Indian CEOs are seeing around 64 per cent return on value in terms of agentic AI usage whereas the rest of the world is still at 52 per cent, said IBM Consulting’s leaders Juhi McClelland, Managing Partner, Asia Pacific and Rishi Aurora, Managing Partner, India and South Asia when discussing the technology’s potential for Indian organisations, skills the company keeps a look out for and IBM’s work in key sectors like global capability centres (GCC).
How have Indian companies achieved measurable ROI with your agentic AI services?
Aurora: A couple of years back, we were in this era of proof of concepts. Now, we are working across industries in India, with solid benefits of AI. IT modernisation is a no brainer, in terms of benefits from AI. When we talk to various executives we say cost savings using AI are at 67 per cent, decision making enhancement is about 69 per cent.
McClelland: IBM Institute of Business Value conducted a study with 2,000 CEOs globally and one thing we learnt is that 64 per cent of Indian CEOs from the study are realising value from GenAI investments beyond cost reduction, compared to 52 per cent of CEOs from rest of the world. So, I do think that India has an edge because it’s digitised so much, it’s a little bit newer, less legacy. India’s payment systems, HR systems, are more open to trying and bringing it to value. They are already seeing a 10 per cent benefit compared to their global colleagues.
How does IBM compete with Indian IT giants that have a deeper local relationship?
McClelland: IBM is an enterprise-focused company. Our main focus is large enterprises and over the last century, IBM has been approaching everything from a mission criticality point of view. Most organisations haven’t been able to structure data. We are really taking on these big, gnarly projects, to move from a “data puddle” to a “data lake”. We are the only consulting company within a technology company that spend so much money on R&D. In consulting, most people have people, but we have IBM Consulting Advantage platform. Each of us have at least 10 agents who are helping us do our job better.
Aurora: We are a global company but also as local as possible. Our relationships with clients are decades old. Majority of banks today run on IBM systems. We are launching majority of digital apps and working with leading telecom providers, manufacturing organisations, managing security for leading organisations.
Agentic AI will also impact how consulting works. How does IBM plan to maintain the long-term revenue relationships while making partners self sufficient with Agent AI?
McClelland: We are only seeing growth from this. I do think that AI is opening up an aperture of opportunities in Asia Pacific and in India. We’re not seeing it the other way, because of the demand, it’s opening up things that were beyond our comprehension. Earlier, more of our clients used to take advice from us for one area. Now suddenly the data is streamlined. Now they want help in more areas. I think it’s upon all of us as an industry to keep our people abreast.
How does IBM plan to retain the talent pool from India?
Aurora: We are ensuring that across levels, people are provided with pointed upskilling and training programmes. How can the learning be continuous? Even we undergo training as the head of this business in India, ensuring that we are ready to be in the industry and face the next level of innovation. Across leadership, we do training programmes about applicability of use-cases, where it can be applied.
McClelland: IT is now a boardroom discussion with people like chief AI officers having a seat at the table in deciding the company future. They’re looking for more advisors who can help them connect IT spend with business value and ROI, stock price. Their need for consultants is only growing and we have to keep on growing and upskilling ourselves.
What skill-sets do you look for in your talent?
McClelland: All our skills align with the service line. We require strategy and transformation consultants, who can advise clients on their five-year plan. There’s also a lot of focus on user experience and customer service. We have a garage approach where we hire a lot of customer experience people who have knowledge of UI interface, application-building, design skills. Our second segment of focus is around hybrid cloud. We need engineering and migration talent around cloud. Next set of skills we need is around data and the next segment we have is all the business applications. We have a lot of people who are trained in SAP. Then, we need AI-based skills and people who know how to run the back office of a company. India delivers for India and the rest of the world. Complex project management is important.
Are you worried that GCCs will replace the services IBM provides?
McClelland: In the last few years, GCCs are looking for people who can provide a managed service or an outcome-based relationship. The GCCs are hiring their own people, but they also hire companies like us to work with them on an end-to-end project. They’re doing more innovative projects like research, big development here in India. I only see the opportunity more and more. Now, if they’re just looking for low-cost labour, there’s a huge market for that. I do think that market might get marginalised over time because they will, build it themselves.
What are your plans for India specifically? Do the Donald Trump policies impact how you are planning to move ahead with India?
McClelland: We’ve been in India for a very long time. We are very, very committed to India and seeing a lot of growth in government and public sector, and also in the private sector. We have a research lab in India, big global delivery centres and BPM centres. We are very excited and very positive on our growth in India and stay committed to it long term.