Indian IT companies have been active in Düsseldorf for years. They bring a lot of expertise to the region and play a decisive role in shaping the digital future.

If you follow the news about India, you often get two very different impressions. On the one hand, chaos, poverty, environmental pollution and, last but not least, the humanitarian disaster situation in view of high infection rates. These are images that leave a lasting impact.

On the other hand, India, the fifth largest economy in the world, is also a place of growth and progress. The business magazine Business Insider said in November 2020 that India was “on the verge of becoming a superpower” and could soon have caught up with China. Numerous companies and organisations are increasingly relying on Indian talent, especially in the IT sector. Above all, heavyweights like Microsoft and Google, which are headed by managers with Indian roots.

Many IT companies that started in India are also among the world's big players. And: They have long since also had headquarters in North Rhine-Westphalia. Both sides benefit from the cooperation: “The North Rhine-Westphalian economy can contribute its outstanding engineering and production know-how to the partnership, while the Indian side can contribute its strong and dynamic IT industry,” said Economics Minister Prof. Dr. Andreas Pinkwart in September 2020 during a visit by the Indian Consul General.

One of many examples of this partnership is Wipro Limited, a global service provider for information technology, consulting and business processes. The company is in the process of setting up a “Digital Innovation Hub” in Düsseldorf with the acquisition of an IT unit of Metro. According to the company, it will serve as “Wipro's flagship centre in Europe” and provide companies in Germany with expertise in digital transformation. The promotion of talent is also on the agenda: Programmes and career opportunities for graduates are to be developed in cooperation with institutions and universities in NRW.

„The more digitally positioned a company is, the better it survives times of crisis.“

Bhuwan Agrawal, Managing Director, TCS Germany

Another partnership between North Rhine-Westphalia and India is with the Tata Group, India's largest multinational group of companies. A subsidiary, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), based in Mumbai, India, has been active in Düsseldorf since 2008 and operates a regional delivery centre here. With its Digital Hub, it supports its customers in their digital transformation. The company's programme includes modular IT services and solutions especially for SMEs. The demand for these has been high, especially in recent months: “We have worked closely with our customers to continue important processes and increase the pace of digitalisation, for example, in the transition to remote work or the introduction of new IT solutions,” says TCS’s head of Germany, Bhuwan Agrawal. “The more digitally positioned a company is, the better it survives times of crisis. And digital technologies are crucial to be more resilient in future crises.” The fact that many companies are now picking up the pace in digitalisation is confirmed by a specially launched survey by TCS and Bitkom Research (see box). TCS itself grew by more than twelve percent in Germany in 2020.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has been active in Germany and Austria since 1991, including branches in Hamburg, Frankfurt (Bild) and Vienna. Since 2008, the company is running a regional delivery centre in Düsseldorf.

Of course, the coronavirus pandemic is also having an impact on the way employees work. At TCS, 97 percent of the more than 500,000 employees worldwide currently work from home. And the company wants to continue flexible working in the future: according to TCS's plans, by 2025 employees will spend only a quarter of their working hours in the office. “Admittedly, there will still be a great need for offices in the future. But they will no longer be used in the same way every day,” Agrawal predicts. The office of the future will rather become a place of encounter and exchange.

What happens when this exchange takes place, when Indian and German cultures collide, as they do at TCS? Before Covid19, for example, the company organised a Christmas party that was combined with the Indian festival of lights, Diwali. Family members are also invited to such events, says Agrawal. “Indian culture is very welcoming and social aspects are hugely important.” During the pandemic, he says, there were also various virtual events, including cooking classes, yoga sessions and Bollywood dance lessons.

„Different cultures are a blessing: We learn from each other by using the strength of cultures as well as individuals to inspire each other and develop as a team.“

Andrea Hendrickx, Country Head, Infosys Deutschland

Augmented and virtual reality in sports: this is also a sector of Infosys Germany's business.

Andrea Hendrickx, Head of Infosys Germany, also knows how enriching it can be to work in and for a multinational company: “Different cultures are a blessing: We learn from each other by using the strength of cultures as well as individuals to inspire each other and develop as a team.” The IT company Infosys has its headquarters in Bangalore, India. In Germany, the company so far has been active in six locations and more than 30 customer locations. In November 2019, it opened a new technology and innovation centre in Düsseldorf. Here, it is currently focusing on so-called poly-cloud solutions and on the use of artificial intelligence, 5G technology and gamification, i.e. the application of game-like elements in certain business areas.

As for other service providers in the industry, the past months also brought a business boost for Infosys: “The pandemic forced many companies to accelerate their digital transformation,” says Hendrickx. Especially in the areas of digital, cloud, data and analytics, there has been a growing demand. For Infosys itself, too, changing over to working from home and ensuring that 250,000 employees worldwide had access to a secure internet connection and laptops was “a major operational challenge”. Cloud technologies and collaboration tools have become indispensable for adapting to the new normal, Hendrickx states. After the pandemic, the company wants to continue to allow its employees to work from home or the office. •

www.wipro.com
www.tcs.com
www.infosys.com

Trend study: COVID-19 and digitalisation.

The coronavirus pandemic has led to a digitalisation push among companies in Germany. 75 percent of companies have increased their investments in digital devices, technologies and applications as a result of the experience. This is one result of a survey published in November 2020 by Bitkom Research on behalf of the IT service provider Tata Consultancy Services among almost 1,000 companies with 100 or more employees in Germany. Virtually none of them (0.2 per cent) say that Covid19 has had no impact at all on digitalisation. 39 percent of the companies experience a positive change in the way employees deal with digital technologies since the outbreak of the pandemic.

Words Elena winter
Pictures iStock, Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys/Rafal Niewienda, Infosys

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