Resilience At IT's Best

Over the last year, Indian IT companies have struck some of their biggest deals ever, and have stayed resilient amid testing circumstances

- RUKMINI RAO

It was probably the most traumatic year for the company, because we had grown in size,” Kris Gopalakrishnan, Chairman, Itihaasa Research and Digital and Co-founder, Infosys, spoke about the global financial crisis that broke out soon after he took over as Infosys’ CEO in 2007, in a video posted on Itihaasa. “Everything was going fine and that year we grew by about 35 per cent. Then, suddenly the world around us collapsed. In the following two fiscals, Infosys grew at 11 per cent (FY09) and 3 per cent (FY10). After three years of slow growth, the company recovered in FY11 with 26 per cent annual revenue growth.”

Little did Gopalakrishnan or anyone think that almost a decade later, another crisis would emerge, of a completely different nature and magnitude. While the global financial crisis of 2008/09 was faced with a demand challenge, the 2020 pandemic posed both demand and supply side hiccups. Only, this time IT services companies successfully converted the crisis into an opportunity.

Then And Now