INFOSYSS RELATIONSHIP SCORECARD: MEASURING

TRANSFORMATIONAL PARTNERSHIP

1. HOW DOES INFOSYS CUSTOMER-CENTRIC

ORGANIZATION COMPARE WITH THAT OF OTHER
COMPANIES?

WHAT CHALLENGES DOES THIS

ORGANIZATION TRY TO ADDRESS? WHAT TENSIONS DO
THESE CHALLENGES CREATE, AND HOW DOES INFOSYS
DEAL WITH THEM?

COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE ANALYSIS

Across the Indian competitive landscape, Infosys

was the first Indian IT company to list American
depository receipts in NASDAQ Stock Market

Up until 2000, Infosys was surviving a competitive

battle fairly well:
It made it to the Wired 40
The Business Week IT 100
The Business Week list of Most Innovative Companies.

WHAT WAS INFOSYS GOING THROUGH?

A New positioning
Stay relevant
Achieve non-linear growth in revenues, and
Become a transformational business partner

Infosys put itself in direct competition with established

consulting firms, such as IBM and Accenture

By 2008, it effectively deployed the Relation Scorecard (RSC),

and was currently applying it to more than 24 clients.

95% of revenues in 2000 came from repeat customers.

INFOSYS: ITS KEY CHALLENGES

The key challenges that Infosys was trying to

address were:
1.
2.
3.

Staying relevant to the clients

Offering superior value to the clients
To have the best talent pool

APPROACH TO TACKLE THE CHALLENGES

RELEVANCE TO CLIENT:
Anticipating clients needs in advance.
DELIVERING SUPERIOR VALUE:
Adding new clients, and developing more projects for existing
ones
Moving from mere project development to design work
Addressing the needs of the clients business unit and not just
its IT department.
Building relationships on the client side with important
stakeholders through increased domain knowledge.

APPROACH TO TACKLE THE CHALLENGES

TALENT ENHANCEMENT:

Integration of IT capabilities with strategic expertise, and

business management

The Global Education Centre in Mysore dedicatedly equipped

and trained 4,500 employees at a time

Bifurcation into vertical business units (who handled specific

regions and industries) and enterprise capability units (which
handled specific processes) resulted in greater specialisation.

APPROACH TO TACKLE THE CHALLENGES

CLIENT INTIMACY:

50 Global Development Centres in 9 countries. (25 Proximity

DCs and 25 Offshore DCs)

Onsite teams captured customers business problem, and

directed the offshore teams for targeted business solution
development

Brought about reduction in delivery time, and maximised

support availability round the clock. Reduction of delivery
cycle time by 50%

Early defect detection, and consequential reduction in cost.

APPROACH TO TACKLE THE CHALLENGES

RELATIONSHIP ENHANCEMENT:

Hunters (Sales Personnel) brought in new clients

Gatherers (Engagement Managers) widened

project scope

Account Managers developed solutions

Delivery Manager coordinated the execution.

APPROACH TO TACKLE THE CHALLENGES

TRUST BASED PARTNERSHIP:

The ITRAC (Infosys as a Trusted Advisor to Clients) program

managed key accounts to transformational partnerships

Through its 3 stages of

1. Providing cost reduced IT services
2. Delivering technology-driven solutions for specific
processes
3. Transforming client organisation

Leveraged the GDM and Consulting wing, to help increase

client revenues/enhance profitability.

2. WHAT IS THE ROLE OF THE RSC IN A CUSTOMER

RELATIONSHIP? WHAT DOES AN RSC OFFER THAT IS
NOT ALREADY CONTAINED IN THE CLIENTS SLAS?
WHAT ARE THE OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES
INVOLVED IN BUILDING AN RSC?

ROLE OF THE RSC IN A CUSTOMER

RELATIONSHIP

Transactional to transformational relationship with client.

It captures the commitment between customer and the vendor
company: relationship value, relationship strength, future value
and growth.

RELATIONSHIP SCORECARD

SLA metrics does not tell whether performance is

sustainable or how it can be improved. No perfect
measure of performance

SLAs did not capture indicators such as market

share growth or product revenue growth.

SLAs only measured in terms of quality, cost and

time

For a large customer account, there are multiple

SLAs which were difficult to maintain together.

Challenges:
1.

It was expensive for both the parties.

1.

Not all clients were ready to invest into it.

2.

Client found it difficult to trust the supplier.

3.

