategy, saas-2

The automation game just changed – and most of you barely noticed

It’s sometimes those low-profile moves that make the bigger impacts on markets, versus the big glamor ones.  Who would have thought Jurgen Klopp would end Liverpool’s 30-year wait for the English Premier League title when he quietly disappeared himself from Borussia Dortmund?  And who would have thought a smallish Brazilian RPA firm, WDG, could propel IBM into the first one-stop services and software automation shop for organizations.  This is in stark contrast to the Accenture Synops model, which is focused almost entirely on partnering with 3rd party software. Oh, this is going to be fun… the big services giants are back to duke out automation dominance in the middle of a pandemic.

10 reasons why IBM’s move will have such an extreme impact on the existing automation market

1. WDG adds proven attended desktop automation capability and has already displaced UiPath in a major organization. The technology provides a low code, cloud-based authoring experience for the business user to create bot scripts with a desktop recorder, without the need of IT. These scripts are executed by digital robots to complete tasks. Digital robots can run on-demand by the end-user or by an automated scheduler.  Arguably, WDG is on a par with Softomotive – acquired by Microsoft for considerably more money. What is clear is these RPA firms are offering pretty much the same functionality for the basic scripting and recording.

2. WDG is focused heavily on quality customer service ops and is great at integrating with chatbots, digital associates and other AI tools. Pre-Covid, most RPA was focused on low-risk back-office processes, especially in finance. Now customers are desperate to automate the customer-facing and revenue-generating processes and need tools proven to work in the environments.  Noone has a huge advantage in the CX automation space so this provides a greenfield opportunity for IBM. 

3. The WDG automation software sits under IBM Cognitive and Cloud giving it a broader playing field to compete with the likes of MSFT, Pega, Appian, and even ServiceNow. Arguably, this is the real play that excites IBM’s top brass. This is where the big dollars are and where IBM has powerful potential as the world’s largest IT services provider. Orchestratng processes and data in hybrid cloud environments is where IBM should be leading the market, and now it has plugged some holes to do it even better.

4. This is no desperate measure. IBM software made this investment after seven patient years observing the market. It was not a huge secret that IBM flirted with the concept of acquiring Blue Prism (and others) in recent times, and its software team also partnered with Automation Anywhere in 2017.  Of one thing you can be sure, IBM Software does not suffer fools these days and does exhaustive due diligence. They also have in-depth working knowledge of the major RPA products and know exactly what functionality they need to have a one-stop-shop capability.

5. IBM doesn’t want to acquire a huge installed base of messy RPA customers – it wants to create its own customer base bought into its own Extreme Automation vision. The last thing future-thinking services firms like IBM need is a plethora of unprofitable clients which have underpaid for too many bot licences and have little money left to spend on professional services to deploy them effectively. It makes more sense for IBM to go after clients willing to start afresh… and with over 90% of RPA clients struggling to get even 5 bots functional, the market is ripe to pick off many of the failed RPA implementations and move them to the emerging IBM automation platform.

6. Already demonstrated by MSFT and SAP, you don’t need to make insane investments to add RPA functionality. In short, why spend billions on the “Big 3” when you can get perfectly adequate functionality (and standout features) from the likes of Another Monday, AntWorks, Kryon, Jiffy.AI, WorkFusion etc?  The big guys did the diligence. Softomotive, Jidoka, WDG, Contextor were all small – but more than good enough to achieve automation goals.

7. IBM no longer has to hang onto the coattails of AA, Blue Prism or UiPath – the power is shifting. While most customers of the “Big 3” will not be ditching their investments anytime soon, IBM can enjoy the freedom to pitch its own automation platform twinned with its own service delivery and choose how to price in the way the clients wants to invest (such as as-a-service).  Being subjected to erratic pricing and some of the wacky marketing being purveyed by some RPA firms, where reality takes second place to hype, makes it hard for services partners to build a cohesive automation business.  This is why so many have backed away from the market.

8. IBM can leverage RPA as a loss-leader to win larger automation and AI business further down the line. IBM can afford to be brutal on price if it knows it will lead to selling more of its other wares. This will make life very difficult to the standalone RPA vendors desperate for whatever revenue they can scrape in the current abnormal market place. It may also be a smart play to win over disaffected customers who need a whole new direction to fast-track their automation journeys.

9. IBM services will still benefit from its partnerships with AA, Blue Prism and UiPath. They will have no choice but t play ball.  This is all about who controls the client in this environment.  Forget lovely partnerships in this post-covid economy – this is a cut throat battle to win the hearts and minds of the customers/

10. WDG’ partnerships with Deloitte, Capgemini and Grant Thornton will be challenged, but won’t have a lot of choice but to play ball. WDG’s partners will be desperate not to lose their services business to IBM so will likely have to be very nice to IBM to keep their business with the WDG clients and make efforts to be “collaborative”.

