IT in the Times of Chapter 11

This time there is no Lee Iococca to give lifeline to the ailing Chrysler, the latest giant submitting itself to the painful realities. The game is rapidly changing resulting into more oligopoly like markets. Small to mid-size IT ventures till now had been thriving upon these giants cutting a pie worth the efforts employed by them. The dynamics of the time are compelling the CIOs/CTOs to device new ways for managing change. Only the leaders who are better change agents with Midas touch, are panacea of the moment.

Apart from the pink slips, IT companies are witnessing new interesting downturn of the events. Even big companies are trying to learn working under new definitions churned out by recession. The times are forcing them to sit, think and realign policies and business model. Critical assessment of the situation is being performed and goals are being redefined. Some of the trends to be noticed are:-

1. Conservation:- The immediate reaction is to preserve and sustain for further bad times. The mantra is -cutting down the operating costs by reducing not only the lesser efficient heads but over all infrastructure. Most companies are now out of the initial phase of shock generated by recession and focusing on this aspect. Gone is the era of team building exercises in expensive hotels. New ways of communication in terms of IP phone, chat etc have surfaced for efficient collaboration via-a-vis traditional expensive telephony. Several companies are opting for out-tasking of their non-core operations. Core teams are being preserved and nurtured for the next big wave albeit with restructured models. Some prudent companies, , are opting for reduced work hours,instead of blind lay-offs- cutting on fringe benefits and moderate to nil raises. Several measures like green IT solution to reduce power consumptions are being employed.

2. Migration:- Innovative ideas, new USPs, discovery of new business dimensions are the need of the hour. The companies in India are becoming more and more globe-centric,with the focus being on US only warlier. S.E Asia, Europe and other big economies like Brazil can be the new hot markets as believed by futurists despite all hoopla of cultural barriers. Talent acquisition is being characterized by the demand of all rounders who can be adapted into any roles. There are talks of consolidation of infrastructures and virtualization of not only the servers but also of the work machines. Then who cares which country the developers are sitting in as long as the efficiency and targets are met. Adapting timely to the realigned strategies similar to what has been demonstrated by Amazon, Netflix and Verizon. These three have been the exception in this era of cut throat competition, posting rise in net profits in 30s.

New cutting edge business ideas are beeing explored. For instance, Autonomy, a British IT major not only lets their client do simply search but a smart search. Their core product IDOL is so intelligent that it is able to extract meaningful ideas by crunching “unstructured” data, such as documents, e-mails and photographs. No wonders that many parasitic companies are queuing upto them to license their core engine to build their products on.

SOA, SaaS, Cloud Computing, Web 2.0, Content Delivery Networks and Digital Media Services are the other buzzwords in IT industry.

The Road Ahead:- Treading the road not taken or not, a jumble, as echoed by Robert Frost, has to be prevailed upon by those who want to survive and beat the hell out of the recession. Every decade an entirely new technology or domain fills the void and the world rides on. In the 60s, it was automobiles, then electronics, then IT and dotcom, and this time it may be anything even your brain crop. Improving customer experience at lower costs will have to be looked upon. Many experts vouch that recession times are perfect for starting new ventures owing to prudent, frugal and committed start-ups. Some of the successful businesses have been those who were steady in the fray and offensively kept building their share in these like tough times. The idea is to consolidate and build slowly while seeing your competitors bite the dust.

“We are continually faced by great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems”  - Lee Iococca