Big IT in flux

It will be interesting to see how the impending changes in leadership at Infosys pans out. Arguably, the company has outgrown any one individual. But it is by no means assured that Mr Narayana Murthy’s retirement will be a non sequitur, coming as it will soon after Mr Shibulal takes over from Mr Gopalakrishnan as CEO (as is widely expected). And although Mr Premji has not given any indications of stepping down, recent changes in leadership at Wipro have stirred the pot. If media reports are to be believed, many of Wipro’s top executives are looking for jobs outside the company. Cognizant has been growing rapidly and before the end of the fiscal, there is a chance that it may replace Wipro as India’s 3rd largest software company. TCS continues to beat market expectations, but is probably not insulated from some of the more fundamental forces that are shaping “Big IT” in India.

Never mind the pace of US recovery or Europe’s troubles. One inescapable fact is that the current dominant model of revenues growing linearly with headcount cannot continue for much more. The cloud will force fundamental changes to how software is built and consumed. It will impact the global delivery model of Indian IT companies (and indeed, the IBMs, Accentures and HPs of the world as well). The question is whether these companies are prepared to embrace the change. Such change will impact how these companies position themselves, how they go to market, how they pitch their solutions to prospects and existing clients. Even the types of solutions they build and the investment patterns for developing and deploying these solutions will need to change. Of course, the cloud may not become all-pervasive as soon as some expect. Perhaps these companies still have another 3 years in which to transform themselves yet again.
It will be instructive to see how the different players evolve and assess their relative successes over the next few years.