Info Sys

I

INFOSYSNFOSYS’’SS R RELATIONSHIPELATIONSHIP S SCORECARDCORECARD: M: MEASURINGEASURING

T

1. H

1. HOWOW DOESDOES I INFOSYSNFOSYS’’ CUSTOMERCUSTOMER--CENTRICCENTRIC ORGANIZATION

ORGANIZATION COMPARECOMPARE WITHWITH THATTHAT OFOF OTHEROTHER

COMPANIES

COMPANIES? W? WHAHATT CHALLENGESCHALLENGES DOESDOES THISTHIS

ORGANIZATION

ORGANIZATION TRYTRY TOTO ADDRESSADDRESS? W? WHAHATT TENSIONSTENSIONS DODO

THESE

THESE CHALLENGESCHALLENGES CREATECREATE,, ANDAND HOWHOW DOESDOES I INFOSYSNFOSYS

DEAL

C

OMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE ANALYSIS



 Across the Indian competitive landscape, Infosys

was the first Indian IT company to list American

depository receipts in NASDAQ Stock Market



Up until 2000, Infosys was surviving a competitive

battle fairly well:

 It made it to the Wired  40  The Business Week  IT 100

W

HAT WAS INFOSYS GOING THROUGH

?

 Stay relevant

  Achieve non-linear growth in revenues, and  Become a transformational business partner

 Infosys put itself in direct competition with established

consulting firms, such as IBM and Accenture

 By 2008, it effectively deployed the Relation Scorecard (RSC),

and was currently applying it to more than 24 clients.

I

NFOSYS

: I

T

’

S KEY CHALLENGES



The key challenges that Infosys was trying to

address were:

1. Staying relevant to the clients

2. Offering superior value to the clients 3. To have the best talent pool

 A

PPROACH TO TACKLE THE CHALLENGES

RELEVANCE TO CLIENT:

 Anticipating client’s needs in advance.

DELIVERING SUPERIOR VALUE:

 Adding new clients, and developing more projects for existing

ones

 Moving from mere project development to design work

 Addressing the needs of the client’s business unit and not just

its IT department.

 Building relationships on the client side with important

 A

PPROACH TO TACKLE THE CHALLENGES

TALENT ENHANCEMENT:

 Integration of IT capabilities with strategic expertise, and

business management

 The Global Education Centre in Mysore dedicatedly equipped

and trained 4,500 employees at a time

 Bifurcation into vertical business units (who handled specific

regions and industries) and enterprise capability units (which handled specific processes) resulted in greater specialisation.

 A

PPROACH TO TACKLE THE CHALLENGES

CLIENT INTIMACY:

 50 Global Development Centres in 9 countries. (25 Proximity

DCs and 25 Offshore DCs)

 Onsite teams captured customer’s business problem, and

directed the offshore teams for targeted business solution development

 Brought about reduction in delivery time, and maximised

support availability round the clock. Reduction of delivery cycle time by 50%

 A

PPROACH TO TACKLE THE CHALLENGES

RELATIONSHIP ENHANCEMENT:



Hunters (Sales Personnel) brought in new clients



Gatherers (Engagement Managers) widened

project scope



 Account Managers developed solutions

 A

PPROACH TO TACKLE THE CHALLENGES

TRUST BASED PARTNERSHIP:

 The ITRAC (Infosys as a Trusted Advisor to Clients) program

managed key accounts to transformational partnerships

 Through its 3 stages of

1. Providing cost reduced IT services

2. Delivering technology-driven solutions for specific

processes

3. Transforming client organisation

 Leveraged the GDM and Consulting wing, to help increase

2. WHAT IS THE ROLE OF THE RSC IN A CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP? WHAT DOES AN RSC OFFER THAT IS NOT ALREADY CONTAINED IN THE CLIENT’S SLAS?

WHAT ARE THE OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES INVOLVED IN BUILDING AN RSC?

R

OLE OF THE

 RSC

IN A CUSTOMER

RELATIONSHIP



 Transactional to transformational relationship with client.



It captures the commitment between customer and the vendor

company: relationship value, relationship strength, future value

and growth

.

R

ELATIONSHIP SCORECARD



 SLA metrics does not tell whether performance is

sustainable or how it can be improved. No perfect

measure of performance



SLAs did not capture indicators such as market

share growth or product revenue growth.



SLAs only measured in terms of quality, cost and

time



For a large customer account, there are multiple

Challenges:

1.

It was expensive for both the parties.

1.

Not all clients were ready to invest into it.

2.

Client found it difficult to trust the supplier.

3.

Shift in traditional way, hence neither clients nor the EM team

were ready for the change.

4.

Cultural change from mentoring process to open and

comprehensive process.

5.

Some of the clients do not have a proper metric in IT units.

6.

Lack of Innovation restricts companies to bank upon the idea.

Opportunities:

1.

Clients who prefer to have a holistic solution welcomes it.

2.

The metrics were very objective and according to client specific

need, hence it saves time.

3.

The saved time can be used to discuss on the performance

improvement.

3. INFOSYS HAS LEARNED THROUGH ITS RSCS THAT SOME CUSTOMERS ARE DISSATISFIED WITH ITS TEAM TURNOVER. HOW WOULD YOU RESPOND TO APTED’S

REQUEST TO KEEP THE BEST PEOPLE IN THE S YNGENTA TEAM? HOW WOULD YOU DEAL WITH THIS ISSUE FROM

P

ROBLEM

 I

DENTIFICATION

 This question directly has its roots in one of Kris Gopal's 3

listed challenges faced by Infy: Namely winning the battle for talent 

 At Infosys nearly 90% of the new hires were freshers

 Further, considering the center at place in Mysore, the

technological capabilities of the employees cannot be doubted

 However, as Thompson, VP RetailServe said "They are too

P

OSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

 Though there is a three tier leadership program in place, the

efficacy of grooming talent upwards from middle management is clearly the issue here

 Infosys, can, with proper selection, offer sabbaticals and

sponsor senior software engineers (people who had been with the relationship for at least 5 years) to take up a management course with a specialization that is in line with the client's

P

OSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

  Apted's concern is reasonable, given the amount of data sharing that is taking place through the RSC

 However, Sygenta should be prepared to allow more onshore work and should be prepared to pay the associated premium for an

offshore employee to travel onsite, work at the client location and understand the business processes

 Further, Sygenta should have a mentorship team in place to ensure that the business knowledge passed on to these employees

 This mentorship team should comprise the executive decision makers like CEO etc so that the vision as well as the corporate strategy is made evident to the Infoscion.

P

OSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

 The Global ITRAC team could be aligned with the top management

 There is already a corporate sponsor (director) associated with most RSC accounts

 Bringing these sponsors, selected members of the Global ITRAC team as well as the EMs and Account Managers together into a single dedicated RSC horizontal that is cross-functional

 Thus 1 or 2 members from this team could receive adequate hands-on business process training from Sygenta and could work from the client's workplace, thereby viewing the business directly

P

OSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

 Regular meetings with Sygenta's top management including the

CEO, CFO and CIO as well as with the steering committee members from the Infosys side could ensure that realistic expectations are

maintained across both sides of the table

 This could, to a certain extent alleviate Apted's concerns at a senior management level through continuous engagement especially at a CIO or CTO level instead of middle management levels.