 "We want to be the best and big enough: Sudhir Chaturvedi")
Sudhir Chaturvedi was one of the first people to quit Infosys during turbulence last year. He joined mid-tier information technology services firm NIIT Technologies as its chief operating officer in August 2013. In an interview to Surabhi Agarwal, Chaturvedi talks about NIIT’s new corporate agenda encompassing its vertical, digital and intellectual property strategy. Edited excerpts:
What has been your experience of working with a mid-tier company so far?
There are significant strengths in the organisation which can be leveraged. There were five particular areas that I picked up, one of which is the vertical focus. The company has deep experience in the travel vertical. The second one was the digital space, the quality of work across the SMAC stack is not as well known as it should be, but we have great examples of work in travel, in insurance, in banks and in media.
Then infrastructure management services (IMS) is interesting, there are marquee accounts like Morris in the US. We are also pushing the boundaries in terms of products. Non-linear is 24 per cent and pure intellectual property licence fees is nine per cent of our revenue, which is significant compared to industry standards.
There are some weaknesses in terms of our awareness in the market. Because the market looks at size quite a lot, you have to counter that argument with real expertise. We also drew the corporate agenda in September where we said the focus would be western markets, infrastructure and digital.
In the short term what is going to be your agenda for NIIT?
The first thing is the corporate agenda. Obviously, there will be a period of transition as we have also gone through restructuring of the organisation. We restructured to create IMS as a separate horizontal and a digital services group. We also had a centralised global sales and marketing function, which has now been changed. So we have a global marketing function.
How do you plan to address the size weakness of NIIT?
The industry is valuing expertise and ideas more, so we are well placed with our vertical focus and our “New Ideas, More Value” initiatives. We’re well positioned, so it doesn’t concern us at all. In terms of awareness, there is more work to be done so that we’re top of mind in our verticals.
After having worked at Infosys for so many years, what were the kinds of learnings or unlearnings?
I had 13 years in Infosys, it was a great stint and I enjoyed every moment of it. Coming to NIIT was an opportunity to work with an iconic brand and (participate) in a new journey.
I was based in Europe and the US for a long time, in fact I haven’t been based in India for almost 15 years. I am bringing some of that experience to NIIT. So everything you do, you’re getting an instant reward where people are receptive to your message. It’s very rewarding and there is a tremendous sense of achievement.
One of things that has been a bit different is that I have to do a lot of things on my own. I can’t rely on tons of people around me. But, I’ve never believed in being a non-playing captain, so you get down to do the things. I have to sort of re-learn certain things, unlearn certain things but I had no doubt that it would be a great move.
Will it be right to say that products are the way forward for NIIT and the industry?
Products and platform, so the combination of outsourcing, application development, product platforms in digital, application development and digital will overlap. But there is still a lot of application development to be done, especially as people have not spent money over the last five years. Outsourcing application, digital and cloud products and platforms and, of course, infrastructure, which is underlying all of this. These are the growth platforms.
With products, it’s about having your own intellectual property around which you build solutions and also how you take it to platforms. Because clients in many cases don’t want to buy software and then implement it. In our consumer world, we are used to dealing with platforms, though we do not realise it. Whether we use email as a platform, whether we use cloud for photographs, music, etc. We are used to platforms and corporates are expecting the same. So platforms based around your own intellectual property are going to become a very critical growth lever.
Would it be right to say there is room for a mid-sized company to grow as far as big accounts are concerned, yet there is some amount of saturation setting in?
There are two aspects. One is from a sourcing strategy perspective, what’s the right mix of partners that companies should have? I am seeing more and more people want a mix of some large vendors and some mid-tier vendors, not because of their size but because they bring different things to the table.
People naturally assume mid-tier companies compete on price. In fact, we don’t. I can speak for NIIT Technologies, in some of our large accounts, we probably have better rates but the value is for our specific expertise. So that’s where we talk about being vertical focused. We don’t want to be the largest and good enough. We want to be the best and big enough.
What has been your experience of working with a mid-tier company so far?
There are significant strengths in the organisation which can be leveraged. There were five particular areas that I picked up, one of which is the vertical focus. The company has deep experience in the travel vertical. The second one was the digital space, the quality of work across the SMAC stack is not as well known as it should be, but we have great examples of work in travel, in insurance, in banks and in media.
Then infrastructure management services (IMS) is interesting, there are marquee accounts like Morris in the US. We are also pushing the boundaries in terms of products. Non-linear is 24 per cent and pure intellectual property licence fees is nine per cent of our revenue, which is significant compared to industry standards.
There are some weaknesses in terms of our awareness in the market. Because the market looks at size quite a lot, you have to counter that argument with real expertise. We also drew the corporate agenda in September where we said the focus would be western markets, infrastructure and digital.
In the short term what is going to be your agenda for NIIT?
The first thing is the corporate agenda. Obviously, there will be a period of transition as we have also gone through restructuring of the organisation. We restructured to create IMS as a separate horizontal and a digital services group. We also had a centralised global sales and marketing function, which has now been changed. So we have a global marketing function.
How do you plan to address the size weakness of NIIT?
The industry is valuing expertise and ideas more, so we are well placed with our vertical focus and our “New Ideas, More Value” initiatives. We’re well positioned, so it doesn’t concern us at all. In terms of awareness, there is more work to be done so that we’re top of mind in our verticals.
After having worked at Infosys for so many years, what were the kinds of learnings or unlearnings?
I had 13 years in Infosys, it was a great stint and I enjoyed every moment of it. Coming to NIIT was an opportunity to work with an iconic brand and (participate) in a new journey.
I was based in Europe and the US for a long time, in fact I haven’t been based in India for almost 15 years. I am bringing some of that experience to NIIT. So everything you do, you’re getting an instant reward where people are receptive to your message. It’s very rewarding and there is a tremendous sense of achievement.
One of things that has been a bit different is that I have to do a lot of things on my own. I can’t rely on tons of people around me. But, I’ve never believed in being a non-playing captain, so you get down to do the things. I have to sort of re-learn certain things, unlearn certain things but I had no doubt that it would be a great move.
Will it be right to say that products are the way forward for NIIT and the industry?
Products and platform, so the combination of outsourcing, application development, product platforms in digital, application development and digital will overlap. But there is still a lot of application development to be done, especially as people have not spent money over the last five years. Outsourcing application, digital and cloud products and platforms and, of course, infrastructure, which is underlying all of this. These are the growth platforms.
With products, it’s about having your own intellectual property around which you build solutions and also how you take it to platforms. Because clients in many cases don’t want to buy software and then implement it. In our consumer world, we are used to dealing with platforms, though we do not realise it. Whether we use email as a platform, whether we use cloud for photographs, music, etc. We are used to platforms and corporates are expecting the same. So platforms based around your own intellectual property are going to become a very critical growth lever.
Would it be right to say there is room for a mid-sized company to grow as far as big accounts are concerned, yet there is some amount of saturation setting in?
There are two aspects. One is from a sourcing strategy perspective, what’s the right mix of partners that companies should have? I am seeing more and more people want a mix of some large vendors and some mid-tier vendors, not because of their size but because they bring different things to the table.
People naturally assume mid-tier companies compete on price. In fact, we don’t. I can speak for NIIT Technologies, in some of our large accounts, we probably have better rates but the value is for our specific expertise. So that’s where we talk about being vertical focused. We don’t want to be the largest and good enough. We want to be the best and big enough.