According to research advisory group Garner, IT operations are what are going to win the game for any competitive firm. You can call it what you like – trimming costs or obtaining process efficiency – but with rapid fluctuations in the economy, IT operations will clinch the top spot.
Vice-President and Research Director, Gartner, Andrew Rowsell-Jones said in a statement, “In most enterprises, IT underpins the ability to sell, manufacture, ship and collect payment. It affects the operations of the business. So our advice to Indian CIOs is: Whatever you do, don’t break it. Figure out how to scale IT costs effectively. Many businesses are going back into expansion big time. What was a good thing last year — looking at simplification, standardization, fixing internal processes — is all great but when the economy is growing, don’t break it. If you haven’t got that written in foot-high orange letters on the front page of your IT strategy, then you probably have to put it there,” reports the hindubusinessline.
However, it is not a good idea to make an attempt to scale up IT operations in a big way right now. The fact is that economic conditions are improving, but volatility and uncertainty are still clouding financial markets. Hence, the importance to dwell on operational issues can’t be underscored enough says Rowsell Jones: “Even though scaling is a major issue, many Indian CIOs are also trying to implement other parts of their strategic plans, such as to make platform changes, investigate cloud, change supply agreements, extend functionality and so on. The danger with these other changes is that they may put at risk the operational integrity of their IT assets at a time when they are under most pressure to scale. CIOs must focus only on operational issues and set aside any strategic ambitions for the time being, until things calm down a bit.”
Although a rebound to growth is much welcomed, there are plenty of challenges that lie ahead. One major glitch will be in obtaining the appropriate resources to manage growth. There is bound to be a demand-supply mismatch explains Rowsell-Jones: “There will be a struggle to get resources. It’s not a technical challenge, it’s about getting resources and talent. It will be a productivity story. With growth and investments in all sectors in many countries, people are going to hire Indians from India. And where will they come from? India produces a lot of IT grads. but there will be a crunch on resources. With the demand going from negative to positive, everyone needs project managers and staff.” He was speaking on the sidelines of a ‘Gartner Predicts’ conference in Bangalore that established its trends and tech predictions for the year.
Another Gartner analyst, Brian Prentice warned that although Asian markets seemed to have rebounded in terms of growth, it is still tied to the global economy. He stressed that the Asian economy is not in an isolated environment and what happens globally can still have ramifications in Asia.
“Economic growth is looking good in India and China. Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore and Australia are also doing reasonably well. But we have this gigantic under-cloud right over our heads — what’s happening to Japan, which is looking at 1.6-1.7 per cent growth. In the US and Europe, it is between 1 and 2 per cent. The question is, are these numbers actually optimistic or not?,” said Prentice.
Prentice adds that the future will see a lot more of cloud computing in India. By 2010, IT service firms in India are likely to add up to 20 percent of the top cloud aggregators in the market.
Jacob Cherian writes for SourcingLine, a leading provider of directories on top seo companies and mobile application developers.