Better World User Survey on WhatsApp Privacy Policy

Features	WhatsApp	Telegram	Signal
Subscribers (Global)	2 billion	400 million	20 million
Cross platform	Yes	Yes	Yes
Video and voice call	Yes	Yes	Yes
End-to-end encryption	Personal messages and calls are end-to-end encrypted.	Only for secret chat	All features are end-to-end encrypted
Type of software	Closed-source privacy	Open-source privacy	Open-source privacy
Information collection	Users location, IP address, mobile operator, timezone, phone number, and details of a Facebook or WhatsApp account.	Device data, IP addresses for moderation, phone number and the User ID	Only phone number for registration
Group chats	Up to 256 members	Up to 200,000 members	1,000 members
File sharing capability	Videos with 16MB limit in size and regular files up to 100MB	2 GB	100 MB
Folder management	Chats can be stored through email	Chats can be moved in to folders	No such feature exists with Signal
Disappearing messages feature	Enables self-destruction of a message after 7 days	Enabled through self-destruct timer	Enable self-destruction after 5 seconds to 7 days once a user read the message
Data backup	Yes, online and offline backup on google drive	Yes, on Telegrams cloud	No, stored on its own cloud platform
Group chat security	E2E	No	E2E
Cross platform	Yes	Yes	Yes

Hackers step up obfuscation attacks to break into IT networks

In 2020, cyber-attacks reached a new scale, disrupting the business community and Information security professionals. Malware, phishing, denial of service attacks, DNS tunneling, SQL injection, and zero-day exploits have seen a massive explosion in every large organization. According to a report from antivirus, cloud, and endpoint security firm McAfee, since 2018, the cost of global cybercrime has reached over $1 trillion. If that wasn’t enough, the industry has noticed a new pattern of cybercriminals investing in plug-and-play obfuscation software-based toolkits to infect corporate networks for financial gains. (See: Top enterprise cybersecurity trends of 2020)

Obfuscation is a proven technology widely used by security professionals and coders to make the source code anonymous and incoherent. The technique helps businesses secure their critical data and prevent hackers from using reverse engineering techniques to discover an enterprise network’s vulnerability and launch attacks.

The recent cyber intrusion in the software IT monitoring and management software company Solarwinds was executed by an obfuscated advanced persistent threat (APT) that mysteriously took nine months to discover. (See: SolarWinds hack: CISOs need to revisit cyber resilience?)

However, as usual, hackers appear to be a step ahead of network protectors. Call it money as a motive or an innovative mindset; cybercriminals always develop enterprising ways to infiltrate defenses. Obfuscation-as-a-service is one such recently exposed illegal business model developed by cybercriminals. Professional hackers try to make money from selling such techniques on subscription-based models to other hackers.

As-a-service model for orchestrating a hack

Those who trust that the as-a-service models are currently only transforming legitimate business models will probably live on a different planet. Over the past few years, cybercrime as a service model is swiftly making inroads into the dark-web. Professional fraudsters and cybercriminals use illegal platforms to sell cyberattack tools, procedures, services, and a host of software programs to evade detection and launch fully automated cyberattacks.

Obfuscation-as-a-service model is operating on similar lines. In 2020, many instances were discovered by cybersecurity monitoring agencies and solution providers where hackers provided automated obfuscation service and android pocket kits (APKs) on a subscription basis to fraudsters. In the wake of a growing remote workforce, most organizations are introducing workplace productivity apps that can be accessed quickly by employees through their mobile phones. As such cracking mobile applications, especially android, through obfuscation has become a prime focus area for cybercriminals.

The entire business of purchasing and selling obfuscation service happens through illegitimate darknet marketplaces, making it very challenging for governments and law-enforcement authorities to keep a consistent track. This new development of obfuscation-as-a-service is perturbing for enterprises with global footprints, which have a massive amount of data located on different clouds. This unlawful cybercrime service model can give a ready-to-launch platform to even newbie cybercriminals who regularly exploit weaker networks.

What’s the remedy?

To protect networks from obfuscation techniques or deobfuscate malicious codes launched by hackers, organizations need to ensure the uppermost security level that fills the unwanted gaps. Applying integrity controls, encrypting as much as possible, transforming program codes and making them unintelligible, inserting anti-debugging logic are some of the fields that should be strengthened.

While there is no perfect solution that can give full-proof code security, a host of commercial tools can be tested and implemented to make your security architectures robust.

Most importantly, in 2021, organizations and cybersecurity leaders should set-up quality budgets to train their in-house talents and develop innovative solutions to fortify their resilience levels and mitigate new-age obfuscation security threats.

Jaspreet Singh, Partner–Cybersecurity, EY

In Focus

Jaspreet Singh

Partner, Cybersecurity, EY

It’s about leading the cybersecurity organization in the new normal.

