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Q: You have had an illustrious career spanning more than 40 years with IBM. What excited you about US Technology to take over the management of the company? Also, US Technology has had an amazingly rapid growth, capturing the mindshare of CIO’s of Fortune 500 in a big way. What are the key factors you would attribute this to?
A: I definitely learnt a lot in my years with IBM. What excited me about US technology and what prompted me to make the change was truly its impassioned and 100% belief in its values and culture, that are certainly outstanding. They put a purpose in my life. These are the values that provide dignity to a human being wherein we treat everyone in an equitable manner. We give respect to people and an opportunity to achieve their maximum potential in an environment where there’s no fear and initiative and creativity are truly encouraged. Also, extremely significantly, US Technology believes that business has to have a purpose. A business making profits without having a noble purpose is committing a sin. That is why the motto of our company is “changing lives for the better”. We want to plough back into the society so that the society benefits from the growth and development of US Technology.

 

US Technology’s growth certainly has been remarkable particularly if it is put in the context that US Technology started doing business in 2000, the time when the IT industry in US took one its most serious downturns. The prime reason has been the commitment and passion of the employees of US Technology to the customer. If we are able to maintain that level of commitment to customer on “service beyond contract”, we will continue to grow @ 70-80%. In this business because it is so innovative, you really have to go beyond the level of the contract and really understand the spirit of it, because things are changing rapidly. Providing complex solutions is a less difficult part. Where we have gained is in the trust that we have given to clients that we have their best interest at the core of our relationship with them. What started in 1999 as a 14 person team, a small subsidiary of Nairobi, Kenya-based $5.5B conglomerate The Comcraft Group, has today over 4000 people WW and offices in Aliso Viejo, CA and Trivandrum and Chennai, India, as well as in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Vancouver, Canada and London, U.K. working with more than 30 Fortune 200 clients WW.

Q: In the crowded and highly competitive ITES marketplace, how does US Technology differentiate itself? Also, US Technology ranks amongst a handful of companies that are pioneering the Hybrid Global Outsourcing and Delivery model. What made you take that route?
A: We differentiate ourselves by giving our customers a focus that we are ready to invest in them and we are ready to understand their business. What we want to do is not only good for our customer but also enhances the ability of our customer to bring better services to ‘their’ clients. Our focus is not just on our customer but on our customer’s customer. Another important differentiator is that we work as an extension of the client’s organization. We have instituted a very unique concept of “Client Universities” wherein every USsociate getting on a project goes through a 3 week orientation on the client’s environment and processes before joining the team. To give an example, for our Retail clients, we not only create the virtual university, we even import the barcode readers and other technology being used by them for our offshore teams. We take videos of clients’ various user centric activities to share with the teams on the project, to give an idea to the teams how their work is and can directly impact the clients services’ to ‘their’ clients. Its because of these Values that 70-80% of our growth has come through existing clients.

 

As far as the Hybrid Global Outsourcing and Delivery Model is concerned, in our experience, development and provision of IT services is possible only if communication is near perfect. Near perfect communication requires that you have people who have similar background, similar orientation and similar understanding of the geographical and business environment in which the services will ultimately be used. Hence, all the people our clients speak with are local people – from Sales to Business Analysts to Architects to the management teams. They in turn communicate with the development teams that we have at multiple offshore locations worldwide. Quality cannot be achieved without understanding customer needs and that’s why we created a Hybrid Model.

 

Q: What are the key challenges, you think, that an ITES provider is facing today And how do you propose these can be addressed? You have seen the IT Services landscape go through various cycles and stages in the last 45 years. How do you think it is going to change in the next 5 to 10 years? What could a service provider as well a client look forward to?
A: So far as India is concerned, an ITES provider is facing the challenge of training and retraining the employees. This can happen if the companies provide employees with an environment where employees can exercise their creative power to the maximum. IT employees are knowledge workers. If the environment encourages them to use their creativity and initiative, that is what satisfies them and enables them to provide outstanding service to the client. 

 

21st century is the century when IT is going to be the driving force. In my view, IT is a catalyst technology. It accelerates the absorption of other technologies for productive use. IT is a resource which helps manage all other resources. The companies which will make best use of IT will be the ones that will stay ahead of competition. Hence, my view is that IT is going to play a dominant role. In the 19th century when one was looking at a country’s competitiveness, one was looking at how much coal or sulphuric acid or electricity it produced. In the 21st century, the vibrancy and strength of the economy comes from how much effective use of IT is it making.

 

Q: What are the focus areas for US Technology? What are your most successful offerings and why? Do you see mergers and acquisitions as part of US Technology’s growth strategy?
A: We have offerings in Industry Verticals as well as in multiple Technologies. We have deliberately chosen very few Industry Verticals so that we have maximum competence in them. Taking Retail and Healthcare Insurance, we can easily say that we better than the best in those today. Even in Technology horizontals, we have Industry Thought Leaders and people who shape technology, guiding and mentoring our people and strategies.

 

Mergers & Acquisitions certainly form part of our Strategy. Having said that, our strategy in that area is not with a view to building growth only. It is for filling gaps of skills or technologies that enrich our portfolio. To take an example, the acquisition of eBuilt that we did last year was with a view to enhancing the E-commerce capabilities, where eBuilt’s credentials were stellar.  Many of our customers, who are very significantly focused on E-commerce applications, have already seen tremendous benefits from our acquisition of eBuilt.

 

Just 2 weeks back we acquired QA Labs in a direct response to our clients who seek dedicated Quality Assurance and Test Services as provided by an industry leader. This addition provides us with the nucleus upon which to enhance our portfolio of core competencies in the rapidly growing Quality and Test field as we expand our North American footprint.

Q: Indian companies are still to make an impact in the product development and higher end consultancy. Looking forward, do you see activity happening in these areas? What is US Technology’s strategy for that?
A: The reason primarily lies in the fact that Indian IT companies are still behind in the use of IT technology. If you look at the IT spend of India compared to India’s GDP, it ranks fairly low. I believe that once Indian companies embrace use of IT technology like advanced countries like US and others, then we will see Indian companies developing IT products. The growth of a country’s economy has a very high, in fact 86% correlation with the effective use of IT. So far as US Technology is concerned, we are setting an example by showing how heavily we are using IT for our own internal operations. More and more companies embracing IT will certainly provide an environment where more and more companies will develop IT products. Also, Indian economy had largely been a closed economy, living in a protected environment. Now that it is opening up and is in a competitive environment with the global companies, Indian companies will find a need for making more and more use of IT to be more productive and equally efficient. I think this shift is going to take place within a decade. By 2015 this shift should be very significant.

 

Q: Starting with you, US Technology has one of the best talent pools of people worldwide. As a medium sized player, how do you attract and retain such accomplished people?
A: So far as people are concerned, most people are able to get a decent salary in most companies. What many companies are not able to provide is job satisfaction to the employees. In most companies, for any person to grow, she/ he has to step on other people, which is very much against human spirit and nature of people. We are able to attract best people because we provide an environment where people who help others, are able to work in a team environment – are the ones who are able to grow. That enables people to contribute their best and at the same time get highest job satisfaction. Job satisfaction is our key to attracting people and that’s something we have been able to achieve because of our Values and Culture. That’s why we have even CIOs of many companies who have not only joined us but are truly excited to be a part of the company.