NEW DELHI: Infosys president and CEO-designate, Nandan Nilekani, welcomed
more than 200 executives to Infosys Technologies' annual customer event last
week. He shared his perspectives on the current economic climate, the important
issues facing business and technology executives and the integral part that
Infosys is playing to help companies transform their businesses through the use
of technology.
"Infosys is at the leading edge of driving innovation in the services
industry by providing a broad array of high-quality, highly reliable business
consulting and IT services at lower cost. Our track-record of providing lasting
value to clients is a testament to these benefits," said Nilekani during
his welcome speech at the company's Milan event, held in San Francisco. Milan,
which translates to "meeting of the minds" in Sanskrit, is a gathering
of Infosys executives, clients and prospects to share perspectives on how
companies are leveraging technology to drive efficiencies in their businesses as
well as to drive revenue and profitability growth.
For the last several years, consulting and IT services companies have been
able to reap the benefits of a technology-fueled boom economy, but the slowing
world economy and discontinuity underway in the services industry is making
business executives strongly align their IT investments with business benefits.
Several keynote and guest speakers, including executives from Nordstrom,
GreenPoint, IKON and Northwestern Mutual addressed this theme of how companies
in different industry sectors are achieving stronger alignment of business and
IT.
Broad themes garnered from a poll conducted during the event suggest that
despite static IT budgets, tight control of spending and the fact that 81 per
cent of respondents believe that IT spending will not loosen up before 2003,
companies are focused on continuing to invest for growth. According to those
polled, the need to outsource is increasing - 93 per cent described their 2002
outsourcing levels as the same or higher than last year. And as many as 94 per
cent consider offshoring as part of their outsourcing strategy. Moreover, going
forward, 81 per cent of the respondents said they were likely to move at least
some work they have done with "Big 5" and similar firms to companies
like Infosys.
In addition to the client presentations and discussions, keynote speakers
during the event included Geoffrey Moore, managing director with The Chasm
Group, a consulting practice that provides marketing and business strategy
services to leading high-tech companies; Mohan Sawhney, a globally recognized
expert in business-to-business e-commerce and e-business strategy and Patricia
Seybold, founder and CEO of the Patricia Seybold Group, a worldwide strategic
e-business and technology consulting/research company.