Placement AssignmentPlacement AssignmentPlacement AssignmentPlacement Assignment

SWOT Analysis SWOT Analysis SWOT Analysis SWOT Analysis

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HR TrendsHR TrendsHR TrendsHR Trends

Anne Helena

10AB03

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.

1. Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT)

Location of Factor TYPE OF FACTOR

Favorable Unfavorable

Internal Strengths

• Strong brand recognition

• Comprehensive portfolio

of solutions

• Strong base in India

Weaknesses

• Dependence on

financial services

market

External Opportunities

• Steady growth in IT

outsourcing

• Growing SaaS market

• Positive outlook for

Indian BPO market

Threats

• Economic slowdown

• Intense competition

• Immigration

restrictions

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 low-

cost 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.

Leverage Talent as the Strategic Differentiator • Align people with business strategy • Measure HR contribution to Business Growth • Shift to a business performance focussed culture

Acquire & Deploy Talent Globally • Apply the right value proposition required to attract talent by becoming ‘Employer of

Choice’ • Design and implement scalable processes to acquire talent globally and deploy it where

it offers best value

Scale up to Serve Increased Demands of Talent • Robust and scalable HR Processes to engage, motivate and retain talent • Augment workforce competency • Enable high performance collaborative culture through self-service applications and

automated information

Achieve Global Operational Excellence • Align HRIT Strategy to People and Business Strategy • Leverage Global Service Delivery Model

Human Capital Intelligence Organizations aspiring to leverage their Human Capital as a source of competitive advantage need to invest in effective Human Capital Intelligence systems to help managers make informed corporate decisions. Intense competition in the market place is leading an increasing number of organizations to appreciate the role of their people and HR policies as a critical driver of sustainable differentiation. This realization, coupled with the fast pace of globalization, new regulatory requirements, tighter budgets and lack of availability of right talent, among many other reasons, presents a new set of challenges for senior executives and HR managers. In such a scenario, the lack of appropriate processes for measuring the strategic performance of human capital poses a significant handicap to CXOs, business managers and HR managers. Over the past decade organizations have implemented a range of technology enablers to make their business processes more efficient and to ensure better business results. While doing so, many of these organizations have neglected an important aspect of leveraging technology, that is, analyzing and interpreting information and then acting on its insights. The chronic problem is that organizations have focused too much on mastering transactional information but not enough on turning this into knowledge that can impact business results.

From Transactional to Strategic Intelligence Organizations at higher process maturity levels have implemented organization-wide Human Resource Management Systems (HRMS) applications to gather, collate and distribute information. These applications help optimize HR processes, make them more efficient and enable organizations to reduce costs through simplified processes and automated workflow. While these applications have some built-in business intelligence and analysis capabilities, they do not cover the full breadth of business analysis. For example, an HRMS application may provide analyses based on historical data, but may lack business process modeling, planning and predictive analysis capability.

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.

Human Capital Intelligence – Evolving a better approach Human capital intelligence (HCI) system transforms transactional data on human capital into information and knowledge that enable managers to derive better business results. It consists of three major elements: Context, Analysis and Outcomes. The ‘Context’ refers to organizational, environmental and strategic factors. The ‘Analysis’ includes performance measures, drivers, informed decision making and ‘Outcomes’ refer to desired business results. Together these elements produce value for the organization. These can be used at different levels. At the simplest level they can be applied to diagnose specific problems in an organizational unit. At an evolved level, they can be used to develop an ongoing capability for the entire organization.

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.

Benefits of adopting a Human Capital Intelligence system An HCI system enriches business intelligence by adding a human capital angle to business planning. For an HR function, this intelligence establishes a link between its activities and bottom-line business goals. This system provides the organizations with a capability to measure operational metrics as well as to do tactical and strategic planning with frameworks like HR Score card, People Capability Maturity Model (PCMM) etc. While the frameworks help define parameters to align HR initiatives with workforce and business strategy, the metrics enable tracking and feedback. Consider a retail company that has a target of increasing its sales revenue by 100% over next 2 years. This can be done with better marketing, distribution effort and increasing the per employee sales of its sales force. To do this company may require more and better sales staff and also increase the effectiveness of the managers. The company can use HCI to derive strategic intelligence on its sales force effectiveness, the optimal skill mix, recruitment strategy, training and behavioural requirements, incentive planning and plan its approach. HCI would also establish KPIs for these metrics and help the company get continuous feedback on performance and take proactive corrective action.

Infosys view for an effective Human Capital Intelligence Depending upon the maturity of HR processes and IT systems usage, organizations should assess the need and then plan and design a methodology to deploy the appropriate human capital intelligence system. For example organizations which have low HR maturity and use only basic IT systems should focus on operational metrics to improve their operational efficiencies before thinking about tactical and strategic metrics and frameworks. The figure below illustrates the steps that organizations must take to define metrics while shifting their focus from transactional/ tactical to strategic intelligence.

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.