Info Sys

INFOSYS S RELATIONSHIP SCORECARD: MEASURING TRANSFORMATIONAL PARTNERSHIP ’

1. HOW

DOES INFOSYS’ CUSTOMER-CENTRIC

ORGANIZATION COMPARE WITH THAT OF OTHER COMPANIES?

WHA HAT T

CHALLENGES DOES THIS

ORGANIZATION TRY TO ADDRESS?

HAT T WHA

TENSIONS DO

THESE CHALLENGES CREATE, AND HOW DOES INFOSYS DEAL WITH THEM?

COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE ANALYSIS  Across the Indian competitive landscape, Infosys was the first Indian IT company to list American depository receipts in NASDAQ Stock Market

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Up until 2000, Infosys was surviving a competitive battle fairly well: 

It made it to the Wired  40

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The Business Week  IT 100

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The Business Week  list of Most Innovative Companies.

WHAT WAS 

INFOSYS GOING THROUGH?

 A New positioning 

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

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Infosys put itself in direct competition with established consulting firms, such as IBM and Accenture

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By 2008, it effectively deployed the Relation Scorecard (RSC), and was currently applying it to more than 24 clients.

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95% of revenues in 2000 came from repeat customers.

INFOSYS: IT’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

 APPROACH TO TACKLE THE CHALLENGES RELEVANCE TO CLIENT: 

 Anticipating client’s needs in advance.

DELIVERING SUPERIOR VALUE: 

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 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 stakeholders through increased domain knowledge.

 APPROACH TO TACKLE THE CHALLENGES TALENT ENHANCEMENT:

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Integration of IT capabilities with strategic expertise, and business management

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The Global Education Centre in Mysore dedicatedly equipped and trained 4,500 employees at a time

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Bifurcation into vertical business units (who handled specific regions and industries) and enterprise capability units (which handled specific processes) resulted in greater specialisation.

 APPROACH TO TACKLE THE CHALLENGES CLIENT INTIMACY:

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50 Global Development Centres in 9 countries. (25 Proximity DCs and 25 Offshore DCs)

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Onsite teams captured customer’s business problem, and directed the offshore teams for targeted business solution development

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Brought about reduction in delivery time, and maximised support availability round the clock. Reduction of delivery cycle time by 50%

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Early defect detection, and consequential reduction in cost.

 APPROACH TO TACKLE THE CHALLENGES RELATIONSHIP ENHANCEMENT:

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Hunters (Sales Personnel) brought in new clients

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Gatherers (Engagement Managers) widened project scope

 Account Managers developed solutions

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Delivery Manager coordinated the execution.

 APPROACH TO TACKLE THE CHALLENGES TRUST BASED PARTNERSHIP:

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The ITRAC (Infosys as a Trusted Advisor to Clients) program managed key accounts to transformational partnerships

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Through its 3 stages of

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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 client revenues/enhance profitability.

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?

ROLE OF THE RSC IN A CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP 

 Transactional to transformational relationship with client.

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It captures the commitment between customer and the vendor company: relationship value, relationship strength, future value and growth.

RELATIONSHIP SCORECARD 

 SLA metrics does not tell whether performance is sustainable or how it can be improved. No perfect measure of performance

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SLAs did not capture indicators such as market share growth or product revenue growth.

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SLAs only measured in terms of quality, cost and time

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For a large customer account, there are multiple SLAs which were difficult to maintain together.

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

S YNGENTA S ’

WOULD YOU DEAL WITH THIS ISSUE FROM PERSPECTIVE?

PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION 

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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

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Further, considering the center at place in Mysore, the technological capabilities of the employees cannot be doubted

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However, as Thompson, VP RetailServe said "They are too technology oriented, not so much business oriented."

POSSIBLE 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

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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 business

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS 

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

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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

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

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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.

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS 

The Global ITRAC team could be aligned with the top management

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

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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

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

POSSIBLE 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

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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.