Source: www.financialexpress.com

India is clearly key to IBM’s managed business process portfolio. As its general manager, Erich Clementi takes clients beyond the traditional ‘lift and shift’ outsourcing model, Daksh operations acquired in 2004 are crucial to its vast global network. Employing 20,000 people at last count, Daksh today boasts of a network of 17 delivery centres spread across seven cities in India and Philippines. Armed with its global delivery network of 36 BTO centres across the world, Clementi calls the Indian offshoring giants “formidable”, but is confident they “can’t match up IBM’s global delivery network”. General manager of IBM system’s Z division till 2003, he has more recently started leading small and midmarket accounts of the business systems segment. In an interview with Pragati Verma, he describes the changing landscape of the business transformation services and the future of India as an offshoring location. Excerpts:

Changing business environment seems to be morphing the way BPO and BTO (business transformation) services are delivered. How is it impacting your business?

The approach today is very different as we are not just taking over their process but transforming their business. Companies are burdened with inefficiently high pain points, increasing costs and pressure to deliver differentiated business value. As the pressures increase, traditional business process outsourcing that relies on labour arbitrage is not enough. Businesses are looking to derive a new kind of value from their service providers. Organisations are seeking a partner who can help them rethink their business models and business operations, optimise those operations and drive new innovative kinds of business processes. They want continuous strategic change to transform existing processes. Clearly, the traditional BPO approach of lift and shift is over. Our value proposition is much more than labour arbitrage. We run our client’s process to transform their operations. We bring in our experience of doing it for multiple clients. Our strategy of providing higher value services is resonating with clients as they seek a partner to help them solve these complex business requirements.

This strategic focus in our services practice is paying off. In the third quarter for instance, IBM’s total global services revenue grew 14%, the highest in four years. And we had a strong performance in all geographies and business sectors. IBM’s managed business process services (MBPS) efforts are unique in that they are designed to bring together all our capabilities for our clients—consulting, business processes

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Source: www.hindustantimes.com

Indian firms came first in four out of 10 information technology service categories in a global survey that selects the 100 best IT services providers. US-headquartered IT firms topped in four other categories and one firm each from Mexico and China took the other prizes in the 4th Cybermedia Global IT Services Survey.

Overall, the survey affirmed India’s standing as a major outsourcing centre. India also led the way as the global delivery centre for IT service companies, with many non-Indian firms clearly favouring India. However, the survey also revealed that the rising rupee was the number one concern for many such firms.

Tata Consultancy Services was rated the best performing IT services company. HCL Technologies was rated the best performing infrastructure service provider. Genpact was rated the best performing BPO provider and WNS Global Services was the rated the best performing FAO provider.

The US firms were EDS, Sitel, EPAM Systems and Computer Sciences Corporation – all of whom have a footprint in India as well. Mexican and Chinese firms won in categories that were region specific. India is rated the number one hub for global delivery of IT services. Fifty-seven per cent of IT service employees working in delivery centres, says the survey, were located in India. Only 18 per cent were based in the US. This reflects how many non-Indian firms keep their delivery centres in India.

In the listing of the 100 best IT services firms, Indian companies trailed those in the US but were well ahead of any other country. Forty-three US-headquartered firms dominated the 100 best firms. There were 29 firms in the list. There were four Chinese companies, four from Malaysia, three from Russia and three from Brazil. There a scattering of other firms in countries ranging from Argentina to the Ukraine. The survey said these “were a gentle reminder” of the presence of other countries that could become outsourcing rivals to India.

Two years ago the same survey listed 36 Indian firms and 32 US firms in the top 100. This shift to US-headquartered firms may reflect both the fact many Indian firms are being bought up by US firms and a consolidation in the upper end of the Indian IT services industry.

However, 47 per cent of the respondents, including many from India, said a falling dollar and rising local currency was their “most critical business concern.” The survey says “Indian service providers who derive between two-thirds to three-fourths of their revenues from the US are back to the drawing board to consider non-US avenues.” Firms in the Philippines and Canada also listed currency problems as their main business headache.