Road to Reinvention

With a likely consolidation of vendors and customers on the horizon, IT services firms must offer effective and targeted solutions to find gold in adversity

- HARICHANDAN ARAKALI

Most IT services have put in place business continuity plans to serve their clients, but they will have to innovate in the post-Covid-19 world

India’s IT companies reacted swiftly to ensure business continuity during the Covid-19 pandemic, enabling employees to work from home so as to ensure disruption-free services to corporations worldwide. Organisations will have go a step further in the quarters to come, say analysts and top industry executives, given that competition will be fierce, and consolidation of vendors and customers is likely.

Discretionary spending—meaning spending on good-to-have tech, but not immediately necessary—will go away as clients focus on the here and now. So companies will have to keep an eye on the future and come up with targeted solutions that win customers’ backing.

“Just as Y2K served as an inflection point for the IT services industry, I believe we are now living through another period of significant change and opportunity,” says Brian Humphries, CEO of Cognizant Technology Solutions. “This pandemic is creating new rules and a new normal.”

Clients will seek companies addressing universal needs. In the short-term, they are reviewing everything: From solutions to bolster their liquidity and modern workplace solutions to omnichannel and e-commerce enablement.