Investment in Cybersecurity will help organisations to secure its assets from the bad actors

Narinder Singh Manral, Founder & MD, Enrich Data Services

Growth of IT services amid Covid-19:-

Indian IT services industry is expected to see an adverse impact for a short-term due to COVID-19 outbreak with the sector clocking a lower growth in current financial year previously we expected the sector to grow at 6-8 per cent. We fulfilled our backlog orders / Projects which were placed before the lockdown or the material which was lying with us. Our original estimates from the Government and Institutional business is still just below the target, however there is a concern among the industry whether the budgets have been approved as the Government has suggested a freeze in expenditure.

Our forecast assumes gradual recovery during the second half of the year, however, the evolution of the virus remains highly uncertain and the full extent of the economic costs remains unclear at this point of time.

Preparedness adopted:-

We feel that the situation will not change drastically over the coming few months. We have considered the best possible scenario as well as the worst possible to come up with a business plan to ensure continuity of business. No retrenchment during this period, however we have discussed and agreed with our employees for salary cuts based on salary slabs ranging from 10-30% which will be reinstated once the situation improves. We have cut down our costs/expenditures to ensure minimum stress on our bottom line. We have also put in a work from home policy so that employees who are unable to commute due to non-availability of public transport and don't have their own conveyance, can work from home.

Biggest shifts:-

After the initial teething troubles the employees have adjusted with the new work from home model.

Even though a lot of organizations have cut down staff we have only had minimal salary cuts after discussions with the employees and explaining to them the need of the hour. The employees have appreciated the transparency and have responded well to the new normal. The organizations are feeling a huge need for securing the organization's assets from bad actors hence and are budgeting more to be invested in Cybersecurity. There is a clear movement by clients from Onsite models to cloud based subscription models.

More and more organizations are looking at AI for speeding up their digital transformations projects along with Robotic Process Automation. However the budgets will most likely be looked into and revised every quarter based on the market situation.

New Investments are on hold and no new projects are announced. After the initial period of lockdown where organizations found it difficult to work from home, they have put in VPNs to ensure applications are available to all employees however, going forward some organizations are re-considering the WFH option as they don’t see clear results whereas others have announced WFH till end of the year.