FUTURE TECHNOLOG
is fast changing. Besides the IT manager,
sales teams from system integration
companies also need to deal with the line
of business managers and sometimes even
the CEO and CFO, especially for digital
transformation projects. While the IT
manager is very important, IT is getting
increasingly connected with business,
which is how Bayaa describes the changing
influence of business on organisational
technology decisions.
Despite depressed market conditions
and pressure on system integration
companies like STME to deliver more
for less, Bayaa increased the headcount
of the sales teams from six to 19 in 2016.
His conviction is that there are growth
opportunities in digital transformation,
security and datacentric solutions. This
was also supported by an internal change
programme to educate the teams about
digital transformation.
“Within STME, we have done it
completely the other way. We hired more
people and expanded in the market. We
believe the potential is huge. IT is a must,
especially for data security and data
management. My main concern is to have
the right talented resources, ready and in
place. About the changes in the market;
I cannot control them but I can control
my ability to develop and deliver what I
can see.”
To drive this further, STME’s sales
team have been incentivised to primarily
focus and accelerate results around
digital transformation solutions. Sales
teams have been equipped to access an
online catalogue to present various digital
transformation solutions to the end user.
“This is because we believe the market is
there and the potential is there, and this is
the future. We need to be matching with
the future,” says Bayaa.
There is also an internal exercise to
change the sales culture from focusing on
large capital asset purchase deals towards
recurring operational expenses-based
deals. This may be beneficial for STME’s
end user. But for STME’s sales teams,
Bayaa remarks that, “From the revenue
perspective, this is a big change; and a
complete change. But in STME we believe
in it. For a particular deal it will be less, but
overall it will be much better.”
Bayaa emphasises that the principal
risk today for STME is not the changing
technology and business models, but the
inability to build stable business plans
because of the changing macroeconomic
environment. While he cannot control the
external macroeconomic environment,
he can transform STME internally to
have the right outlook, focus on the right
opportunities, have the right skills and
optimal resources, plan for results over
the medium and long term, and remain
consistent in this approach.
Despite setbacks from the
macroeconomic environment, this
optimism and forward-looking approach
into opportunities around digital
transformation and next generation
technologies have translated into overall
double-digit growth for STME, Bayaa
points out.
Run, change and grow
As a $4 billion plus global system integrator,
primarily focused on the communication,
media and entertainment market segments,
Tech Mahindra is not new to restructuring
itself to meet changing market needs. In
2001 and 2005, Tech Mahindra undertook
a reality check and both times took a
About the
changes in the
market; I cannot
control them
but I can control
my ability to
develop and
deliver what I
can see.
Ayman Al Bayaa,
CEO of STME.
corporate decision to remain focused on
its core competency of providing solutions
for the communication industry, including
telecom service providers.
Just 18 months ago in 2015 and
2016, Tech Mahindra again restructured
itself, which was known internally as
its 3.0 update. With close to 53 per
cent of its global revenues coming from
communication, telecom service providers,
media and entertainment, it has realigned
itself to the market opportunities and
realities of transformation from legacy
to digital technologies. Moreover, it
has moved the CEO of the customer
organisation to the centre of its solutions
delivery, replacing the CTO and CIO.
“This journey is predicated on four
lines of business but with three objectives,
a three by four type of matrix. We are
saying we do not want to remain only the
CIO and CTO focused company. We want
to start, and that is the big change going
on, which is we want to start attacking
the problem statements as perceived and
understood by the CEO of a company. That
is when we started playing with many,
many ideas. We arrived at three very
simple English words, and we have added
some adjectives as suffixes: run, change
and grow,” details Manish Vyas, Group
President CME, Chief Executive Network
Services at Tech Mahindra.
In its first run-mantra approach, Tech
Mahindra does not draw a hard line
between the old legacy organisation and
new digital organisation inside end-user
organisations. The run-better approach is
for organisations to operate better, which
means transforming legacy operations.
“Run, I cannot do without understanding
my legacy. What am I running better? I am
only running better my existing operation
so I am not leaving any of our existing
businesses or customers’ existing systems
behind. We are not operating in that model
where there is one thing that is the old and
one thing that is the new. We are saying
the old is what we are transforming from a
run standpoint,” spells out Vyas.
But this time around, Tech Mahindra
has chosen to rebuild customer legacy
operations using tools like artificial
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