The Next Generation of Business and Information Technology Consulting - Case Study Example

Info Consulting in 2006: Leading the Next Generation of Business and Information Technology Consulting (A Case Study) Roll No: Teacher: Date: 15th November 2008 University Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Info Consulting in 2006: Leading the Next Generation of Business and Information Technology Consulting (A Case Study) 3 Introduction 3 Infosys Technologies in 2006 4 Strengths and Weaknesses of the Firm 7 Challenges for Infosys 8 Conclusion 9 Works Cited 10 Info Consulting in 2006: Leading the Next Generation of Business and Information Technology Consulting (A Case Study) Introduction Infosys Technologies is a well established firm and enjoys a good reputation on the basis of its provision of services. It started its business in 1981. The company has a wide number of employees and is globally accepted as a reputable company by clients and other competitive companies in the field of Information Technology and provision of services. The company has a wide number of competitors and it is gaining progress day by day. Infosys Technologies has a number of competitors in the market such as IBM, EDS, Accenture, Wipro Limited, Tata Consultancy Services and many more. Infosys Technologies has established a smaller firm with the name ICI, which is established in get knowledge about IT consultancy business. The company Infosys Technologies is interested in IT consultancy because it is the current business of the market and the companies are getting good revenues on the basis of the new market trend of information technology consultancy business. The company showed interest in consultancy business because of its interest in extra revenue, expansion and the client’s needs and requirements regarding IT consultancy. The company has many strengths on the basis of which, it is going to appear better than its competitors before its clients. The company also has some weaknesses but the company is interested to control and improve all its weak to progress, expand and get better. The company Infosys Technologies and Infosys Consultancy (ICI) are going to face some challenges in their interface development such as the communication development challenge and management challenge. The establishment of a subsidiary firm is beneficial for the parent company, Infosys Technologies. Infosys Technologies in 2006 Infosys is a well established firm that enjoys a reputable position in the market. It is suggested by the administrators of the firm that the firm will be the foremost firm in a couple of years on the basis of its technologies and growth of information technology. Infosys Technologies has a number of competitors in the market such as IBM, EDS, Accenture, Wipro Limited, Tata Consultancy Services and many more (Info Consulting in 2006). With all these firms in market of information technology and business, Infosys faced a full-fledged challenge in the market. The position of the company Infosys Technologies in December 2005 was at 9th number (Info Consulting in 2006). The company Infosys Technologies after being developed into ICI comes up with greater success and ambitions for its clients and employees. Because of its competition with many other larger firms, the company’s management is interested in find solutions regarding improvement of the company and related to the expansion of their business procedures. It is in a competitive position in relation to other companies that are in the business of consultancy and information technology. IBM is the greatest company of the market and has a more established global set up as compared to other companies in the information technology market. The company provides global services and business consultancy services with global operations. The company is ranked as number one in the information technology market (Info Consulting in 2006). Accenture is also a widely spread company that is globally reputable. The company has a large number of offices throughout the world. The consultancy services of the company include strategy and business architecture, customer relationship management, performance management, supply change management, learning procurement and many others (Info Consulting in 2006). Wipro Technologies and Tata Consultancy Services are also competitive companies and have reputable technologies for the clients. The company Infosys Technologies set up a mission to facilitate the clients with new generation of business consultancy that is going to be a competitive strategy. Another objective was set that the employees of the firm will be developed into global leaders in the market, so that the company is able to proceed in a better manner and in competitive environment. The company had developed a global model for services named Global Delivery Model (GDM) nearly twenty years ago that was regarded as a market leader because of its efficacy and effectiveness. The GDM model was cost and time effective (Info Consulting in 2006). Due to this model, the Infosys Technologies were able to consult the clients and to deliver their services on global basis such as in India, Australia, Mauritius and many other places. As compared to the competitors, the services provided by Infosys Technologies in terms of global knowledge were considered the top most services of the industry on the basis of training, knowledge and ease with global delivery. The methodology of working of Infosys Consultancy (ICI) was not traditional. In traditional working, the processes performed on a client’s location were defined and a long procedure is adopted for redesigning and implementation while ICI incorporated a little time as the firm was more interested in accommodating the customer with optimization and improvement and not on redesigning. The processes are iterated and the client is fully involved in the improvement processes due to which, there are no problems of disapproval. Moreover, the solutions offered by ICI were cost effective, as they offered low cost solutions with higher results. The company ICI called this approach of development and implementation as 1-1-3 model (Info Consulting in 2006). This model is cost and time effective and the client becomes convinced and satisfied with its performance as he consumes low price and less time on the whole development and implementation procedure that is traditionally a very long activity. The decision of Infosys Technologies to move into the IT consultancy business is based on a number of reasons. The company was facing problems in managing their operations with certain complex client organizations due to which, they were in need of Information technology consultancy (Info Consulting in 2006). With the spread of the operations provided by the company and with increase of clients and their demands and requirements related to their services, they felt a need to