TieCon 2013 Keynote (Bharat Desai – Chairman, Syntel) Preview

TiEcon in Silicon Valley is the place where entrepreneurs are made and nurtured; a place where self-made entrepreneurs share success stories.  How do they harness the larger trends and survive the economic hiccups?  Here is what we may look forward to in one keynote address.  You can register for the conference at http://www.tiecon.org .

Bharat Desai, founder and Chairman of Syntel is a self-made entrepreneur, who started Syntel in 1980, with his wife to be, Neerja Sethi.  Together, they make one of the few successful husband-wife teams, in business.  While studying in college, they started Syntel with $2000.  The computer consulting company completed an initial public offering in 1997 and, according to Desai, Syntel has already created 15 millionaires. He expects to raise the number to 100.

The company was originally providing software staffing services to local corporations.  It is now a renowned global provider of Information Technology (IT) and Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) solutions spanning the entire lifecycle of business and information systems and processes.  With global development centers in India and the US, with almost 17000 employees in India and growing, and 2012 annual revenue of $723.9 million, Syntel sees growth ahead.  The economic downturn was forcing Syntel’s clients to improve their competitive positioning and operational efficiency and Syntel saw this challenge as their opportunity.  Priding itself on being “small enough to listen, big enough to deliver”, Syntel focused on providing integrated IT and KPO services that can help reduce cost, with a combination of incremental outsourcing, improved offshore leverage and increased productivity, and rate reductions.  While these initiatives helped its clients, they also provided enhanced margins to Syntel.

Syntel is also leveraging the inescapable fact that globalization is an irreversible mega-trend.  Recently the company was named one of the “50 Best Managed Global Outsourcing Vendors” by The Black Book of Outsourcing (http://globenewswire.com/news-release/2009/06/22/399528/167586/en/Customers-Rank-Syntel-Among-the-50-Best-Global-Outsourcers-for-the-Third-Straight-Year.html ).  Syntel does not see outsourcing as simply a model to cut cost but to truly harness the talent and innovation from the world wide pool.  Syntel’s clients are continuing to focus on running their core businesses and outsourcing non-core functions with an aim to reduce cost, improve quality, speed, and flexibility in implementing solutions.  Syntel is a “Partner of Choice” among several prestigious Global 2000 corporations and has won many awards. Going forward, Syntel sees Healthcare and Life Sciences industry, facing regulatory compliance and data sensitivity challenges, as a major growth opportunity.   Growth in on-demand services, grid and cloud computing, and IP based solutions may bode well indeed for Syntel, in the years to come.