Sixty
meetings in 22 months across two ends of the world. At stake was a
crucial deal, perhaps Wipro's most important contract ever.
Such was the significance of the deal that Wipro's billionaire chairman Azim Premji made a rare cross-continent trip to meet the future customer.
Premji was among the early leaders from Wipro to meet Nancy Southern, the chief executive of Canadian logistics and utilities company ATCO that signed up Wipro last July for $1.1 billion outsourcing contract spread over 10 years.
The man who helped India's No.3 software exporter clinch its largest ever contract was not a CEO or a typical sales executive, or for that matter an old-worldly IT services veteran. It was a computer scientist, who specialized in the utilities business.
This man, Subbi Lakshmanan, vice president at Wipro's energy and utilities business unit, is among dozens of relatively unknown people who are fast becoming the new rainmakers in the nation's $146 billion technology outsourcing sector.
"My family almost disowned me because I spent two months at a stretch on the road," he said about travelling to ATCO's offices in Calgary in Canada and Perth, Australia, where the deal discussions went on for nearly two years.
Among other big changes in his life during those 22 months was that, Lakshmanan, a pure vegetarian, tasted alcohol for the first time. "The weekends were lonely, locked up in a hotel room. So, I ended up having some wine."
Lakshmanan is not a typical salesman.
A University of Madras math graduate who did his masters in computer science and automation from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Lakshmanan is part of a small, but growing breed of professionals who are beginning to influence customer decisions and shape the future of companies such as Wipro.
"They (ATCO) insisted that I lead the deal; they thought speed and collaboration was the key in shaping the transaction," said Lakshmanan.
As India's largest software services companies attempt to transform from just being "an order taker" to consultants capable of helping enterprises cope with disruption in their business and discover new revenue streams, professionals, with deep domain knowledge and who can offer a clear picture of what a company can offer and understand the demands of the customer, are going to be the key to win deals.
"Our ATCO deal win is a classic example of how domain specialists are increasingly playing a significant role in large deal pursuits," said Anand Padmanabhan, president and chief executive of Wipro's energy business.
"Those still in the business of building golfing relationships and pouring bucket of offerings on the customer table for him to choose, are irrelevant today," said Vineet Nayar, the former CEO of HCL Technologies, who now consults companies on leadership and strategy.
"The new breed of sales guys swing big deals by bringing together three key elements — a sharp mind to understand the real problem beyond the stated problem, they can intellectually challenge the best brains and they don't need slides: they just have a conversation with the decision-makers and paint that masterpiece right in front of their eyes and magic happens," says Nayar.
There are several more such people in the industry.
At Cognizant, Krish Venkat, the company's head of healthcare and life sciences business, has been a rainmaker. Last year, Venkat helped Cognizant sign a $2.7 billion, seven-year deal with US-based Healthnet and also played a crucial role in the company's $2.7 billion acquisition of Trizetto.
While Cognizant CEO Francisco D'Souza was involved in discussions in both deals, it was Venkat who was the lead negotiator. And, like Lakshmanan, Venkat too has no traditional background in sales - he's an M Tech in electrical engineering from IIT-Delhi.
"Customers, who are no more just the CIOs, are more comfortable with us putting domain people ahead of a typical sales guy," said an executive familiar with the Cognizant deals.
Ornament on the table
In several of the large deals, while CEOs and top executives or board members are able to help in opening the doors, the real salesmanship rests with folks like Venkat and Lakshmanan. Former HCL Technologies Chief Executive Nayar recollected a $700 million deal signed by the company where the sales lead asked him to sit quiet "like an ornament on the table".
While Nayar said he found that "quite offensive", this sales executive described CEOs as "great ornaments which look good when you see them". When asked by the customer executive as to why Nayar was quiet all along, the sales executive said it were domain experts and people like him who were the real deal.
"That sales guy is now a very senior executive in the IT industry and has not lost his edge one bit and as far as he is concerned," said Nayar. "I am still an ornament."
Experts such as Ray Wang of Constellation research said good sales leads today are using "design thinking" as part of the mix while pitching a solution.
"Part of the approach is to help clients not only see the art of possible, but also achieve it. That roadmap based on the clients' needs and risk tolerance is crucial," said Wang.
In Wipro's crucial ATCO deal, Lakshmanan could sell because he, along with others in the team, spent time building innovative solutions based on real-world problems. Moreover, because the deal involved the potential sale of ATCO's in-house IT arm, there was not much knowledge shared with Wipro to ensure confidentiality.
"We developed solutions using sensors, Internet of Things, mobile to help solve on-the-ground problems faced by their over 80% staff," said Lakshmanan.
