IT is a complex grid

It was at a recent IIM-Bangalore alumni event in Chennai that as an ‘outsider' I met Gopal GD Shrikanth, CEO Coach & Strategist, Chennai ( >http://bit.ly/F4TGopalGD ). GD — an alumnus of IIT, IIM, Columbia and Wharton — is a Mentoring Chair of Wharton Alumni Association of India and a former Country Manager, SBU-Head, Centre-Head, Practice-Head of many IT MNCs.

To tap into his insights about the IT (information technology) industry, Business Line engaged with GD over the email, as a follow-up of the face-to-face interaction.

Excerpts from the interview.

What are the typical strategy issues in IT enterprises that defy any template approach?

Given the surfeit of strategic literature on the ‘War for Talent' in IT, I'd like to draw your attention to other key issues.

Most Indian IT enterprises rely largely on indistinguishable application maintenance and support (AMS) services across industries for their ‘bread and butter.'

However, their high-value portfolio invariably consists of an eclectic mix of domain-specific products (e.g. banking software), or technology products (e.g. mobile O/S), package implementation services (e.g. SAP) etc.

While some IT enterprises consciously build such capabilities, other centres of excellence (COEs) are primarily spin-offs based on domain knowledge gleaned from industry leaders, during the course of long-term AMS.

Some IT enterprises build such niche capabilities primarily to penetrate client organisations and create a point of entry for their larger AMS business, while others truly nurture them as ‘cash cows.'

Late entrants bravely attempt to dislodge the top players in each niche, riding on the backs of pilot projects, by investing heavily in domain-specific infrastructure and paying a high premium to acquire talent.

Unlike GE's underlying business philosophy “Stay in an industry only if you are profitably in the Top 3,” most IT enterprises are reluctant to bite the bullet and shut down unprofitable COEs, often preferring to let them slowly bleed to death, for fear of denting their image.

Visualise for a moment drawing a grid on tracing paper, with the column headings denoting the range of domains (banking, retail etc.) and the row headings denoting the range of technology products and services being offered by any IT enterprise. Next visualise creating a similar grid for each of the Top 20 IT enterprises. Then visualise stacking all these transparent grids one on top of the other and peering through the bunch for a truly fascinating perspective of the complexity of the industry!

In “Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?” (Harper), the author Lou Gerstner says that IBM's problems, challenges, complexity and culture were unique, and the fixes he applied are unlikely to be easily transferred. Business leaders looking to apply some of Gerstner's medicine to their own companies' ills will be disappointed.

Now, ask yourself whether you can come up with a “template strategy”?

Your views on where Indian IT industry is headed in the next 5 to 10 years.

On the ‘IT products' front, the opportunity to develop ‘Apps' for Apple and Android has taught the current generation of software developers in India invaluable lessons, in ‘lean' product lifecycle management and enabled them to hone their skills in terms of…creativity and innovation, design and prototyping, product launch via viral marketing etc.

That is, a whole range of skills that earlier generations of software developers could only dream of.

Obviously, the ubiquitous smartphone with its intuitive user interface, is well on its way to replacing the ‘clunky' PC'ish-mobile interface…with its ability to concurrently satisfy both the Web-challenged as well as the Web-savvy.

The amazing rate of adoption of tablets such as Apple's iPad, which seamlessly replicate the smartphone user interface experience, is likely to spur demand for redesigning traditional user interfaces.

Historically, global consumers have been risk-averse to buying software products from SMEs.

However, with large-scale acceptance of ‘certified' Apps, SMEs have overcome that ‘mindset barrier' as well.

Moreover, the onset of ‘Cloud computing' could well be the game changer for nimble Indian IT product companies as they become globally recognised brands.

On the ‘IT services' front, mainland Europe, Japan and China may continue to largely elude us, as a result of regulatory and language barriers.

However, the trend of the US demographics (30 per cent Spanish-speaking) is likely to prod Indian companies into scaling up their Spanish language skills and expand into Latin America, to set up near-shore delivery centres.

Like the ‘elephant in the room,' massive e-Governance projects such as UID in the domestic market will just be too big to ignore.

How different do you find IT leaders to be, compared with their counterparts in other sectors?

Given that the term ‘other sectors' is like defining a ‘rainbow nation,' there are ‘1 to many' possible comparisons.

The difference between leaders in new-age service industries and leaders in traditional manufacturing industries is obvious.

Interestingly, there are perhaps as many commonalities as there are differences between IT leaders and other service industry leaders. Invariably, industries do shape their leaders.

As in nature, cross-pollination of leaders across industries often leads to organisational breakthroughs.

> dmurali@thehindu.co.in

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