Man on a High

We catch Sandeep Phanasgaonkar in his plush Genpact Gurgaon office on a
Friday afternoon. Though he and other employees look relaxed in their 'informal
dressing day', there is no mistaking the undercurrent of energy, which,
Sandeep says, carries over the weekend. He and his team have been on a high ever
since the GE to Genpact transition process began in January 2005, explains
Phanasgaonkar.

Ever since Phanasgaonkar joined Genpact five years back, business has
escalated. Genpact started off as a GE captive employing 80 people in 1997 and
the numbers today have increased to 19,000 globally.

With services spanning the entire gamut of Finance & Accounting, Customer
Service, Collections, Document Management, Managed IT Services, Software,
Analytics, Content Solutions, and Supply Chain Management, Phanasgaonkar and his
team are on a constant IT escalation path. "Yearly, we spend around $50 mn
in global capital and operational IT expenditure," he says.

Transition Tales

After General Atlantic Partners and Oak Hill Capital Partners acquired a
major stake in Genpact in January 2005, it was Phanasgaonkar's responsibility
to set up a separate global IT infrastructure for Genpact by 30 June 2005. The
entire six-month exercise was the biggest project till date for Genpact
"The biggest worry was that the project would impact 18,000 people. One
wrong decision could create chaos among employees and customers," says
Phanasgaonkar.

Genpact had to build its dedicated network, independent of GE, across the
globe; and set up its own infrastructure. Systems had to be implemented from
scratch and in some cases projects different from those used in GE were
implemented. The overhaul also involved migration of historic data from GE to
Genpact.

Phanasgaonkar adds, "Fifty core projects were identified across Genpact
Global. Apart from these, 50-plus other projects were also identified at various
Genpact poles. These were spread across multiple domains like Infrastructure,
Digitization and Transition Services Agreement. It was estimated that 2,000-plus
man months would be required for these 100-plus projects."

A dedicated IT team was formed for new customers, so that it could
concentrate on growth rather than getting engaged in transition projects. A
dedicated Program Management Office (PMO) was set up to facilitate, monitor and
drive all transition-related projects across Genpact Global. Transition
ambassadors and a global help desk was set up to answer any internal query about
the transition. "All us business leaders of respective centers used to meet
every fortnight to discuss the progress of the past two weeks. The team did an
excellent job, racing against time, under tremendous pressure, to deliver the
works by June 30," says Phanasgaonkar proudly.

A Volley of Applications

"My first year at GE capital was the time for me to equip the
infrastructure for continuous growth. We developed a complete loan approval
system for GE Countrywide, which was present in almost 85 locations. There were
8,000 employees with GE Capital and we went in for a major revamp of our
communication system with a defined process for problem escalation and quick
resolution," reminisces Phanasgaonkar. His hard work in the first year got
GE's IT division the award for the best function globally.

Genpact has recently deployed an MPLS network across India, China, Mexico and
Europe. Multi Protocol Label Switching is key to scalable virtual private
networks (VPNs) and also helps deliver highly scalable, differentiated,
end-to-end IP services, with simpler configuration and management.

Knowledge Central is the enterprise wide collaboration and knowledge-sharing
portal at Genpact that enables project and business teams to create virtual
communities to share documents, workflows and forms. Sandeep adds, "The
offline client, office and outlook integration features are available and will
be included in future releases of Knowledge Central."

Genpact has invested in many world class IT applications and initiatives.
Phanasgaonkar believes that Business Intelligence and data warehousing are
becoming increasingly important and the analytical capabilities of the tool will
help differentiate Genpact amongst its competitors. Genpact enterprise
data-warehouse is built on a Cognos platform.

Genpact has implemented the Sun Java IDM tool for auto provisioning of user
IDs on LAN, Email, Sametime (instant messaging) & SSO (Single Sign-On)
access to Genpact Corporate applications as soon as the employee joins, and
his/her Oracle HR record is created. Similarly, as soon as the employee leaves
all these IDs are automatically disabled/deleted. In the future there is a plan
to use the system's capability to integrate biometric-based identification.

Genpact is on a growth mode with newer applications being added to sustain
cost advantages and improve productivity. Phanasgaonkar reminisces,
"Joining GE was a big attraction, and in 2001 I stayed in Delhi without my
family for over a year. Looking back, this decision has indeed given me lots of
returns in terms of experience and knowledge."

Jasmine Kaur

Personal File

Career Path: Phanasgaonkar has over 18 years of
experience in applying IT solutions for finance, banking and IT-enabled
services.

• Masters in Financial Management and Diploma in Operations
  Research and Computers Management from the University of Mumbai

• Began his career in 1983 as a Probationary Officer with the
  State Bank of India, responsible for branch automation.

• Given his tremendous interest in the IT industry, this
  finance wizard moved to Tata Unisys (Tata Infotech earlier) as a consultant
  for offshore development centers, and was responsible for sale of turnkey
  solutions to the Indian banking industry.

• In 1993, he shifted to i-flex, working on banking product
  development and its sales and implementation in banks across Africa, South
  Asia, the Far East and Europe.

• Took up the position of Regional Technology Head with
  Deutsche Bank in 1999, overseeing its branches across India, Pakistan and
  Sri Lanka.

• Joined GE Capital International Services as CIO in Feb 2001
  and facilitated IT leadership in delivering increased business value and
  driving IT productivity on a stable technology foundation.

Management Style: Democratic leader

Hobbies: Loves Cricket and traveling.

Family: Has two children. An 18-year old son and
13-year-old daughter.

The Growth of the Titanic

Genpact, formerly GE Capital International Services, started
operations in 1997 as a customer-support center for General Electric (GE). In
January 2005, GE reached an agreement with two leading private-equity firms,
General Atlantic Partners and Oak Hill Capital Partners, under which the firms
acquired a major stake in Genpact, making it the largest business-process
services organization headquartered in India serving GE as well as other global
corporations. Genpact topped the DQ Top 20 BPO survey as the largest Indian BPO
with revenues of Rs 1,958 crore in 2004-05.

Spend on Global IT Transition = approx $10 mn

Annual Global IT Spend (both capex and opex) = approx $50 mn