The Covid-19 pandemic has ushered in a series of unprecedented shifts in global and Indian economic conditions amidst extensive industry disruptions. Over the last ten months, there has been a significant remolding of how services and products are delivered and consumed. Remote working has become a reality and, in some ways, ‘the new normal,’ while online models have primarily driven consumption of goods and services. These drastic and sudden modifications in business environments have significantly impacted the ICT and cybersecurity priorities and investments across organizations.

Almost all enterprises have responded to this precarious situation by empowering their employees and engaging customers through remote working interventions, policies, and tools. Without a doubt, this response has been brisk and useful to an extent and has brought to light chinks in many an organization’s armors in the realm of cybersecurity.

Coupled with an insurmountable surge in the volume and sophistication of cyberattacks in the last two quarters, India’s CISO community had to move ahead with a steely resolve to address these challenges. (See: How COVID-19 has changed cybersecurity focus for 2021)

Jaspreet Singh, Partner–Cybersecurity at EY, outlines the top challenges faced by the CISOs in India in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. He also shares best practices that organizations could embrace to steer them through the complex maze of cybersecurity issues and help them firm up their cybersecurity posture.

Essential, and yet troublesome—thy name is remote working.

Covid-19 is creating a global ‘work from home’ culture, as organizations see employees working from home as a feasible long-term option if regulatory issues can be addressed.

However, cybercriminals are using it as a massive opportunity as people are often connected to the corporate network through their home Wi-Fi connections, which are not secure due to weak router configurations or multiple poorly protected IoT devices connected to the same network (among other things).

Cybercriminals are also using this time of great fear to target people with phishing attacks using coronavirus themes. Cybercriminals are also leveraging and targeting video communication platforms for hijacking teleconferences, and we have also found maze ransomware targeting managed IT, service providers, on a global scale.

Adapting to the new normal is the biggest challenge for the CISO.

Today’s enterprises need to secure access to their organizational resources, regardless of the user or application environment. This means that the biggest challenge is about adapting to the modern distributed workplace and embracing a mobile workforce while protecting people, devices, and data, irrespective of their locations. (See: Here’s how the new Cyber Security Policy could reshape CISO roles)

Addressing the remote working conundrum—in search of a feasible and effective intervention

It is highly critical for organizations to review their cybersecurity strategies given the global pandemic and follow their renewed realization of IT dependence. IT teams are organizational warriors who have worked day and night and played a crucial role in helping most organizations adapt to the work-from-home culture.

The initial focus of all organizations has been on enabling work from home in the fastest possible time, due to which security was not kept on priority. This resulted in a major risk.

Cybersecurity also needs to align itself to see through risks to the organization—its people, processes, and technologies. The organization would have to align its cybersecurity strategy to changing IT strategies and investments.

Post the pandemic, the cybersecurity organization is slated to undergo a drastic transformation.

The cybersecurity industry will see a sharp increase in the demand for adapting to technological solutions for remote working and security solutions to reduce risks to the IT infrastructure.

The cybersecurity skills shortage will also worsen as these skills would be necessary to protect the IT infrastructure and address the likely increase in cybersecurity compliance.

Never trust, always verify—‘zero trust’ as a critical component of the cybersecurity system for Indian organizations.

Zero trust teaches to “never trust, always verify.” It has a significant role in how people access organizational resources, regardless of where the request originates from or what resources one accesses.

Jaspreet Singh, Partner–Cybersecurity, EY

With 17 years of rich industry experience, Jaspreet owns the P&L of Cybersecurity for North India at EY. He advises organizations across telecom, tech, media, and entertainment sectors, and has been instrumental in helping them become cyber-ready businesses of the future.

Over the years, his advisory and evaluation skills have helped many businesses progress through the cybersecurity value chain.

He also shares the additional responsibility of developing the cybersecurity practice in Bangladesh and the Middle East for EY.

Expertise

Data privacy
IT security and governance
IT strategy
IT program management
IT attestation services
Datacenter security
Network security
Risk assessment and management
Business continuity planning and crisis management
Ethical hacking

Honors and awards

Chairman Value Award, 2014
Consultant of the year, Cybersecurity, 2017

It is not about users being un-trustworthy; instead, it is about firmly authenticating, authorizing, and inspecting all traffic flows always to ensure that malware and attacks don’t sneak in accidentally or maliciously.

Many organizations are knowingly or unknowingly following, in principle, the ‘zero trust architecture.’ However, moving to a complete ‘zero trust’ architecture will take time. Organizations need to mature to a level starting with strong authentication in general.

It will be essential to consider each investment carefully and align it with current business needs. Fortunately, each step forward will make a difference in reducing the cybersecurity risk and returning trust in the entirety of your IT Infrastructure.

Aim to build resilience across the value chain.

You must be prepared to deal with the attack. You have to be able to investigate the incident quickly, make smart decisions, and take actions immediately.” Effective resilience programs look not only at the infrastructure within the four walls of the organization but also look to consider the impacts of customers, vendors, partners, and other participants across the value chain.

