Infosys, Wipro COOs to retire this year after long innings

Infosys’ and Wipro’s chief working officers – UB Pravin Rao and Bhanumurthy BM – will each, coincidentally, retire this year. Bhanumurthy within the June quarter, and Rao in December. Rao spent 35 years and Bhanumurthy over 29 years of their respective organisations.

Rao, {an electrical} engineer from Bangalore University, joined Infosys in 1986 on a wage of Rs 1,500. A pleasant banter together with his neighbour Bala Kuthiyar, who then labored at Infosys, impressed Rao to be a part of the agency.

Infosys co-founders NR Narayana Murthy and NS Raghavan interviewed him for the job. He grew to become half of the workforce that arrange an offshore supply centre for GE – which was then the most important IT outsourcer on the earth – and gained a giant contract from Reebok France to arrange their info administration system.

The defining second of his profession was because the unit head of retail, CPG and logistics (RCL), the primary business vertical to be shaped in Infosys. That was in 2002. Rao gained contracts from Tesco, Walmart, Nordstrom and GAP, every of which grew in measurement and scope over time.

One of Rao’s former colleagues, who watched him develop within the agency, describes his management type as a “classical” one, serving to smoothen out transitions, together with CEO transitions. “Extraordinary content with less form,” he says, indicating Rao worked without making a song and dance of his successes. He was always the quiet, dependable guy.

Bhanumurthy, like Rao, started in the retail and CPG vertical. An alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad, Bhanumurthy set up the RCTG (retail, CPG, transportation and government) unit for Wipro and brought in key clients like Nike and Best Buy.

It’s not clear whether the COO roles will continue after Rao and Bhanumurthy retire, and, if they do, what would be the essence of those roles. In Wipro CEO Thierry Delaporte’s organisational overhaul, there’s no COO role spelt out.

Instead, Wipro’s two presidents oversee delivery – Rajan Kohli who leads the integrated digital, engineering & application services, and Nagendra Bandaru, who leads cloud infrastructure, digital operations, and risk & enterprise cyber security services.

At Infosys, US-based Ravi Kumar has been president and deputy COO for three years now.

He leads the global services organisation and is accelerating Infosys’ localisation strategy in the US. He also oversees Infosys BPM as chairman.

Bhanumurthy has been essentially playing the role of a chief delivery officer, combining the people supply chain, onboarding, bench management, delivery architecture and execution. Rao does that, but is also involved in large deals and location strategy. There is no single prototype for the COO’s role in the IT services landscape yet.

Vikash Jain, managing director and partner who leads the technology, media and telecom practice at BCG (Boston Consulting Group) India, said, “We will see a much more heterogeneous enterprise and working mannequin within the providers enterprise than the homogenous industrialised working mannequin. The complexity and quantity of variables that wants to be handled will go up considerably.”

At the crux of this, he stated, will probably be a hybrid supply mannequin that brings a various set of capabilities and views that can more and more be an expectation from purchasers.
Paul Gottsegen, president of ISG Research and Client Experience, stated the teachings discovered in the course of the pandemic in digital supply will assist form a extra environment friendly supply functionality, “allowing for more specialised expertise to be delivered in ways that previously were exclusive to on-site teams.” ToI