Salil Parekh, the recently appointed Directur General Adjoint, Member of Group Management Board of Paris headquartered Capgemini, spoke to BusinessLine on a range of issues from what ails the outsourcing sector and how cloud and digital is changing the whole outsourcing paradigm.

What has changed in the IT landscape in the last year?

Firstly, we are seeing a lot of behavioural change with our customers. Earlier, it was straightforward. You go to your customer and got a project to develop or maintain systems for a fixed time, and take over their IT infrastructure. All that has changed as customers no longer want to invest in IT and are wanting to use it on a need-basis.

They are able to do this because of cloud computing. It has changed customer expectations.

They are asking IT providers to help design their front-end technology — not just the back-end.

So, are you seeing traditional IT companies’ transition faster?

There is no choice. If we don’t disrupt ourselves, someone else will surely do it. The reality is that the above mentioned factors are playing out at a fast pace.

When outsourcing started off, cost takeaway was the top consideration. Is that still the case?

It is about cost plus what else you can offer. A deal cannot be won on the basis of cost alone.

Innovation is taking centre stage and clients are looking at that very intently. Also, you have to remember that our clients are grappling with two kinds of systems. The old systems are not architected to meet the needs of new technologies such as cloud computing and mobility.

The art is to bring innovation in both these buckets as the traditional business still contributes a large chunk of the business.

When it comes to deals, we often hear that clients want to revisit deals once in a quarter or thereabouts. Is that the case with Capgemini’s clients?

I don’t think clients are doing that. They are taking stock of things more frequently.

The duration of deals has shortened from about 5 years in the past to 2-3 years.

What’s your take on attrition in the industry. We see around 16 per cent average every quarter amongst the top 5 IT companies?

I think 14-16 per cent attrition range is something to be expected. You have to note that attrition in single digits is also not good as the company needs to rejuvenate frequently. High attrition is bad as it means you are losing a lot of important people.

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