Value Leadership Group Website

New Value Leadership Group Strategy Paper

India: An Emerging Research Cluster

By Professor Srinivasa Rangan

Professor Rangan provides cutting-edge insights into the strategies companies are applying to leverage the emerging scientific research cluster in India.

This paper is based on a global Value Leadership Group next practice strategic research project involving the research centers of more than 20 companies in India including Philips, ABB, Motorola, HP, GM, and the Tata Group.

Professor Rangan’s paper builds on his work of almost 10 years with Professor Michael Porter at Harvard University.

Click here to download the complete study in PDF Format

The New Competitive Paradigm in European IT Services – Global Strategy Conference
in Stockholm

In June 2007, the Swedish investment bank, Handelsbanken Capital Markets, and the Value Leadership Group, hosted a global strategy conference in Stockholm. The theme of the conference was – The New Competitive Paradigm in European IT Services.

The Value Leadership Group provided exclusive analysis and CEOs from industry leaders gave important new insights into the competitive dynamics and likely future direction of the European IT services industry.

More than 125 senior executives from 18 countries and a cross section of industries were in attendance. Delegates and speakers gave this event the highest ratings.

Click here to download a 1-page anaylsis of the conference

Does your Offshoring
strategy create differentiation
and greater business value?

Read an exclusive interview on offshoring strategy with Peter Schumacher.

Best practice companies – regardless of size – are those that leverage offshoring to do things they would not be able to do otherwise. You can entrepreneurially rethink your business and implement organizational and service innovations.

Companies that are not thinking about offshoring strategically are likely to miss this opportunity.

This interview was released in Belgium in July 2008 in “Offshore Update” a publication of Applied Development, continental Europe’s first venture funded offshore services firm.

Click here to download the 1-page interview in English Language

Click here to download the 1-page interview in Belgian-Dutch Language

Value Leadership Group in the news

Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Thursday, Mar 25, 2010

AT&T-Tech Mahindra deal to click on many fronts

Deal gives Tech Mahindra the perfect opportunity to reduce dependence on its largest customer, BT. An expanded relationship with AT&T will drive US revenue growth further.

Adith Charlie
Mumbai, March 24

AT&T's acquisition of an 8 per cent stake in Tech Mahindra will pave the way for a stronger relationship between the two parties.

Though the deal may not immediately translate into incremental revenues for Tech Mahindra, it will give the Mumbai-based company an edge over other competitors while bidding for offshoring deals from AT&T in the future.

Theoretically, it gives Tech Mahindra the perfect opportunity to reduce dependence on its largest customer, BT. The London-based company, which also holds a 31 per cent stake in Tech Mahindra, has trimmed costs by upwards of £100 million by reworking pricing of its off-shoring contracts with all vendors.

AT&T acquired the 8.07 per cent stake from Mahindra BT Investment Co Mauritius, by exercising a 2005 options agreement. AT&T had the option of picking the shares by July 2010, since it was able to generate targeted revenues, as stipulated in the agreement, for Tech Mahindra.

With revenues of $123 billion in 2009, AT&T is almost four times the annual revenue of BT. For the record, Tech Mahindra already generates over 15 per cent of its revenues from AT&T.

More engagements

“The nature of the business outsourced by AT&T to Tech Mahindra is highly cyclical in nature and is repetitive in a sense. The strengthening of relationship between the two parties could set the stage ready for more engagements from AT&T for Tech Mahindra,” said Mr. Kamlesh Bhatia, Principal Research Analyst with Gartner.

Analysts draw a parallel to BT, which in spite of being a key stakeholder in Tech Mahindra, does outsource a fair bit of work to companies such as Infosys, HCL and Firstsource.

“Nevertheless, Tech Mahindra gets the largest share of BT's outsourced work. Similarly, this equity alliance with AT&T gives Tech Mahindra an edge (over other competitors),” said Mr. Peter Schumacher, President & CEO, Value Leadership Group, a US-based management consultancy firm.

Moreover, BT has been scouting for selling its 31 per cent stake in Tech Mahindra for quite some time now. Whenever that happens, the quantum of business BT does with Tech Mahindra may diminish and hence it makes sense for Tech Mahindra to cultivate its next biggest customer, AT&T. One of the challenges for the Tech Mahindra board will be to address the interests of both AT&T and BT, given that both companies compete aggressively on the wholesale side of the business.

In the previous fiscal, Tech Mahindra generated 67 per cent revenues from Europe, 60 per cent of which came from the UK alone. “An expanded relationship with AT&T will drive US revenue growth further and thereby help the company diversify its geographic revenue and currency mix. This is critical given the enormous volatility of the UK pound vs. the rupee and other currencies over the last five years,” said Mr. Schumacher.

However, all eyes will now be on Tech Mahindra's sales team to see how effectively it can use the ‘8 per cent stake' in its sales pitch and thereby increase the volume of business with AT&T.

Click here for the original article at Business Line website.

Download Article Here in PDF format