Features

CSA 2007: IT Services

DQI Bureau

28 Jan 2007 00:00 IST

New Update

For IT services vendors, the Indian CIOs apparently are giving plenty
of importance to issues like vendor capability to support in multiple locations,
the scope and reliability of the services provided, their domain knowledge and
pro-activeness in understanding the requirements. Overall, for the entire IT
Services vendor community, the major cause of concern should be a low score on
the post contract stage experience for all players. Indian enterprises seem to
be particularly unhappy with issues like the solution oriented and time oriented
approach of vendors, their responsiveness and availability of service personnel
and turnaround capability in case of disaster/crisis and even how they are
geared up with the availability of spare parts and required essentials.

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IT Services: Vendor Ranks
Brands	Rank '07	Rank '06	Change
HCL Comnet	1	4	^
Wipro	2	5	^
HP Services	3	3	♦
HCL Infosystem	4	6	^
TCS/CMC	5	1	v
Sify	6	—	New
IBM Global	7	2	v
CMS	8	7	v
^ Up v Down ♦ Unchanged
This category saw the biggest drop in satisfaction, of nearly 4 points. HCL Comnet and Wipro declined the least in satisfaction scores, both thus gaining sharply in rank

IT Services: Satisfaction Scores
	Industry	CMS	HCL Comnet	HCL Insys	HP	IBM	TCS/ CMC	SIFY	Wipro
Service Offering (100)	83.1	79.9	86.2	83.1	84.1	82.2	79.4	81.1	84.3
Sales & Marketing/ Pre Contract Stage (89)	81.9	75.4	83.6	81.3	84.5	79.8	82.3	81.0	83.3
Price & Commercial Terms (77)	81.2	77.3	82.2	80.8	81.5	79.4	81.7	79.9	82.6
Post Contract Stage Experience (82)	79.3	75.7	79.7	79.8	79.6	78.0	79.3	77.9	80.1
Base: 584 CIOs
How satisfied are CIOs with their IT services vendors on four key parameters? The table lists scores derived from CIO responses to a range of questions. Figures in brackets indicate relative importance of the parameters as stated by respondents. Figures in blue represent the maximum and in red the minimum in each category.

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IT Services: The Top Two Parameters
Service Offering	Industry	CMS	HCL Comnet	HCL Insys	HP Services	IBM	TCS/ CMC	SIFY	Wipro
Ability to support multi location	84.6	80.9	86.7	82.6	85.8	81.8	82.4	82.2	87.4
Scope of service provided	81.7	79.1	84.7	81.7	83.9	82.5	74.4	77.8	81.9
Reliability of service provided	83.1	80.0	87.3	84.8	82.9	82.2	81.6	83.3	84.2
Sales & Marketing/ Pre contract Stage
Proactive-ness of the service provider in understanding....	82.6	74.9	85.8	83.0	85.8	79.6	83.2	82.2	82.8
Service providers understanding - Domain knowledge of your business...	81.4	75.8	81.9	80.0	83.5	80.0	81.6	80.0	83.7
Note: The satisfaction scores are on a 100-point scale with 100 indicating the highest degree of satisfaction-very satisfied Base: 584 CIOs The product and pre contract stages emerge as the two most important derivatives of satisfaction. There is tough competition between the top three players-HCL Comnet, Wipro and HP Services, but HCL Comnet noses ahead due to its ability to support in multiple locations and understanding of customer requirments

Adherence to SLAs seem to be a generic problem afflicting all IT
service vendors in the country. It's not just TCS, most Indian vendors like
Sify, CMS and HCL Comnet are vulnerable to this affliction. While these same
vendors conform to rigorous SLA norms in case of their overseas contracts might
seem a contradiction, probably the traditional flexibility of Indian CIOs with
respect to SLAs might have led to this situation. As enterprises become more
mature and CIOs more professional, the situation has changed but for Indian
vendors old habits seem to die hard. Maybe this explains why many of the large
domestic IT service contracts in recent months have gone to the likes of HP
Services and IBM Global Services.

'Ultimately,
remote management capability would negate the need for geographical
spread'

-Sanjay Gupta, director, Operations, HCL Comnet

What are HCL Comnet's major
customer service USPs?

One of our biggest USPs has been our geographical spread whereby we
cover 600 cities across India with nearly 100 points of presence. This
is extremely crucial with Indian enterprises now having a large
networked presence across the country. Conversely, this has also led to
the remote management infrastructure becoming a crucial differentiator.
Ultimately, remote management capability would negate the need for
geographical spread.

Also, the NetConsole tool
that we've developed is an important USP for us as it helps in
increasing the transparency of services delivered. This tool helps
enterprises have their IT assets on a remote network enabling IT service
providers deliver best of services. Using this tool, CIOs can log into
the Web anytime and check out the source of their problem.

How are Indian enterprises
different from their global counterparts in terms of the services they
demand, and interaction with service providers?

For one, Indian CIOs are as demanding as their global counterparts and
have as stringent SLAs. What is different is that Indian enterprises
follow a lot more give and take philosophy in their scope of work; they
are often flexible in terms of downtime and a spirit of mutual
understanding pervades their relations with service providers.
Therefore, though the contracts are legally framed, personal
relationships play a crucial role in service delivery. On the other
hand, for pricing contracts, Indian customers negotiate harder and, more
importantly, labor arbitrage does not exist. So ultimately, for IT
services vendors to be successful here, understanding and domain
knowledge of the business rather than cost becomes the selling point.

How has the traditional facilities
management model evolved and how has it affected the nature of customer
services?

The transition from the earlier model of facilities management, where
vendors were taking on the entire manpower themselves, to the current
model of asset stripping, where device-based resources are outsourced,
has changed life for an increasing number of enterprises. IT is now
looked on as an operational expenditure and not as capital expenditure
in the balance sheet by most corporates.

What are the trends emerging on the
customer services front for Indian IT service providers?

There is a gradual shift towards full-scope or strategic outsourcing
from selective out-tasking. Strategic outsourcing, as the name suggests,
was a strategic decision taken by the company after considering
different aspects like finance, HR, and fixed period business strategy
along with IT strategy and deliverables. Strategic outsourcing
constituted a partnership between organizations and was significant
compared to facilities management or out-tasking which tended to be
basic in nature and expectations.

Also, service providers
like HCL Comnet have managed to convince Indian enterprises of the
importance of long-term contracts, especially those beyond three years.
While the dangers of base erosion remain, IT service providers need at
least three years to give sufficient inputs for process re-engineering
for their customers.

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Unlike their bigger domestic counterparts, the HCL Group
companies seem to have found several takers among Indian CIOs; the most popular,
HCL Comnet, leads the chart in service offerings, pricing and commercial terms
while HCL Infosystems has given maximum satisfaction in the post contract stage.
Amongst MNCs, IBM could boast of landmark deals like Bharti but that has not
really translated into popularity among Indian CIOs. A significant footnote in
the IT services story; for CMS who used to be quite popular as a Tier 2 SI
amongst Indian CIOs till a few years back, the time has perhaps come for a
closer introspection as its popularity on nearly all counts seem to be at the
lowest ebb at the moment.

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