‘Modernisation is about reducing costs in short term’

Font Size

Print

Feedback

Email

Discuss

• Discount UK Shopping

Related Articles

‘People still prefer piracy to paying for world ci...

: Micro Focus claims to be passing through the economic slowdown relatively untouched. The enterprise modernisation firm claims to have grown by 11 to 12% and growth swells to 25%, if one adds up acquisitions. It has bagged more projects in the last six months than in the last 10 years. Global general manager of application development, Alan Wedell attributes it to how they minimise cost and time to market through enhanced developer productivity. In a conversation with Aseem Thapliyal, he explains how organisations can ‘do more with less’ and harness their solid investments in existing systems, while also moving forward into current and evolving architectures. Excerpts:

As companies cut IT spend globally, what is the impact on application modernisation budgets?

If I have a running business with current business applications that meet my current business requirements, I will be more focused on the short term rather than long term. This trend is likely to continue for the next three to four years. The companies are not likely to invest in IT applications, which will not help them achieve short-term incremental goals. The CEOs will like to consolidate their positions in this scenario and ensure better control of business by meeting their commitment to revenue. They will not like to invest it in new applications. Short-term business goals can only be met by enhancing the capability of existing portfolio.

Our business is aimed at providing strong cost savings and business initiatives for global companies with customer satisfaction as a major objective. In 30 years of our existence, we have seen changing market conditions several times. Our business is able to grow in this scenario because we bring to customers shorter cycles to reduce costs. Our ability to reduce cost for key business applications has put a brave face in times of recession. The need to reduce cost and payback in a short period of time is fundamental to our business in North America where our revenue has increased in the last six to nine months and we are keen to bring it to the system integrators in India.

How different is the enterprise modernisation business in countries like India, where there are few legacy systems and upgrade cycles are longer?