Extreme times call for extreme measures

In a recent conversation with automation leadership at IBM, HFS shared our view that technology is really only 10% of digital transformation. The true heavy lifting is driving change with people, process and data to truly advance to integrated automation. We challenged IBM to showcase their approach to achieving automation at scale without overly relying on specific tools or services. The result is the following “extreme automation” model – showcasing our current anaemic automation reality on the left and the potential “extreme” future opportunity:

Source: IBM Automation / IBM Corporation 2020

The Bottom-line: The automation game is being elevated to low-code cloud-based automation platforms with strong capability to integrate across core customer and employee-facing processes. 

The rapidly evolving digital workplace is creating the “have-to-have” mindset and clients need service partners to drive rapid speed-to-outcome solutions, leveraging whatever technology tools can create an immediate impact that are easy to deploy. Complex partnerships, landgrabs and hyped marketing have faded into the memory of the pre-covid world. Clients need real hands-on help to rethink a much more concise – and often extreme – automation strategy, and then need to act fast to execute these plans.  Having a one-stop-shop where software firms and service providers are not fighting for attention, where one partner can help clients look at the bigger picture and devise a realistic, measurable plan is the new normal for automation.

IBM’s super patient approach to filling these RPA holes in its portfolio could have just been perfectly timed to take this market in an entirely new direction.

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

Three serious dudes having a serious conversation –  Phil Fersht, Nagendra P. Bandaru, and Saurabh Gupta

The COVID-19 pandemic shock is possibly (and hopefully) the biggest disruption of our lifetime. This is the time when you need real leaders who can see the light and the end of the tunnel and work tirelessly to unleash their organizational potential. We recently caught up Nagendra P. Bandaru (Nag) to discuss the resilient nature of the IT services industry, his bullish outlook for Wipro, and his sage advice for enterprises to adapt to this pandemic shock. Nag has been a constant in the IT industry for more than 30 years. He is responsible for organically doubling Wipro’s BPM business in the last 4 years and currently manages 40% of Wipro’s revenues, from BPM services to cloud and infrastructure.  I have personally known Nag since 2006, when he was a feisty young sales and marketing leader helping develop Wipro’s presence in the US during the year growth years of BPO and it’s been great seeing him flourish into one of Wipro’s key minds and personalities as he helps shape the business for this challenging future. 

So, Saurabh Gupta, and myself decided it was time to reconnect with Nag to hear more about his views on the current situation and where the industry needs to go to make it through troubled waters to flourish once more…

Phil Fersht, CEO and Chief Analyst, HFS Research: We’ve known each other for more than a decade, Nag, so maybe talk to us a little bit about your background and how you ended up running not just Wipro’s BPM business but other big parts of Wipro such as Cloud and Infrastructure Services. Maybe you could take us a bit back to your earlier days, how you got into this, and what you’re doing now?

Nagendra P. Bandaru, President – Digital Operations and Platforms & Cloud and Infrastructure Services, Wipro: First, thank you for setting up this conversation, Phil. It’s been great knowing you, especially since you have been part of nearly one third of my journey in this industry! The last thirty years have been an extremely exciting experience.

In Wipro, I have undertaken several roles across the organization––beginning with managing the e-commerce practice for Wipro in Europe, and later as the Telecom business unit head for the region when we won one of the largest deals around the year 2000. A brief stint in the data center business of Wipro saw the integration of Wipro Infocrossing in 2007. Post that, I was heading Insurance business unit, and later became the BPM head. I launched Wipro Mobility which is now with Wipro Digital. With the BPM industry undergoing significant changes in both services and business models, I had the opportunity to build several businesses ground up and lead transformation and restructuring of under-performing businesses. Transformation led opportunities, such as our foray in the consumer healthcare through HPS and retire to Wealth through Alight among others, have played a significant role in our growth and success, which have created unique and differentiated competencies. I have been extremely fortunate to work with highly talented people in our teams who have been the foundation of our growth and success. Our continued people-centric approach has been the key driver behind end-customer satisfaction. As the industry matured over time and ushered in an era of convergence, cloud naturally became a big unifier. With that, Cloud and Infrastructure Services (CIS) service line became a logical extension to my current role, which helps us drive transformational growth for our customers. Together, the business is about US $3.2 billion in revenues, 87,000 employees, and 40% of Wipro’s overall business.

Phil: Wow. So that’s been quite an addition to your portfolio over the years. Was this something you always wanted to do? Or did you have other plans when you were younger?

