OUR AIM IS TO PROMOTE INDIVIDUAL SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY (ISR) AMONGST OUR ASSOCIATES AND SOCIETY AT LARGE, WORK TOWARDS CREATING A SUSTAINABLE AND INCLUSIVE WORKPLACE, AND FOCUS ON SKILL DEVELOPMENT

CP Gurnani CEO& MD, Tech Mahindra, discusses his organisation’s performance in the financial year 2018-2019

What is your vision for Tech Mahindra? At Tech Mahindra, our endeavour is to build a ‘company with a purpose’ - focused on a sustainable business growth. As a global leading digital transformation solutions provider, we are committed to offer innovative and customer-centric services and solutions, enabling enterprises, associates and the society at large to Rise. It is our vision to be among the top leaders in each of our chosen market segments while fostering innovation and inclusion. We aim to consistently achieve top quartile growth by contributing to our customers’ success and focus on strategic acquisitions to scale faster and create shareholder value.

Our aim is to promote Individual Social Responsibility (ISR) amongst our associates and society at large, work towards creating a sustainable and inclusive workplace, and focus on skill development. As we move towards a digitised economy, we continue to prepare ourselves by leveraging our technology capabilities and operational experience, to transform according to the demands of a constantly disrupting market ecosystem. As IT technologies, vendors and users evolve globally, what according to you are some areas which Indian IT vendors & service providers must strengthen to continue to hold their current leadership position? In this age of constant digital disruption, organisations need to focus on leveraging next generation technologies to solve real business problems, and to enable their customer to succeed and grow. The IT-BPM industry should continue to accelerate the digital journey and focus on its vision of transforming businesses. Further, there is a need to reskill and upskill the existing talent pool in new age skills, and drive greater collaboration across the industry to create new business models.

At Tech Mahindra, we are collaborating with the academia, startups and our partner network to create an ecosystem that can help our clients Run their businesses better; Change faster to adapt; and Grow revenues by enhancing customer experience. As part of the TechMNxt charter, we are betting big on emerging and next generation technologies like 5G – Network of the Future, Blockchain, Cybersecurity, Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, Robotic Process Automation, and Machine Learning to solve real world business problems of our customers. We are also investing heavily in reskilling our employees in digital technologies and have reskilled and upskilled nearly 90 per cent of our IT workforce in primary digital skills.

We, at Tech Mahindra, are on a critical journey of transformation from IT to DT (Information Transformation to Digital Transformation). Therefore, it is important for us to focus on both - “Digital Outside, and Digital Inside”. This is led by our associates who are being reskilled in niche digital technologies and prepared to craft a digital future

What is your “success mantra” message to organisations on the automation and digital journey?

Innovation is the key to survival in the digital age. Organisations that are focusing on innovation and creating a differentiation are finding it easier to adapt in this constantly disrupting market. We, at Tech Mahindra, are on a critical journey of transformation from IT to DT (Information Transformation to Digital Transformation). Therefore, it is important for us to focus on both - “Digital Outside, and Digital Inside”. This is led by our associates who are being reskilled in niche digital technologies and prepared to craft a digital future. Tech Mahindra’s success mantra lies in identifying key technology trends that will help us better serve our customers. Based on our understanding of the requirements of this digital age, and by pre-empting the customer demands, we have aligned our go to market strategy around six digital themes – Strategy and Design to do your digital maturity assessment and suggest roadmap, Digital Customer to create your CX (customer experience) strategy, Intelligent Operation to digi-imagine your business processes, and Future Enterprise to create the vision of ‘customer for tomorrow’.

We have differentiated ourselves by creating such an ecosystem through TechMNxt, which is all about ‘Collaborative disruption’. We bring in physical design (Pininfarina), digital customer experience (BIO Agency) and technology enablers under the same roof. We have startups which are closely integrated with our digital solutions portfolio and deliver software solutions that address the customer’ business problems. We have invested and will continue to invest in the start-up ecosystem with niche solutions around Blockchain, Cybersecurity, Augmented Reality/Visual Reality, Artificial Intelligence to offer the best in class solution to our customers.

What help and support (holistic and long term) do you think the IT industry needs from the Govt of India?

As the Indian economy braces itself to reach a mark of 5 trillion dollar by 2025, the government and industry need to collaborate further and work towards building a sustainable economy. In this regard, addressing the digital skill gap, incorporating successful global practices, adding investments in research and development, collaborating to create a robust cyber and data security policy framework - are some areas that will herald a new chapter in improving corporate and government connect. The IT industry, together with the government by addressing the need for proper infrastructure, can help India move up in the list of top countries in the World for ‘Ease of Doing Business’. Further, collaborative mission mode projects for citizen services in areas of healthcare and education can play a decisive role in shaping the future of a ‘New India’.

Is there one prediction that you have for Indian IT?

2021 is the year when 5G will take the centre-stage in the technology world and all the conversations will be about digital and 5G. 5G will have an enormous impact on the world and will disrupt the way people live and work. Tech Mahindra is looking at the upcoming 5G rollouts in global markets as a huge opportunity and is on the right trajectory to achieve growth. We have the ability to offer virtualisation which offers an edge for Tech Mahindra in the segment as compared to other market players. As part of our TechMNxt charter, we are also betting big on Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity and Machine Learning, and will continue to focus on strategic acquisitions to scale faster.