Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Table of Contents
Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 3 1. Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT)..................................................... 3 Strengths ..................................................................................................................................... 4 Weaknesses ................................................................................................................................. 5 Opportunities .............................................................................................................................. 5 Threats ........................................................................................................................................ 6 2. HR TRENDS ........................................................................................................................... 6 Managing Talent in a Flat World ................................................................................................. 6 Leverage Talent as the Strategic Differentiator ............................................................................ 6 Acquire & Deploy Talent Globally .............................................................................................. 6 Scale up to Serve Increased Demands of Talent ........................................................................... 7 Achieve Global Operational Excellence ...................................................................................... 7 Human Capital Intelligence ............................................................................................................. 7 From Transactional to Strategic Intelligence ................................................................................ 7 Human Capital Intelligence Evolving a better approach............................................................ 8 Benefits of adopting a Human Capital Intelligence system .......................................................... 9 Infosys view for an effective Human Capital Intelligence .......................................................... 10 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 11
Introduction
Infosys Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ: INFY) was started in 1981 by seven people with US$ 250. Today, we are a global leader in the "next generation" of IT and consulting with revenues of over US$ 4 billion.
Infosys defines, designs and delivers technology-enabled business solutions that help Global 2000 companies win in a Flat World. Infosys also provides a complete range of services by leveraging our domain and business expertise and strategic alliances with leading technology providers.
Infosys' offerings span business and technology consulting, application services, systems integration, product engineering, custom software development, maintenance, re-engineering, independent testing and validation services, IT infrastructure services and business process outsourcing
Infosys pioneered the Global Delivery Model (GDM), which emerged as a disruptive force in the industry leading to the rise of offshore outsourcing. The GDM is based on the principle of taking work to the location where the best talent is available, where it makes the best economic sense, with the least amount of acceptable risk.
Infosys has a global footprint with over 50 offices and development centers in India, China, Australia, the Czech Republic, Poland, the UK, Canada and Japan. Infosys and its subsidiaries have 103,905 employees as on June 30, 2009.
Internal
Strengths Strong brand recognition Comprehensive portfolio of solutions Strong base in India
External
Strengths
Since the company is based in India its competitive advantage is enhanced. The Indian economy, despite weak economic indicators such as relatively high rates of inflation, has low labor cost
The workforce has relatively high skills levels in Information Technology. Couple these two elements together and you have an operational basis that offers low-cost based, highly skilled competitive advantage.
Trained Indian personnel often speak very good English and are sensitive to Western culture, underpinned by India's colonial past.
Infosys is in a strong financial position. The business turned over more than $4 billion in 2008. This means that it has the capital to expand, and also the basis to leverage potential invest.
The company has bases in 44 global development centres, most of which are located in India, although the company has offices in many developed and developing nations.
This means not only that Infosys is becoming a global brand but also that it has the capability to support the global operations of multinational clients.
Weaknesses
Infosys on occasion struggles in the US markets, and has particular problems in securing United States Federal Government contracts in North America. Since these contracts are highly profitable and tend to run for long periods of time, Infosys is missing out on lucrative business.
And its competitors do well in terms of securing the same Federal business (and one should also take into account that many of its competitors are domiciled in the US and there could be political pressure on the US Government to award contracts to domestic organizations).
Despite being a huge IT company in relation to its Indian competitors, Infosys is much smaller than its global competitors. As discussed above, Infosys generated $4 billion in 2008, which is relatively low in comparison with large global competitors such as Hewlett-Packard ($91 billion), IBM ($91 billion), EDS ($21 billion) and Accenture ($18 billion).
It is sometimes argued that Infosys is weaker when it comes to high-end management consultancy, since it tends to work at the level of operational value creation. Competitors such as IBM and Accenture tend to dominate this space.
Opportunities
At a time of recession in the global economy, it may appear that some companies will reduce take up of services that Infosys offers. However, in tough times clients tend to focus upon cost reduction and outsourcing - with are strategies that Infosys offers. So hard times could be profitable for Infosys.
