INFOSYS’S RELATIONSHIP SCORECARD: MEASURING TRANSFORMATIONAL PARTNERSHIP

1. HOW DOES INFOSYS’ CUSTOMER-CENTRIC ORGANIZATION COMPARE WITH THAT OF OTHER COMPANIES? WHAT CHALLENGES DOES THIS ORGANIZATION TRY TO ADDRESS? WHAT TENSIONS DO THESE CHALLENGES CREATE, AND HOW DOES INFOSYS DEAL WITH THEM?

COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE ANALYSIS

Across the Indian competitive landscape, Infosys was the first Indian IT company to list American depository receipts in NASDAQ Stock Market

Up until 2000, Infosys was surviving a competitive battle fairly well: It made it to the Wired 40 The Business Week IT 100 The Business Week list of Most Innovative

Companies.

WHAT WAS INFOSYS GOING THROUGH? A New positioning

Stay relevant Achieve non-linear growth in revenues, and Become a transformational business partner

Infosys put itself in direct competition with established consulting firms, such as IBM and Accenture

By 2008, it effectively deployed the Relation Scorecard (RSC), and was currently applying it to more than 24 clients.

95% of revenues in 2000 came from repeat customers.

INFOSYS: IT’S KEY CHALLENGES The key challenges that Infosys was trying to

address were:1. Staying relevant to the clients2. Offering superior value to the clients3. To have the best talent pool

APPROACH TO TACKLE THE CHALLENGES

RELEVANCE TO CLIENT: Anticipating client’s needs in advance.

DELIVERING SUPERIOR VALUE: Adding new clients, and developing more projects for existing onesMoving from mere project development to design workAddressing the needs of the client’s business unit and not just its IT department. Building relationships on the client side with important stakeholders through increased domain knowledge.

APPROACH TO TACKLE THE CHALLENGES

TALENT ENHANCEMENT:

Integration of IT capabilities with strategic expertise, and business management

The Global Education Centre in Mysore dedicatedly equipped and trained 4,500 employees at a time

Bifurcation into vertical business units (who handled specific regions and industries) and enterprise capability units (which handled specific processes) resulted in greater specialisation.

APPROACH TO TACKLE THE CHALLENGES

CLIENT INTIMACY:

50 Global Development Centres in 9 countries. (25 Proximity DCs and 25 Offshore DCs)

Onsite teams captured customer’s business problem, and directed the offshore teams for targeted business solution development

Brought about reduction in delivery time, and maximised support availability round the clock. Reduction of delivery cycle time by 50%

Early defect detection, and consequential reduction in cost.

APPROACH TO TACKLE THE CHALLENGES

RELATIONSHIP ENHANCEMENT:

Hunters (Sales Personnel) brought in new clients

Gatherers (Engagement Managers) widened project scope

Account Managers developed solutions

Delivery Manager coordinated the execution.

APPROACH TO TACKLE THE CHALLENGES

TRUST BASED PARTNERSHIP:

The ITRAC (Infosys as a Trusted Advisor to Clients) program managed key accounts to transformational partnerships

Through its 3 stages of 1. Providing cost reduced IT services2. Delivering technology-driven solutions for specific

processes3. Transforming client organisation

Leveraged the GDM and Consulting wing, to help increase client revenues/enhance profitability.

2. WHAT IS THE ROLE OF THE RSC IN A CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP? WHAT DOES AN RSC OFFER THAT IS NOT ALREADY CONTAINED IN THE CLIENT’S SLAS? WHAT ARE THE OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES INVOLVED IN BUILDING AN RSC?

ROLE OF THE RSC IN A CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP Transactional to transformational relationship with client.

It captures the commitment between customer and the vendor company: relationship value, relationship strength, future value and growth.

RELATIONSHIP SCORECARD

SLA metrics does not tell whether performance is sustainable or how it can be improved. No perfect measure of performance

SLAs did not capture indicators such as market share growth or product revenue growth.

SLAs only measured in terms of quality, cost and time

For a large customer account, there are multiple SLAs which were difficult to maintain together.

