"Companies that drive serious automation in the back and front office will become the new heroes," says Shiva Ramani, CEO of San Jose based iOPEX
iOPEX has a large presence in Chennai and is a global business and technology service provider, powering clients to achieve digital transformation through process optimization and automation. Shiva Ramani articulates on the IT scene in the post-Covid-19.Excerpts:
SHIVA RAMANI [SR]: This is a great opportunity for the Indian software industry to help lead the way to digital enterprise. The leadership of the Indian software companies should be sufficiently evolved to think beyond the currently existing economic models. There might be a need to cannibalize existing revenue to help chart out a path to a native digital enterprise.
The technology industry goes through natural platform shifts every 15-20- years like telecommunications, Internet, mobile… Covid-19 will create another platform shift that will force all enterprises to go fully digital.
Industrial Economist [IE]: About the present IT sector…
SR: One of the unintended consequences of Covid-19 is the prevalence and almost imperative for remote working, especially in the IT world. Visa and travel challenges will be significant but see that the general demand and salary levels of competent software folks that can Invest in their own predictable connectivity solution will enable such professionals to be more sought after.
IE: The US President has been talking tough on visas. He had even asked foreign students to quit America if there is going to be only online classes. How will this pan out in the coming days? What are the larger implications of this fiat?
SR: Any such move is quite short-sighted. Given the unabated virus spread in the US and tax policy initiative to control the spread, from just the safety of the students, this may be advisable. I think this will be a very short-term measure and some of the premium institutions such as Harvard and MIT have already filed a lawsuit against this. The US university system is vibrant economically.
As well as intellectually with a swath of foreign students coming in. In a capitalistic environment, such as the US, economics will sustain. The bigger challenge for these students is the limiting of work visas after education.
IE Business travel, offshore placements in IT, how would these be in the present scenario?
SR: Right in the middle of the pandemic, personal health safety is a bigger concern for all the professionals. Europe is avoiding travelers from the US. That says everything that needs to be said about how much of a lure the US holds for a lot of people around the world.
With telecommunicating becoming a huge part of workforce planning for all organizations in the IT world, remote working would take over the prime spot as opposed to onshore placement. I do think competent engineers can command a premium in this market if they are remote work-enabled. Offshore work would grow, Automation competencies are going to be in high demand. The kind of activity that is being off0shored is going to change and the business models of these engagements are going to change.
IE: How do you see India – China – US trades and world economy?
SR: More than just an anti-China sentiment, there was a general trend towards nationalism in most of the countries. China’s flourishing economy is probably forcing the leadership there to sound jingoistic. The outcome of the elections in the US will have a much more decisive bearing on the sentiment itself. It could go from the current mild sentiment to worse. Growing economic inequalities in the world and the overall slowing down of the world economy were contributing significantly to the anti-China sentiment. This anti-China sentiment is beginning to spawn-off local manufacturing. This potentially has two-pronged economic benefits of increased investment and new local jobs. But the bigger challenge is the ability of a country like the US to raise investment for these activities without the Chinese buying the debt. -KTJ.
About iOPEX Technologies
iOPEX is a leader in digital operations. We help transform the business operations of large enterprises by integrating them with automation. We deliver operational solutions and automation for business processes like technology, finance, and marketing operations. Our framework for integrated workflow automation helps the journey for operational teams to go from manual operations to AI-based operations to No-Ops delivering up to 30% cost savings. We help some of the top fortune 500 companies to optimize enterprise operations and adopt digital transformation across different industry verticals.
