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MOSL: EXPERT SPEAK (Information Technology) | Digital Transformation-Imperatives of Strategic Consulting and Start-ups

EXPERT SPEAK (Information Technology) | Digital Transformation: Imperatives of Strategic Consulting and Start-ups; Relevance of Offshore

 

Avinash Vashistha; (Chairman and MD Tholons Inc., ex-Accenture India MD)

Mr. Avinash Vashistha is the Chairman and MD of Tholons Inc. — a global leader in Digital Strategy and Transformation consulting. Mr. Vashistha joined Accenture as its India MD in Jan’11; during his tenure, Accenture's employee base in India grew from 60,000 to 150,000. In 1999, he founded the Outsourcing Advisory firm neoIT, advising customers like Siemens, JP Morgan Chase, ABN Amro, Home Depot, and Stanford University on their offshoring strategies. 

We met with Mr. Avinash Vashistha, Chairman and Managing Director of Tholons Inc., a global leader in Digital Strategy and Transformation consulting. Our discussion included a range of topics including (1) Digital Transformation imperatives, (2) role, strengths and challenges of an India-centric provider v/s Accenture's model, and (3) Tholon's own right-to-win in the market. Key highlights from our discussion:

• Reimagining customer processes and offering innovative solutions for the same, and delivering through Digital labor rather than human labor are the clear imperatives of Digital Transformation; Tholons' approach is based on these very principles, according to Mr. Vashistha.
• The layer of strategic consulting is a shortcoming for the technology-oriented vendors, for whom, people are the key ingredient of any recipe. This injects limitations to their ability to be 'transformative'.
• However, Mr. Vashistha believes that such transformative Digital comes with its own need of people-centric services that is rendered from offshore. These will have strong margins and price points due to the novelty, despite high competitive intensity and limited differentiation.
• Better margins can be garnered through transformative solutions, with such deals being large and multi-year in nature..