Riding the troughs

T Radhakrishna
28 December 2002

Hyderabad: Satyam Computer Services Ltd, which has been ranked as the fourth-fastest growing software maintenance and support company in the world, has adopted several initiatives to counter the effects of the current economic slowdown. And Satyam managing director B Ramaraju believes his company has full confidence in its resilient business model.

Excerpts from an interview:

What effect has the US slowdown had on Satyam's prospects?
There was an immediate impact after 9/11 when business discussions, and travel and project ramp-ups were affected. In the longer term, it pushed back the recovery of the US economy. But there is a silver lining to the slowdown as far as Indian companies are concerned.

Why do you say so?
The greater economic pressure on companies due to the slowdown has made outsourcing and offshoring of work a value proposition. As a result, Indian companies are seeing large outsourcing contracts coming their way. The marketing approach has also changed to one where greater emphasis is being laid on business value from IT projects.

What strategies has Satyam adopted to counter the negative effects of the slowdown?
We at Satyam have taken several steps to address the concerns. We intensified our business continuity management systems, with detailed analysis of the likely causes of disruptions; how and where these could occur; and what steps need to be taken to mitigate the causes and the effects and to maintain service levels to our customers.

These plans were shared with our customers; we assured them about our preparedness to prevent, mitigate and recover from disasters. Simultaneously, we also beefed up our information security systems. We have now become the first IT services company in India to get our information systems security certified under BS 7799.