Indian IT-BPO vendors had realized that there would be demand for cloud services and had started
building their own capabilities in order to survive the shift in demand and
create innovative new models. Indian vendors moved a step ahead and started
building platform based offerings that will be delivered by cloud. This means
that cloud computing is standardizing the IT-BPO offerings by the Indian
vendors and they have realized the cost and productivity benefits of
standardizing processes. Clients too are interested in the standardized
offerings and since such offerings are more outcome-based offerings that
influence their business values. These cloud based platform BPO offerings are
delivered through either public or private clouds or through the data centers.
Traditionally
Indian vendors get nearly all of their revenues from the installation,
customization and maintenance of software that is branded and created by mostly
foreign software companies. There is huge cost and technology expertise
involved in development of packaged software hence Indian vendors were more
involved in migrating and maintenance. The cloud presents a different scenario
for the Indian vendors where they can build their own platform and products and
evolve from just migrating and maintenance to running the services for the
customers. In cloud computing there is very little scope for continued services
in a Cloud market. Cloud based BPO platform offerings present an opportunity
for the Indian vendors to develop their own offerings and also helps in
increasing the non linear and outcome based revenues that have more margins.
TCS focuses on owning the platform and the services, instead
of simply being ‘helpers’ for other cloud brands and wanted to own the brand,
the solution and the customer. TCS started wanted its cloud computing offerings
generate nearly 10% of its new
business together with product revenues over the next few years and
planned to offer standardized solutions
across the areas of insurance and banking to multiple customers using same
resources. TCS started its platform BPO unit in April 2008 and since
then “had seen good traction in human resource outsourcing platform, and had
created new platforms in select areas of finance and accounting procurement and
analytics. TCS platform offerings have been successful and have seen good
traction since last two years and it has seen good success in UK market. With
over 30 customers, TCS currently has seven platform-based offering in its BPO
unit and 25% of revenues come from platform offerings.
TCS iON - a cloud-based integrated IT solution for Small and
Medium Business (SMB) and has already gained over 240 SMB customers who have benefited
from increased efficiencies. TCS has already realized the traction for its
'bank-in-a-box' solution among smaller cooperative and rural banks. The
solution, which helps these banks automate and integrate their processes of
deposits and loans for a fixed monthly rental fee for each branch, already
serves nearly 2,000 bank branches. Cooperative banks, including Andhra Grameen
Vikas Bank, Uttaranchal Grameen Bank and Purvanchal Grameen Bank, are using
TCS' 'bank-in-a-box' solution. Already, smaller organisations, such as Kaya
Skincare, Oxford Book Store and Ryan
International School,
are paying TCS on per transaction basis as they seek to lower their costs of
operation further. Non SMB cloud revenues are still at very low levels.
Infosys is banking on innovative cloud-based platform to
facilitate client's customized needs and its BPO arm is aiming for $1 billion
revenue by 2014. At Infosys Connect, the company introduced 15 Business
Platforms under a newly created brand Infosys Edge, a family of platforms that
enable customers to buy software on a pay-as-you-go model and offerings range
from helping clients with e-commerce businesses to managing human resources and
procurement processes. In second quarter of 2011 Infosys Edge signed ten
strategic deals. Of these, four were from EMEA, four were from Americas and
two were from the APAC region. Some of
the edge platforms are Infosys SocialEdge, Infosys CommerceEdge, Flypp (mobile
application marketplace), TalentEdge, etc.
Infosys has about 2000 engineers dedicated to the Cloud
products and platforms. Infosys is also building its own data centers in Australia and US and it is exploring the
establishment of another in Europe to host new
Business Platforms. The company is
expecting about 50%-60% of workloads to shift on cloud in next five years,
which may yield significant revenues for it. Infosys continues to see
strong momentum with its Cloud practice having delivered over 125 engagements
till date and The company is
building concepts on edge platforms like for mobile banking, medical tourism,
etc. It is offering also managing through the cloud the Aircel's Pocket
Internet Store. Infosys tied up with Microsoft to provide cloud-based
services to clients and will offer Microsoft Private Cloud solutions such as
Windows Server Hyper-V and Microsoft System Center, and solutions on Windows
Azure to clients.
