Kyndryl starts in India with twice market share of closest rival

Kyndryl, a spinoff of IBM Corp.’s managed infrastructure business, sees itself on a strong footing in India with double the market share compared to its closest rival in the country, a top executive has said.

The New York-based company, which lists on the New York Stock Exchange Thursday, will begin its publicly traded life with $19 billion in annual revenue and an addressable market opportunity of $510 billion by 2024.

“We were a sizable part of IBM in India as global technology services, and we are starting with almost twice the market share of the next player (in India),” said Kyndryl’s India President Lingraju Sawkar. “Traditionally we were looking at the market from an IBM technology lens but now we see the opportunity to partner with application system integrators and startups.”

The company is organised into six global practices, including cloud; core enterprise and zCloud; applications, data and artificial intelligence (AI); digital workplace; security and resiliency; and network and edge solutions. Kyndryl has about 90,000 employees, a significant percentage of them are in India.

“India is a very significant talent and innovation base for Kyndryl. Apart from India being a significant market opportunity for which we are market leaders, there’s a significant amount of research and innovation base that happens for keeping globally from India, servicing clients across (the world),” said Sawkar, who was named as Kyndryl’s India head following his role as general manager of IBM Global Technology Services for India/South Asia.

The company will focus on high value areas such as security, cloud, disaster recovery capabilities and data protection, which it says would help it derive higher margins and increased turnover.

“Whatever industrial transformation happened in the last 100 years, the next 10 years is just too little to get them done and that’s the pace at which clients want to move. The second area is within that space itself on accelerated automation,” said Sawkar. “I see the whole mix of these capabilities and the technology play as well as market visibility being the main growth driver for revenue and margin.”

Kyndryl will inherit the IBM’s India business, including customers such as Bharti Airtel, Maruti Suzuki, Honda Cars and State Bank of India (SBI), besides its recent win of Bangalore International Airport Ltd.

Kyndryl has an integrated global practice for customers, combining managed services, advisory services, and implementation where it competes with other global IT service providers like Accenture, TCS, Infosys, Wipro among many others.

“The addressable market we now see is close to $510 billion by 2024. This is coming from a combination of things…cloud and hyperscalers, partnerships with application service providers and working with startups,” Sawkar said.

Even for the Indian SME market opportunity, Kyndryl is extending partnerships with the startup ecosystem and niche application players, helping them go-to-market, he said. “We would partner with organizations who can give them that capability and bring it across in a manner that is effective.”

Cloud migration, data grid and security are among the strong tailwinds that Kyndryl hopes to leverage in its competition for new business against peers. “The exciting opportunity that we can provide to a talent is multiple technologies, industries, client complexities and platforms. And the peer group of master inventors, distinguished engineers, technologists, and for all of that India is one of our biggest pieces of technology,” said Sawkar.

Kyndryl has moved to a flat organisation structure, eliminating multiple decision points. Globally it has over 90,000 employees and is hiring extensively to meet requirements. He said about 70% of Kyndryl’s talent base is in the areas of automation, cloud capabilities of analytics and digital technology.

“We are a $19 billion growing startup… I’ve had a great career in IBM and I want to make sure that at Kyndryl India I’m able to provide great career opportunities,” Sawkar said. Business Journal