Nag: No, I am a lawyer by qualification. I have an advanced Master’s degree in International Trade Law and Business Law. I was admitted into the Bar Council and I still have the membership, which is fundamentally the first step to becoming a lawyer. My other passion is stock trading and I started my career as a stock market trader. I used to own membership in a stock exchange, and I continue to actively view the world from an investment standpoint. So, I think various disciplines brought me a lot more understanding of the business world. Amongst science, technology, finance—which is where my heart is—and law, you’ve covered most of the disciplines. As a student, I did better in sports and performing arts, so I love those disciplines too. Perhaps that is the reason, in Wipro too, I have covered the length and breadth of the organization.

Phil: And then, recently, Nag, Wipro has merged together under you, the infrastructure and cloud area as well. It’s a very interesting development to see, bringing together BPM with cloud delivery. Is there some method there to the madness? Or have they just given you more responsibility?

Nag: There is a method, definitely. Take employee experience, for example, DOP (Digital Operations and Platforms) is at the upstream of the process from an operations standpoint, the underlying middle layer is the applications, and the fundamental layer is the computing infrastructure. So, when you want to create an experience—whether customer, employee, or any sort of experience—you need to have end-to-end capability. Now, a CHRO might say, “I want workplace transformation,” but he or she is only at the top end of the process; the real issues lie at the bottom of the pyramid around the day-to-day life, in the weeds. The challenges are never at the senior management level. However, at the lowest levels of the organization, the turnaround times are very high as the processes are broken. This makes it very important that we segregate the experience into three types of infrastructure: process, systems, and technology. To that end, we have seen a need for new business models to support contactless commerce, for example, and an acceleration of digital, automation, cloud, and AI in every industry from health to retail to manufacturing to banking. And, that is what generates the synergy between the two units [digital operations and infrastructure and cloud services] from an executional standpoint. We felt that bringing them together would create a very fungible organization.

Phil: Interesting. So, as you look at the current paradigm shock, what do you think the outlook is for the BPM industry? What do you think we’re going to look like in a year?

Nag: I’m very bullish, in general, about the business for three primary reasons. At first, we didn’t know what was hitting us. This is the first time in Wipro’s––or any economic––history, that we experienced a BCP challenge at a global level and magnitude. Our clients across the world were experiencing a meltdown of operations. Plants are shut down; retail stores are shutdown down; everything are shut down. But still, business had to be done and therefore a lot of companies moved to e-commerce and virtual platforms. Enterprises are revisiting business continuity, and they realize that cloud is a massive operating model to ensure always-on-always-scale operations. This big trend will continue, while the physical world will be reserved for things you may want to experience physically––such as visiting an attraction– –the way businesses work will be extremely virtual in the future. Previously, it used to be 80% physical and 20% virtual, but now the scales will tilt to 40/60, with 40% physical and 60% virtual, if not more in certain cases. This presents a host of opportunities for our industry.

Second, there was a great rallying of organizations to be resilient, deliver quickly in the new environment, and react to it. I’m very happy, not only for Wipro but also for the entire IT-ITeS industry as we collectively demonstrated the execution capability of this industry and its resilience. It is one of the largest transitions (moving from office to home) that the industry, and Wipro, has undertaken. This is the first time I have seen a high coordinated action where the entire industry come together along with NASSCOM. I was part of a joint council, which included my peers in the industry, to make sure that we work in a coordinated fashion. The resilience of the execution has been most heartening, and customers are extremely happy with what we have achieved. And, how does the future look? I think the future will have a very different model of work. It need not be a centralized delivery model; it will be extremely distributed, where you have the ability to access talent from anywhere. New and fresh talent pools will be available such as working mothers or people who are differently abled.

I see many disciplines integrating. From a technology perspective, digital technologies will continue to gain momentum because organizations would want operations to be efficient and intelligent. During the crisis, we ensured that customer-centricity was at the heart of driving value. With speed as our mantra to help clients, we ramped up capabilities through Wipro HOLMES^TM, our AI and Automation platform, to set up a cloud-based solutions to solve customer problems. Supply chains have been the worst hit during the pandemic. However, our supply chain solutions have helped clients across industry verticals manage excess volumes as well as risks. Rapid deployment of Intelligent Automation has powered our Work From Anywhere solution, which has over 60 use cases right after the outbreak.

And, finally, I see a tremendous opportunity to bring all this together for customers. For example, manufacturing will not be centralized; it will use edge technology to be just-in-time, 5G, and 3D-printing in different cities will gain prominence so that products reach customers very quickly, where the buying and selling happen online. The hunger for computing infrastructure will increase, and new opportunities will emerge from this: whole new focus on health, online education, distance learning, and entertainment. The reliance on real estate will go down, and there will be more virtual infrastructure created. I think workspaces will get smaller and smaller, but the volumes and the complexities will increase. We have already seen a huge increase in demand for Virtuadesk^TM, our VDI solution, to enable effective remote working across industries. Wipro itself was able to get about 93% of the employees to work from home in a fully equipped and secure environment to support our clients round the clock. Every business manages technology cycles, economic cycles, and business cycles – but have you ever seen these three come together?