Challenges:

1. It was expensive for both the parties.

1. Not all clients were ready to invest into it.

2. Client found it difficult to trust the supplier.

3. Shift in traditional way, hence neither clients nor the EM team were ready for the change.

4. Cultural change from mentoring process to open and comprehensive process.

5. Some of the clients do not have a proper metric in IT units.

6. Lack of Innovation restricts companies to bank upon the idea.

Opportunities:

1. Clients who prefer to have a holistic solution welcomes it.

2. The metrics were very objective and according to client specific need, hence it saves time.

3. The saved time can be used to discuss on the performance improvement.

3. INFOSYS HAS LEARNED THROUGH ITS RSCS THAT SOME CUSTOMERS ARE DISSATISFIED WITH ITS TEAM TURNOVER. HOW WOULD YOU RESPOND TO APTED’S REQUEST TO KEEP THE BEST PEOPLE IN THE SYNGENTA TEAM? HOW WOULD YOU DEAL WITH THIS ISSUE FROM SYNGENTA’S PERSPECTIVE?

PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION This question directly has its roots in one of Kris

Gopal's 3 listed challenges faced by Infy: Namely winning the battle for talent

At Infosys nearly 90% of the new hires were freshers

Further, considering the center at place in Mysore, the technological capabilities of the employees cannot be doubted

However, as Thompson, VP RetailServe said "They are too technology oriented, not so much business oriented."

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS Though there is a three tier leadership program in

place, the efficacy of grooming talent upwards from middle management is clearly the issue here

Infosys, can, with proper selection, offer sabbaticals and sponsor senior software engineers (people who had been with the relationship for at least 5 years) to take up a management course with a specialization that is in line with the client's business

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS Apted's concern is reasonable, given the amount of data

sharing that is taking place through the RSC

However, Sygenta should be prepared to allow more onshore work and should be prepared to pay the associated premium for an offshore employee to travel onsite, work at the client location and understand the business processes

Further, Sygenta should have a mentorship team in place to ensure that the business knowledge passed on to these employees

This mentorship team should comprise the executive decision makers  like CEO etc so that the vision as well as the corporate strategy is made evident to the Infoscion.

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS The Global ITRAC team could be aligned with the top

management

There is already a corporate sponsor (director) associated with most RSC accounts

Bringing these sponsors, selected members of the Global ITRAC team as well as the EMs and Account Managers together into a single dedicated RSC horizontal that is cross-functional

Thus 1 or 2 members from this team could receive adequate hands-on business process training from Sygenta and could work from the client's workplace, thereby viewing the business directly

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS Regular meetings with Sygenta's top management including

the CEO, CFO and CIO as well as with the steering committee members from the Infosys side could ensure that realistic expectations are maintained across both sides of the table

This could, to a certain extent alleviate Apted's concerns at a senior management level through continuous engagement especially at a CIO or CTO level instead of middle management levels.

4. How should Sanjay deal with the challenges and tensions that have arisen with the use of the RSC? Could you help Sanjay design an action plan to improve the RSC? Should Infosys make it a priority for EMs to get their clients to embrace RSCs? Should Sanjay suggest using the RSC earlier in the relationship with a client? Is there any change that you would introduce to the content of the RSC?

DEALING WITH THE CHALLENGES AND TENSIONS Trade-off between selecting and grooming candidates for the

RSC program( preferably ITRAC clients) or allowing the RSC from Day 0 on a contractual basis for all clients.

Trust issue wherein clients are wary of the “not precluding from any area of the business” that Infosys insists of its RSC clients.

Resistance because of divergence from traditional contracts.

Resistance from middle management of the client firm who were happy with their “SLA’s”.

SOLUTIONS ITRAC clients- the ones who have approached Infosys for

transformative services- be given the benefits of the RSC from the day the request is made.

Since the client is already in the so called “high-motivation” stage, it becomes easier for the client to trust Infosys taking care of issues 2 and 3

Top management of client will take care of other levels regarding implementation of RSC

Resolution of conflict through internal meeting thus taking care of issue no. 4

CHANGE IN CONTENT OF RSC It has to be kept open ended and flexible with the option of

addition of indicators from both parties available.

The steering committee meetings are one way of exploring such options but there could be an informal way of addition too.

Provision of short term and long term additions through mutual cooperation as the relationship evolves

RSC introduction to take place at all levels but should evolve and increase in tiers as engagement with client increases

THANK YOU