Shift in traditional way, hence neither clients nor the EM team

were ready for the change.

4.

Cultural change from mentoring process to open and

comprehensive process.

5.

Some of the clients do not have a proper metric in IT units.

6.

Lack of Innovation restricts companies to bank upon the idea.

Opportunities:
1.

Clients who prefer to have a holistic solution welcomes it.

2.

The metrics were very objective and according to client specific

need, hence it saves time.

3.

The saved time can be used to discuss on the performance

improvement.

3. INFOSYS HAS LEARNED THROUGH ITS RSCS THAT

SOME CUSTOMERS ARE DISSATISFIED WITH ITS TEAM

HOW WOULD YOU RESPOND TO APTEDS

REQUEST TO KEEP THE BEST PEOPLE IN THE SYNGENTA
TEAM? HOW WOULD YOU DEAL WITH THIS ISSUE FROM
SYNGENTAS PERSPECTIVE?
TURNOVER.

PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION

This question directly has its roots in one of Kris Gopal's 3

listed challenges faced by Infy: Namely winning the battle for
talent

At Infosys nearly 90% of the new hires were freshers

Further, considering the center at place in Mysore, the

technological capabilities of the employees cannot be doubted

However, as Thompson, VP RetailServe said "They are too

technology oriented, not so much business oriented."

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

Though there is a three tier leadership program in place, the

efficacy of grooming talent upwards from middle management
is clearly the issue here

Infosys, can, with proper selection, offer sabbaticals and

sponsor senior software engineers (people who had been with
the relationship for at least 5 years) to take up a management
course with a specialization that is in line with the client's
business

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

Apted's concern is reasonable, given the amount of data sharing that

is taking place through the RSC

However, Sygenta should be prepared to allow more onshore work

and should be prepared to pay the associated premium for an
offshore employee to travel onsite, work at the client location and
understand the business processes

Further, Sygenta should have a mentorship team in place to ensure

that the business knowledge passed on to these employees

This mentorship team should comprise the executive decision

makers like CEO etc so that the vision as well as the corporate
strategy is made evident to the Infoscion.

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

The Global ITRAC team could be aligned with the top management

There is already a corporate sponsor (director) associated with most

RSC accounts

Bringing these sponsors, selected members of the Global ITRAC

team as well as the EMs and Account Managers together into a
single dedicated RSC horizontal that is cross-functional

Thus 1 or 2 members from this team could receive adequate handson business process training from Sygenta and could work from the
client's workplace, thereby viewing the business directly

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

Regular meetings with Sygenta's top management including the

CEO, CFO and CIO as well as with the steering committee members
from the Infosys side could ensure that realistic expectations are
maintained across both sides of the table

This could, to a certain extent alleviate Apted's concerns at a senior

management level through continuous engagement especially at a
CIO or CTO level instead of middle management levels.

4. How should Sanjay deal with the challenges and

tensions that have arisen with the use of the RSC?
Could you help Sanjay design an action plan to
improve the RSC? Should Infosys make it a priority
for EMs to get their clients to embrace RSCs?
Should Sanjay suggest using the RSC earlier in the
relationship with a client? Is there any change that
you would introduce to the content of the RSC?

DEALING WITH THE CHALLENGES AND

TENSIONS

Trade-off between selecting and grooming candidates for the RSC

program( preferably ITRAC clients) or allowing the RSC from Day 0
on a contractual basis for all clients.

Trust issue wherein clients are wary of the not precluding from any
area of the business that Infosys insists of its RSC clients.

Resistance because of divergence from traditional contracts.

Resistance from middle management of the client firm who were

happy with their SLAs.

SOLUTIONS

ITRAC clients- the ones who have approached Infosys for

transformative services- be given the benefits of the RSC from the
day the request is made.

Since the client is already in the so called high-motivation stage, it

becomes easier for the client to trust Infosys taking care of issues 2
and 3

Top management of client will take care of other levels regarding

implementation of RSC

Resolution of conflict through internal meeting thus taking care of

issue no. 4

CHANGE IN CONTENT OF RSC

It has to be kept open ended and flexible with the option of addition
of indicators from both parties available.

The steering committee meetings are one way of exploring such

options but there could be an informal way of addition too.

Provision of short term and long term additions through mutual

cooperation as the relationship evolves

RSC introduction to take place at all levels but should evolve and
increase in tiers as engagement with client increases

THANK YOU