 "We will build highly specialised digital services capabilities in India: Jonathan Brassington")
As businesses across the world are getting digitised requiring the technology services providers to enhance their capabilities, LiquidHub, a US-headquartered company which claims itself as a 'digital integrator’, is looking at India for the staff required to deliver such services. In an interview with Bibhu Ranjan Mishra, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Brassington talks about why spending on digital would continue and how India could play an important role for the company. Edited excerpts:
How different a ‘digital integrator’ is as compared to traditional information technology (IT) services companies?
A digital integrator is a hybrid between an IT services firm and a marketing or digital agency. It overlaps different capabilities. It involves strategic thinking, digital strategy, creative design as the second circle and IT services as the third circle. Traditional IT services address some strategy and a lot of technology services, but they lack the ability to do creative design. They lack the ability to do journey mapping, creative strategies and design work. They are now recognising this converging trend and are, thus, mobilising to address the market opportunities. All of the Tier-I firms (IT services companies) have bought marketing agencies. We are not only providing IT infrastructure, ERP (enterprise resource planning) services or BPO (business processing outsourcing), but also are we focused on digital integration space, bringing in multi-disciplinary capabilities.
Though ‘digital’ seems to be the buzzword, there are some concerns being noticed in areas such as banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) and health care, by some large IT service providers. What do you notice?
What we see is that while there is a consolidation in both the sectors (BFSI and health care), we see a lot of digital transformation that includes introducing new digital products as well as a complete re-imagining business model. In both these segments, we have been working with clients to improve customer experience and customer engagement.
There are quite a bit of economic uncertainties in many regions globally. What does it mean for service providers like you?
We (the sector) went through a period of time in 2009 where everybody ran every penny of cost out of the system from back office to front office. The new frontier is about growth and profitability. Using of digital business models allow organisations to expand profitability. While markets are in a rough patch right now, I don’t see any problem with digital at all. Instead, digital will free up a lot of other spends and will enable competitive advantage.
What has been your growth? Are you looking at both organic and inorganic avenues?
For the past five years, we have been growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20 per cent. We are also fortunate to be backed by partners like Chrys Capital (In March 2014, LiquidHub raised $53 million in a funding round led by Chrys Capital). We have the access to capital to grow and accelerate our strategy. We are looking out for strategic acquisitions which have to pass through the filter of customer experience and customer engagement. However, we are not solely dependent on acquisitions to accelerate our growth.
What is your plan to grow India headcount?
Of around 2,000 people we have globally, about 1,000 are located in India between these two regions (Hyderabad and Bengaluru). We are looking at growing the number here to 2,500-3,000 people. We are looking at building highly specialised digital services capabilities. Over the years, we have matured our outsourcing models. Recently, LiquidHub made any entry into the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals’ Global Outsourcing 100 for 2016, in the 'Leaders Category’.
This is a big acknowledgement of our operational excellence.
How successful have you been in leveraging the offshore capabilities that India offers?
We started our India unit in early 2003, only as a two-year-old company. We now have our India centre as an important part of our new positioning as a digital integrator or next-generation agency, as we look to bring about meaningful leverage and scale. We have our larger operations in Hyderabad, as we continue to hire, build and train resources in Hyderabad and Bengaluru. We reckon that in the 12-18 months, we are looking to several hundreds staff with digital capabilities.
The core story for us is that we are seeing convergence of the IT services business (the $980-billion sector) and the marketing agency sector which is about a couple of hundred billion dollars. With the launch of Accenture Digital, Deloitte Digital, IBM Interactive and Public is buying Sapient Nitro, we see a convergence and emergence of a new breed of digital integrators.
Does cost still continues to be the biggest factor in India?
We operate in a global delivery model where teams are distributed globally. We see an uptick of graduates with an experience in design thinking, coming out of the Indian schools. We see no scarcity of talent, but we feel it’s about refining talent with the skills that are needed in our areas. We are trying to find people with converging skillsets in creative design and technology competencies. Using these together, we can train and refine further.