Phil: No!

Nag: Exactly. In the last 20 years, we have witnessed the Y2K, e-commerce boom, the mortgage crisis, and then digital transformation. Now, we see disruption at a global level as a result of COVID, which has ushered in large scale transformation for several companies and organizations. It has brought together technology, business, and economics—everything—for the very first time. The balance between life and livelihood has never been tested in the recent past. Maybe at the time of the Spanish Flu, but the environment at that time was very different, they didn’t have so much technology. I am very, very bullish. We will see leaders emerge out of this; there will be people who will be at the front end of this change, and that’s where we aim to be. We have been rapidly strengthening our competencies to address the emerging opportunities. This has two focus areas––first, building ‘Business Resilience’ solutions that help clients look at immediate and short-term business objectives, and the second is ‘Reimagining the Business’ to help address the “new normal” in way that they thrive in the new world.

Phil: That’s very good. We’ve been talking a lot, recently, about how each company needs to find its bottom in this market. We need to understand what financial resources we need to survive as a business and figure out, “This is where it ends, and this is where it needs to go,” and you see that light ahead, then you can start to plan and make the real investments that you need to make to be successful out the back end. I feel, when we talk to clients, there are some who are still trying to find that. They’re still scrambling. There are others who have found some type of place where they know they can spring from and start to evolve, and then make those investments and grow. As you look at the future of Wipro, how do you help clients find the path? And then, once they’re on that path, how do you take them forward?

Nag: I agree with you that one needs to find the bottom. When the knife is falling, you can’t catch it. The companies that can manage revenue risk and excel in revenue loss mitigation will quickly jump the curve because then there will be a lot of excitement among the employees. Such companies will start investing again and drive growth. As business leaders, it is our responsibility to mitigate risks; those who cannot do so will find it tough. Those who are really unable to do it will be tested on their solvency because the cash will dry up. At this point, leaders must focus on the integration of digital competencies into the company’s core. They could use the current sense of urgency as a force to accelerate innovation through open innovation and crowdsourcing. At Wipro, the good thing is we are debt-free, and we have cash on the balance sheet; therefore, we are better equipped to manage revenue risk.

Saurabh Gupta, Chief Research Officer, HFS: This was a very interesting explanation of where we are headed, Nag. You also mentioned that you were a stockbroker, so how do you explain the soaring stock markets as we head into a recessionary economy?

Nag: There have been seven recessions so far, that we know of. However, in the US alone, the highest unemployment has occurred in this recession, which has affected around 30 million people. Add to that, nearly equal number don’t have health insurance. Definitely, there is a challenge in terms of the overall business climate. However, the IT services and ITeS business is very recession-proof. When companies start investing in growth because they have higher IT budgets, they start spending more; and when IT spending increases, outsourcing increases. Whenever there are downward cycles, the focus is on the variablization of costs and our customers are hungrier to invest in technology. In the current environment, every company will be software-led. Whether you take banks, insurance, or health companies—they will all adopt technology now more than ever. Emerging cloud technology-based solutions such as VDI, Work from Anywhere, omni channel customer experience, and supply chain risk assessment, are seeing an increase in demand. In fact, a large bank in the U.S. wanted to launch a full-fledged digital solution to support thousands of small businesses under the fiscal stimulus program initiated by the U.S. Treasury to provide financial relief amidst the pandemic. A team from Wipro executed the project in 48 hours. In an equally fast turnaround, Wipro helped one of our customers––a Postal Services company in the Middle East––launch a special medicine delivery service as part of the government’s quick response for citizens during the pandemic. Clearly, this is the tipping point for technology.

I see that the world will be led by software, and I see tremendous opportunities for companies such as ours. That’s why you see, in Nasdaq, technology stocks are doing really well. So, my belief is that technology will consume the world more than ever, and a services business such as ours is going to thrive. Therefore, as a stock market trader, I’m very bullish on technology and I am also bullish on wealth managers and health. I have mixed feelings about gloom because when people predict doom, the doom never comes. It is like the weather forecast. Therefore, the models and the predictions…they are fine, but we will land in between. It will not be a V, it will not be a U, it will not be a W, it’ll be a combination of everything. I go back to that important point that I raised earlier, the companies that will manage revenue risk very well are going to have better valuations and market capitalization.

Phil: Fantastic. Wonderful. That was really insightful, Nag.  All the best with the upcoming challenges and opportunities!

We also very much appreciated Nag’s contribution to our upcoming virtual roundtable on the new BPM manifesto post the pandemic shock

Posted in : Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), Cloud Computing, Outsourcing Heros

Posted in : Uncategorized