'Visa is a huge issue for India'

BANGALORE: IT Budgets vis a vis technology spends, in sourcing trends and multi sourcing patterns, change in SLAs to turbulence on talent access; there’s a lot going on in the industry in terms of challenges faced by sourcing vendors. Mohan Sekhar, president and chief operating officer of the $440 million company Collabera tells us the inside view.

Both IDC and Gartner have highlighted the interesting dichotomy of IT Budgets witnessing a dip while Technology spends in other forms are proliferating. Do you agree with the autopsy?

Every business has two aspects of technology. One is about keeping the lights on. The other is about new initiatives that entail new business and technology models, different types of services and exploring new geographies. More and more clients are looking towards cloud computing. Mobility is also strengthening its grip. Investment in devices is increasing. It does not change the market for us a lot though. We are making applications and betting on new areas, new partners and platforms. So we are there where spends are. Still mobility needs to stabilize and that won’t happen till economic areas settle down.

In that case, would the growing inclinations or interest towards in sourcing be of a concern to you?

Earlier the scenario was different. Global delivery was a market that everyone joined. A few captives came later. Some of them did well, but others didn’t. In India, a lot of banking captives are seen. The third dimension of this model is probably here to stay. But again, only with a select few. Globally, however, I don’t see companies going full force with that trend. There are still strengths in outsourcing, especially for providers who operate from both onshore and offshore points.

What about Multi sourcing?

This model has been going on for so many years. In the 90s complete out sourcing was happening. Over the years however, clients realized that splitting the contract in terms of hardware, software etc made more sense. Two types of clients co-exist. The tier one types, with big deals and tier one and two kinds. It all depends on the kind of customer, acquisitions, consolidation. We keep looking at new doors to step in. New areas are our passion. It’s not just about large deals but also about consolidated work.

How is all this impacting SLAs?

More and more accountability is being shifted to vendors with the rise of penalty clauses. Contracts are also shrinking. Clients are comfortable with smaller deals, may be due to spending patterns. Deal sizes have shrunk. Clients are increasingly becoming mature nowadays in every aspect of the service contract.

What then would you outline as your major headache today?

Visa is a huge challenge for India. It’s going to really curtail possibilities and create many challenges, especially for companies with no onshore presence. That said, adapting to global culture is another strong necessity. It’s an election year, so policy changes and anti-outsourcing stances will matter a lot.

How is the company’s strategic progress as of now?

Today the number of customers stands at approx. 80 with a revenue mark of $ 440 million. We work with leading Global 2000 organizations from the Financial Services, Communications, Media, Manufacturing, Retail, Energy and Utilities domains. We have over 6500 professionals across more than 20 offices with 2000 employees in India. Collabera’s focus is on new trends such as Enterprise Mobility, BI and Analytics and Cloud Computing.