NASSCOM SPL: Crisis brings opportunities

MUMBAI, INDIA: Recession will not last and the time will pass, but what needs to be done is getting ready for the recovery. As it turns out, IT industry veterans are betting beyond the slowdown in these crucial times.

Suresh Vaswani, joint CEO, IT Services, Wipro Technologies feels that in times of crisis there are less choices but more opportunities.

"I don't think any of us have seen anything like this before in our lifetime. There is a lot of talk about lower consumption, job losses etc. The result is a change in customer behavior and expectations and if we can adapt to more involvement, cost transformation, sharing of risks and consolidation, we can be better placed," Suresh Vaswani observed.

He advises that this is the time to get closer to the customer. There would be two kinds of customers in a slowdown, as he points out. The smart thing is to understand those who are planning for tomorrow and giving them solutions in that context.

But getting ready for recovery is not enough.

As Sudhakar Ram, CMD, Mastek, preferred to look at it in a different direction, variability is the crux of the present downturn. "Be it British Pound movement, US Dollar movement, change in gas and oil prices or stock market status, the factor hitting the industry most is the variability of events."

Realigning as an adaptive and agile organization, be it new verticals or markets, is the key. The companies, in his view, that will get better are those that will take the third wave and will manage volatility and those that will increase variability in cost structures.

They were sharing these thoughts at a session on 'Making the most of the crisis' at NILF here today.