BackIt’s hard to predict the recovery path: Amur Swaminathan Lakshminarayanan
In the early days of covid, customers wanted business continuity — how they could enable work from homeIt would be more contingent on how the health situation, how covid cases rise or fall. That would determine the recovery path for many industries
PremiumAfter Amur Swaminathan Lakshminarayanan took over as the managing director and chief executive of Tata Communications last October, he made some fundamental changes to the way the ₹17,000-crore digital infrastructure company works, primarily to boost sales and cut costs. In an interview, Lakshminarayanan shared his views on the changing priorities of customers and new opportunities due to covid-19. Edited excerpts:
Can you take us through the restructuring exercise the company has undertaken in recent times?
From a strategy point of view, we are making several shifts. We want to be more solutions- and platforms-oriented rather than selling point products. We want to serve the customer more holistically. From an organization point of view, we want to get our operating model right. We are an international company. We want to deliver the right experience and, second, get the cost structure right. We are trying to use the India base much more effectively. So, some of the international roles have shifted to India. We started that move in November-December.
How has selling pivoted considering the covid-19 situation?
All the customer communication is happening remotely through video workshops and video meetings. To that extent, both customers and we are handicapped. When it comes to deployment, there are some zero-touch implementations. But in traditional solutions, where you have to install client site equipment, those are being hampered at the moment.
What has been the response of your clients to the pandemic?
In the early days of covid, customers wanted business continuity — how they could enable work from home. Not all enterprises were fully prepared. The results of working from home is pretty obvious. The usage of collaboration software, of the internet, the consumption of B2C (business to consumer) content went up. We had to enhance the capacity of our network in a short order of time to respond. Now, as far as reversing work from home is concerned, that is not going to happen in a hurry. In our opinion, if 90% people are working from home now, it will come to some kind of an equilibrium—50%-60% will continue to work from home. Enterprises will have to re-think what this means. How do they give more industrial strength, secure, digital experience? Second, even the B2C customers now have to re-think. Retailers won’t get the same levels of footfall. They have to sell products through e-commerce a lot better. Customers are looking for security, but also scalable solutions.
What sort of recovery do you see in the market? Will it be a V or an U?
It would be more contingent on how the health situation, how covid cases rise or fall. That would determine the recovery path for many industries. There is a second wave of cases coming in some of the countries that had seen stability. This seems to be unfamiliar territory and it would be slightly hard to predict the recovery path.
How do customer budgets look like this year?
Very fluid. Tourism, travel, hospitality businesses are badly affected. Automobiles and most of the discrete manufacturers are affected. Process industries seem to be somewhat okay. This year, most people would want to preserve cash and not spend too much. More progressive companies would be thinking of transformation. But we shouldn’t expect the budgets to increase. It would be stable or decreasing in some instances.
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