move into IT market. The company was also interested to increase its revenue by expanding the business and for this cause, they were in need of IT consultancy business. Infosys Technologies has the full potential to create a sustainable competitive advantage in IT consulting. In 2006, the market of IT industry was very large and there were clear signs of its expansion and progress. Because of the IT consultancy industry, there was great competition in the business. Not only IBM and Accenture, which are the largest most firms in business but others as Infosys Technologies, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro Technologies and many other gained revenue on the basis of their IT consultancy services that they provided to their clients. There was a lot of competition in the market on the basis of provision of consultancy services to clients. Accenture and IBM hired thousands of employees in their firms as they were in need of expansion of their business procedures because of their competition with other firms in the IT consultancy business market (Info Consulting in 2006). The workforces were increased in India because the competition was there with the companies’ establishments in Indian market. Strengths and Weaknesses of the Firm The company, Infosys Technologies has a large amount of strengths which are there to facilitate the company to move towards progress and success. However, along with strengths, there are also some weaknesses, which cannot be negated in the long run. The company’s model approach that is called GDM and 1-1-3 model is cost effective and time effective (Info Consulting in 2006). It is untraditional as the company works as a provider that is interested in facilitating the clients with their services. GDM model is a model that is twenty years old but it is very effective as it accommodates the clients with global delivery of services. Because of the 1-1-3 model of the company, the company is at a strong position because this option is developed and implemented in minimum time as compared to the time that is required in assessment, redesigning, implementation, testing and so on. The company is more interested in the satisfaction of the client. The option is also a cost effective option as in comparison to other solutions, the customer is facilitated with better services in low cost. The onsite resources of Infosys Technologies are well trained, comfortable and knowledgeable in relation to global delivery (Info Consulting in 2006). The company is strong on the basis of its background reputation and its provision of satisfactory services to the clients on global basis. The company is a strong company as its goal is serving the clients and to win in the market place. The company is interested in its improvement strategies such as improvement in training programs for the employees, improvement in service offerings, collaborative skills and cross business training for employees. The weakness of the company can be seen in terms of its establishment not as the foremost company in IT consultancy business. The company needs a lot of efforts to compete with its competitors as many of the competitors are able to get more clients and revenue as compared to Infosys Technologies. With the introduction of an Infosys Consultancy in form of ICI is a strong point of the company as it has placed effort in the field of IT business that was gaining value and reputation in market (Info Consulting in 2006). The starting of a new culture in the business can be felt problematic by the employees working in the organization because they are used to the old culture of the firm. The building of a new culture in the organization is challenging for the administration of the company. IBM and Accenture will regard the company’s efforts towards the acquisition of information technology consultancy business as a challenging task for their business operations and will react by means of adopting certain strategies that will be beneficial for their business procedures. As the mentioned companies enjoy the upper most positions in the field of IT consultancy and other relevant procedures, they will be alert by the strategy adopted by the company and will try to perform some innovative actions to make their current position further stable and established. They will not consider Infosys Technologies as a smaller company working for its betterment but as a competitive company looking to defeat other companies in the market because Infosys Technologies is a reputable company and is proceeding towards success, progress, expansion and greater revenue with each year. Challenges for Infosys There are many challenges faced by Infosys Technologies with respect to interfaces between the parent firm and the new subsidiary. The first challenge is to ensure that ICT received enough airtime from the parent company (Info Consulting in 2006). The parent company has a far larger employees’ rate as compared to the new subsidiary. The smaller new firm was required to be attended closely by the parent company. The parent company was also looking for a transformation of culture through the new company, which was also a challenge for interface development between the two companies. To develop the company on global basis and to introduce various global perspectives, the management of Infosys Technologies identified that managers will be needed by ICI from the global market (Info Consulting in 2006). Moreover, the leaders in ICI also hoped to be upgraded to the parent company with the passage of time. There was a challenge of development of a full communicative linkage with the parent and subsidiary company. Conclusion Infosys Technologies has taken a beneficial step by establishing an IT consultancy business firm with the name ICI and they are looking forward of a better interaction, revenue, expansion and progress because of the newly developed company. Although the new company is somehow smaller but there are chances of its expansion. Infosys Technologies has a competitive position in the market and is considered reputable on the basis of its working and provision of services. The company has a number of employees on global basis on the basis of its services and global delivery. The company is in a strong position as it has GDM as 1-1-3 model, which is a cost effective and time effective option for the clients. The company provision of services is non-traditional and they are interested in accommodating customers with satisfaction. With the development of a new subsidiary firm, Infosys Technologies is going to have some challenges in creating an interface with the subsidiary company but with the strategy of close communication and interaction, the challenges will be overcome. Works Cited Info Consulting in 2006: Leading the Next Generation of Business and Information Technology Consulting. Stanford: Graduate School of Business, 2006: 1-29. Read More