Wipro is launched cloud computing services through its arm
Wipro Infotech and it has around 25 customers. Wipro Infotech is selling two
cloud offerings to SMBs – software as a service (SaaS) and infrastructure as a
Service (IaaS). Customers are charged per user monthly price model and it has
been selling the service directly so far and may start selling through channel
partners from next year. Wipro Infotech has applications such as ERP, mail and
messaging, human resources management system, dealer management system,
hospital information system, vendor portal and learning systems on the public
cloud offering and is targeting verticals such as manufacturing, automobiles,
healthcare, the microfinance industry, textiles, and education. Wipro has gone
in for a mix of self-developed and third party software. The dealer management
system and vendor portal, for instance, is Wipro's IP.
Wipro has also offerings in other layers of Cloud including
Business Process as a Service (e.g. loan origination as a service), Software as
a Service (e.g. bank in a box with leading software vendors, implementation
partner to leading SaaS vendors) and Platform as a Service (PaaS). Wipro
leverages its Global Command Center (GCC) to provide a unified monitoring and
management platform for private, public and hybrid Cloud environments. Wipro
Technologies has built a private Cloud for OnStream Utility Metering Services
Limited. Wipro is also partnering with other players like Microsoft, Oracle,
Amazon, Citrix, etc and offering various platform based services to their
clients on the partner’s platforms since 2009.
HCL Technologies announced in 2010 end that new technologies such as cloud computing will become
nearly $300 million business over next five years, as part of the company's new
initiative to incubate next big opportunities. It had formed a unit called
'ecosystem and business incubation organization', which had already identified
five new ideas. HCL Infosystems launched
cloud computing based services branded ‘HCL O’Zone’ with an aim to offer
end-to-end cloud based computing solution services to
its customers.HCL’s IaaS services are concentrated on the European and North American
markets, with data centers in Sweden and New Jersey. The target market is HCL’s
existing enterprise customer base, including a small number of industry-sector
clients. Its offering includes standardized platforms for management,
integration within a hybrid cloud environment, and a self-service portal and
dashboard.
HCL offers
competency based services such as Cloud assessment, migration, implementation
and maintenance. HCL has strategic partnerships & collaborations with
leading players in the cloud ecosystem. HP has recognized HCL
Technologies as the “AllianceONE Partner of the Year” in the category of HP
Cloud Computing – Service Provider.
Some of these include: Technology/OEM's Partnerships with Cisco, EMC, Vmware,
Sun, Microsoft; IaaS: Amazon Web Services; PaaS: Salesforce.com, Microsoft
Azure, Tibco; Cloud Management: BMC,
CA.
Indian Vendors have realized cloud computing is essential
for future growth and are investing in developing the various cloud offerings for
the clients. Interesting fact is that instead of restricting themselves to the
role of migration and maintenance they are more focused on developing their own
brand of offerings and for this they are investing in data centers and
technologies. They might be using the platforms, technologies and software of
major vendors but they are developing service offerings use them but selling to
the clients on their own brand name. Cloud product and services can be
developed at a very low cost compared to packaged software and since cloud
computing industry is at an evolutionary phase will definitely provide an
opportunity for Indian vendors. All the vendors have created separate business
units equipped with financial and thousands of human resources focused on
creating products and platforms based on cloud. All of the vendors have
developed their own IP product and platforms based on cloud and are
aggressively marketing them to the clients.
Standardized offerings through cloud are also what clients
are looking for as this comes with significant cost savings and no upfront
technology investments. But clients have to be careful as there are some issues
like data security, outages, contract complications and technology
understanding. Cloud computing is expected to be a key offering for the Indian
Outsourcing vendors for the non linear and outcome based revenues that have
high margins and help these vendors move up the value chain. Platform BPO
offerings is another segment where the vendors had been investing in
development of platforms since past five years and they have been seeing success
in terms of signing of platform deals since last two years. Vendors are also
aggressively marketing the platform offerings to their clients and they are
aiming for thirty percent of revenues from cloud and platform based offerings
in next three to five years.