Such was the significance of the deal that Wipro's billionaire chairman Azim Premji made a rare cross-continent trip to meet the future customer.
Premji was among the early leaders from Wipro to meet Nancy Southern, the chief executive of Canadian logistics and utilities company ATCO that signed up Wipro last July for $1.1 billion outsourcing contract spread over 10 years.
The man who helped India's No.3 software exporter clinch its largest ever contract was not a CEO or a typical sales executive, or for that matter an old-worldly IT services veteran. It was a computer scientist, who specialized in the utilities business.
This man, Subbi Lakshmanan, vice president at Wipro's energy and utilities business unit, is among dozens of relatively unknown people who are fast becoming the new rainmakers in the nation's $146 billion technology outsourcing sector.
"My family almost disowned me because I spent two months at a stretch on the road," he said about travelling to ATCO's offices in Calgary in Canada and Perth, Australia, where the deal discussions went on for nearly two years.
Among other big changes in his life during those 22 months was that, Lakshmanan, a pure vegetarian, tasted alcohol for the first time. "The weekends were lonely, locked up in a hotel room. So, I ended up having some wine."
Lakshmanan is not a typical salesman.
A University of Madras math graduate who did his masters in computer science and automation from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Lakshmanan is part of a small, but growing breed of professionals who are beginning to influence customer decisions and shape the future of companies such as Wipro.
"They (ATCO) insisted that I lead the deal; they thought speed and collaboration was the key in shaping the transaction," said Lakshmanan.
As India's largest software services companies attempt to transform from just being "an order taker" to consultants capable of helping enterprises cope with disruption in their business and discover new revenue streams, professionals, with deep domain knowledge and who can offer a clear picture of what a company can offer and understand the demands of the customer, are going to be the key to win deals.
"Our ATCO deal win is a classic example of how domain specialists are increasingly playing a significant role in large deal pursuits," said Anand Padmanabhan, president and chief executive of Wipro's energy business.
"Those still in the business of building golfing relationships and pouring bucket of offerings on the customer table for him to choose, are irrelevant today," said Vineet Nayar, the former CEO of HCL Technologies, who now consults companies on leadership and strategy.
"The new breed of sales guys swing big deals by bringing together three key elements — a sharp mind to understand the real problem beyond the stated problem, they can intellectually challenge the best brains and they don't need slides: they just have a conversation with the decision-makers and paint that masterpiece right in front of their eyes and magic happens," says Nayar.
There are several more such people in the industry.
At Cognizant, Krish Venkat, the company's head of healthcare and life sciences business, has been a rainmaker. Last year, Venkat helped Cognizant sign a $2.7 billion, seven-year deal with US-based Healthnet and also played a crucial role in the company's $2.7 billion acquisition of Trizetto.
While Cognizant CEO Francisco D'Souza was involved in discussions in both deals, it was Venkat who was the lead negotiator. And, like Lakshmanan, Venkat too has no traditional background in sales - he's an M Tech in electrical engineering from IIT-Delhi.
"Customers, who are no more just the CIOs, are more comfortable with us putting domain people ahead of a typical sales guy," said an executive familiar with the Cognizant deals.
Ornament on the table
In several of the large deals, while CEOs and top executives or board members are able to help in opening the doors, the real salesmanship rests with folks like Venkat and Lakshmanan. Former HCL Technologies Chief Executive Nayar recollected a $700 million deal signed by the company where the sales lead asked him to sit quiet "like an ornament on the table".
While Nayar said he found that "quite offensive", this sales executive described CEOs as "great ornaments which look good when you see them". When asked by the customer executive as to why Nayar was quiet all along, the sales executive said it were domain experts and people like him who were the real deal.
"That sales guy is now a very senior executive in the IT industry and has not lost his edge one bit and as far as he is concerned," said Nayar. "I am still an ornament."
Experts such as Ray Wang of Constellation research said good sales leads today are using "design thinking" as part of the mix while pitching a solution.
"Part of the approach is to help clients not only see the art of possible, but also achieve it. That roadmap based on the clients' needs and risk tolerance is crucial," said Wang.
In Wipro's crucial ATCO deal, Lakshmanan could sell because he, along with others in the team, spent time building innovative solutions based on real-world problems. Moreover, because the deal involved the potential sale of ATCO's in-house IT arm, there was not much knowledge shared with Wipro to ensure confidentiality.
"We developed solutions using sensors, Internet of Things, mobile to help solve on-the-ground problems faced by their over 80% staff," said Lakshmanan.
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