There is a new and emerging market in China as the country undergoes a huge industrial revolution.
The strategic alliance between Infosys and Schlumberger gives the IT company access to lucrative business in the gas and oil industries.
There has been a trend over recent years for European and North American companies to base some or all of their operation in India. This is called an offshore service
. There is a seamless link between domestic operations and services hosted in India. Examples include telecommunications companies such as British Telecom and banks such as HSBC that have customer service and support centres based in India. Think about the times that you have made calls to a support line to find that the adviser is in Mumbai or Bangalore and not in your home market.
Threats
India is not the only country that is undergoing rapid industrial expansion. Competitors may come from countries such as China or Korea where there are large pools of lowcost labor, and developing educational infrastructures such as universities and technology colleges.
Customers may switch to other offshore service companies in other countries such as China or Korea
Other global players have realised that India has the benefit of low-cost, highly-skilled labor that often speaks English and is culturally sensitive to Western practices. As with all global IT players, Infosys has to compete for skilled labor and this may have the effect of driving up wage levels, and making it more difficult to recruit and retain staff.
2. HR TRENDS
Managing Talent in a Flat World
Infosys believes in the progressive reality that HR is more than a support function. HR plays a strategic role that it has been elevated to a seat at the table. Here are some key strategies followed at Infosys.
As indicated in the matrix above, a different business focus requires a distinct business strategy to identify sources of new value. This makes it imperative to adopt a different human capital strategy. The metrics offered by HRMS applications are generic in nature and may not address the specific intelligence needs of any particular industry vertical or unique business characteristic. Organizations may transform some of the data generated through these applications into knowledge by using stand-alone tools such as spreadsheets, but this effort is rarely scalable and is not sustainable.
The human capital intelligence can be classified into three categories: Operational, Tactical and Strategic. Operational intelligence helps organizations understand how efficiently business is being conducted. This involves assessing factors such as cost of recruitment/ training and attrition and comparing them with benchmark data. This type of intelligence helps monitor and improve transactional activities. Tactical intelligence focuses on effectiveness, re-engineering or restructuring of HR processes. The components may be Activity-based management, linkages of HR processes with non HR processes, tracking process KPIs, benchmarking with best practices etc. Strategic intelligence helps managers to plan and model workforce, compensation and recruitment initiatives keeping in view the overall organizational goal
The above categories can be mapped to specific processes within HR. However, this mapping can be different for different initiatives based on the frame of reference. For example compensation review is an operational exercise if past data is used for a financial analysis, where as if the same data is used to build a forward looking compensation model, the exercise is strategic.
Infosys experience suggests that an effective intelligence system needs a design process that ensures tying business strategy to HR initiatives. The diagram on Strategic Workforce Intelligence Framework illustrates this model:
We suggest that organizations follow a Strategic Workforce Intelligence Framework (SWIF) to create a roadmap for a Human Capital Intelligence initiative. The framework would involve following five steps: 1. Understand the Business strategy Assess the current state of the organization, its strategy and its business goals. 2. Assess the HR strategy in relation to Business Strategy Identify the gaps in HR strategy with respect to business goals.
3. Set up the Human Capital Intelligence system Use the above causal linkages to track key performance indicators and tune HR parameters, through clearly articulated metrics. The tracking and tuning process is a very important piece of this step 4. Realign HR strategy to Business strategy 5. Realign HR strategy, processes and goals with appropriate course correction initiatives. This framework helps organizations to make their HCI initiative more effective by connecting their corporate strategy to HR processes at all operating levels. Organizations therefore are better prepared to maintain a strategic edge over its competitors and provide their stakeholders a clearer picture of the business and the return on investment.
Conclusion
This assignment proves that Infosys is truly an employee friendly company that lives up to the hype created in the market with its changing strategies and up to date policies.