The consumption of IT is moving much faster to a rental model from the ownership basis, putting the onus on cloud and emerging technologies, a massive trend that the technology sector has begun to monetise. However, it is imperative to be on the right side of the trend, according to a top official at IT solutions provider Mphasis.

“The entire value chain of IT consumption is moving away from a fixed mode of consumption on-my premise, with capex money moving to a variable mode of consumption off my premise with opex. That migration is seen on every aspect of technology, on-prem-as-a-service (where the hardware is owned by the service provider), software-as-a-service, infrastructure-as-a-service, security-as-a-service and network and data. Almost everything is available on demand because you don’t need to own those assets, you can rent them,” Mphasis CEO and MD Nitin Rakesh said in a media interaction.

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“This is the reflection of tech consumption by large enterprises. If they change the way they consume tech, they will change the way they consume services too. We are taking a step further and rather than waiting for them to change the way they consume technology, we are helping them make that change,” he said.

Enterprises would be investing more in this trend, which is being monetised by the IT sector and Mphasis. IT firms are looking at helping enterprises build new applications that are cloud native and systems are available and resilient.

“Be prepared for relentless prioritisation by customers, and that’s why being on the right side of that trend is extremely important,” he added.

There is a massive shift in the way enterprises are consuming tech with cloud, data, cybersecurity and application transformation to cloud among others being growth areas. “There is a gap between digital natives and traditional enterprises, which is a huge tailwind for our business,” he said, adding, cloud and data are the general themes for enterprises.

Mphasis, in which US private equity firm Blackstone holds a stake, is scouting for inorganic opportunities.

“One part is to buy capabilities that can tuck in, and another is as the euphoria in the market kind of settles down a little bit, we will see some interesting valuations globally. These could be a new vertical, a new geography, a service line or could be an addition to our existing service line.” The layoffs by big companies would also help it garner talent, if skill sets match.

The company also provided an Rs 18 crore grant to Ashoka University under its Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives.