“The transformational value offered by RIM services has made it a preferred"

Anant Gupta, COO, HCL Comnet, believes that the transformational benefits
that enterprises stand to gain from RIM are many and these, coupled with HCL's
revolutionary co-sourcing model, allows customers to retain control of their
strategic components, while outsourcing day-to-day operations

What have been the key drivers for the growth of the RIM (remote
infrastructure management) industry globally and in India?

The key drivers for the growth of RIM services have been technical feasibility,
cost-saving and transformational value. With the advent of sophisticated tools
and technologies, the 'remote' manageability of the IT Infrastructure was
the primary driver of this trend. The 'offshore' angle to RIM offered a
significant labor arbitrage and gave almost 10 times cost savings to global
clients, which in itself was a significantly compelling cause. However, it's
the third driver, which has made RIM a preferred strategy for CIOs' worldwide
today.

Anant Gupta COO, HCL Comnet

The transformational benefits that enterprises stand to gain from RIM include
24X7 expert-skill-on-tap, quality processes like ITIL, proactive problem
resolution systems, infrastructure consolidation and optimization benefits.
These coupled with our revolutionary co-sourcing model allows customers to
retain control of their strategic components such as physical IT assets,
technology refresh, policy and architecture while outsourcing day-to-day
operations.

What are the current trends as far as prevailing technologies and
solutions in the RIM space go?

As far as the solutions are concerned, the new trends are towards areas like
regulatory compliance, ITIL process alignment, service automation and business
service management (visibility into the direct impact of IT services on business
transaction real-time). On the technology side SAP Netweaver, utility computing,
server consoli­dation and virtualization are the buzzwords these days.

On a higher and larger level, we can also see interesting trends like
sourcing engagements continuing to undergo a paradigm shift from traditional
total outsourcing to select or discreet outsourcing in the global market space.
More and more companies are shying away from the traditional models of IT
infrastructure service delivery and are primarily in search of flexibility,
while looking to get strategic control of their IT infrastructure outsourcing
engagements.

The 'Total or Full Out­sour­cing Model', proposition entails a third
party service provider taking over the entire IT assets of an organization and
running it with a combination of on-site and near-shore services. This 'lock-stock-and
barrel' approach results in complete loss of control and flexibility on the
part of the CIO. In the post 9/11 world of dynamic business cycles, new
engagement models like co-sourcing approach are being opted for greater
flexibility.

The essence of this model is its collaborative approach to outsourcing by
defining it as an partnership activity between the client and the service
provider where the client retains the strategic portion of the operations like
technology refresh, policy definition and architecture issues and control of
strategy enunciation, while the service provider like HCL, takes over the day to
day running of operations and other areas as defined by the client.

India being a hub for offshore activities, what kind of opportunities lay
in the Indian market for players in the RIM space? How can they make use of the
same?

As Indian companies grow in size and make transnational forays, they will need
to strengthen and expand their IT Infrastructure to enable and sustain this
growth. The same will make them embrace global best practices and services like
RIM. There is also the career market for IT professional that RIM offers. One of
the important drivers that make RIM an attractive career is the exciting and
challenging environment it offers to employees. Of course, the area is
technically more challenging than software development or any other IT track,
because of the scale and size of the learning environment it offers.

Who are the major players in this space-both globally as well as in
India?

Even though most Indian IT application service providers have now started
building capabilities in this space, our real competition is with the global
giants and it is a competition of models, HCL's co-sourcing offshore RIM model
versus their Total IT outsourcing model, and it is this competition, which has
resulted in creating a clear differentiator for companies like ours in the
market.

What do you think of the future market scenario for RIM. How would you
benefit from the same?

The future for RIM is extremely bright as more and more fortune/global 500
companies are showing preference for Indian specialty vendors like HCL for IT
infrastructure management. More and more components of the ecosystem will get
added in the portfolio in the coming years. This will make RIM a door opener for
Indian companies into new accounts besides giving them a tremendous cross-sell
potential for mining their existing clients.

Another huge opportunity is $100 billion worth of contracts coming up for
renewal in the next two years. According to a research firm TPI, 325 deals are
due for renewal during 2006 and 2007, representing over a fifth of active
contracts; this opens tremendous prospects for the offshore RIM Industry too and
players like us are likely to benefit from this opportunity.

Software developers like HCL Technologies, Infosys, Wipro etc would continue
in the domain of creating business. Running and maintaining the IT
infrastructure of the business will increasingly become indispensable for large
organizations. Network management service providers like HCL Comnet, IBM, EDS,
and Wipro would benefit in this space. Global leaders in this space like EDS and
IBM would continue to provide total outsourcing contracts, but Indian service
providers will differentiate on the basis of providing selective or discreet
outsourcing, giving the customer flexibility and freedom from long-term
contracts that have a tendency to make the vendors complacent. The real
transformation however would occur in terms of the advantage felt in the cost as
we move up the value chain in terms of processes and tools.

SUBBALAKSHMI BM