*The article was originally published as part of a Better World–Microfocus Coffee Table Book initiative titled Accelerating Enterprise Innovations. You can read the e-Book by clicking here.

A case for cloud-enabled COVID-19 sensors and loggers

Finally, the Covishield vaccine has been approved for emergency use in India. Starting 2 January, a dry run commences for the vaccination program across the country. Hopefully, this will mark the beginning of the end for the century’s biggest threat to humanity. Use of COVID-19 sensors for temperature monitoring and control can help.

COVID-19 has indeed been the biggest economic disruption in a century. However, it is also turning out to be a giant digital-transformation catalyst for the healthcare sector, with a windfall for the logistics sector along the way.

The necessary thrust for this rapid transformation come from the urgency to overcome transportation challenges for some of COVID-19 vaccine candidates. Leading pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer and Moderna, along with their tier-1 logistics partners like UPS and FedEx, have been at the forefront of innovating processes and technologies for the purpose.

The key challenge, as we know, has been to maintain the vaccine vials at temperatures as low as minus 70 degree Celsius until they get thawed and administered to people.

Warehousing and logistics innovations fast-tracked

As we know, the need for storing and moving around truckloads (and airplane loads) of mass vaccine vials at –70 degree C posed a giant challenge at the very outset for pharma majors, particularly Pfizer. Clearly, the supply-chain team at Pfizer started to perfect a shipping solution soon as the scientists initiated the vaccine development program in the labs.

By October 2020, while positive breakthroughs were being achieved by scientists in vaccine development, Pfizer’s supply-chain team had worked out end-to-end logistics plans with partners such as United Parcel Service (UPS) and FedEx to deliver vaccine boxes to various parts of the USA as well as to different locations around the world.

Transportation and storage need two-pronged strategy

GPS-based temperature monitoring on the move was an obvious solution but putting it into practice was not an easy task.

As we know, special boxes were designed for transporting the vials. Each box was fitted with temperature sensors and a GPS device, which was used for tracking the temperatures inside the boxes from a monitoring center. Already, in instances where the temperature of a box crossed an upper (or lower) threshold, any further movement of the box was stopped and it was immediately recalled.

At pre-shipping stage, UPS, for example, had created an ultra-low temperature (ULT) freezer farm, from where the shipments would be done to the destined locations. These ULT freezers too were equipped with COVID-19 sensors for monitoring and maintenance purposes. As per an article posted by UPS on its website, “Cloud connectivity will enable sensor-based remote monitoring, control and predictive analytics across banks of ULT freezers. A continuous stream of data will detect performance characteristics to provide critical “onboard” information to ensure proper sample management, leading to increased efficacy of biologics.”

“Future ULT freezers will introduce guided access capabilities, which will allow the tracking and visualization of vials in laboratory management systems and at freezer access points,” the article, penned by Dusty Tenney, CEO of Stirling Ultracold, further noted. Stirling Ultracold is the company making the ULT freezers for the storage of vaccines.

Figure source: Stirling Ultracold.

Global distribution may need to be ‘with the box’

The company has readied the ULT freezers in three different form factors (see Figure), each suited for the three key stages of a vaccine supply chain. The large ULT freezers are designed for manufacturing and warehousing bases for storing large number of vaccine vials; the mid-sized models are aimed at large pharmacies and hospitals; and the portable models are well-suited for serving the needs of local points of care, including remote and mobile points. All these models can maintain ultra-cold temperatures in the range of -80 degree C to -20 degree C, and are fitted with COVID-19 sensors for monitoring and control.

For a global distribution framework to be truly effective, all these different form factors need to be used at their respective target locations. In other words, while the big boxes will need to be deployed at warehouses, the mid-size boxes will need to installed at the hospitals in cities across the world ahead of the vial shipments. This important to ensure that vials can be stored at these hospitals when the shipments arrive there in ultra-cold boxes containing vials protected with dry ice packs. (Dry ice can only keep the boxes at ultra-cold temperatures of -70 degree C for up to five days, and is not readily and sufficiently available).

Likewise, the portable ULT models also need to be shipped in advance in satellite vaccination centers and remote locations.

All the time, remote monitoring of the ULT freezers and vial boxes is constantly being done to ensure that the efficacy of the vaccines is not lost due to change in box or freezer temperature before the vial being thawed for use.

While vanilla GPS solutions are being used for now, there is enough room for involving technologies like robotics and internet of things (IoT) in the delivery and monitoring process.

For example, if we consider the process of changing the dry ice in boxes, a human intervention could be time-consuming and hence cause the temperature of vials to rise to detrimental levels. However, with the use of robotics, this task can be accomplished in a safe and assured manner. As far as IoT is concerned, building management system (BMS) IOT connectivity is already available for Stirling’s ULT freezers.

The ULT freezers as well as shipment boxes for vaccine vials come fitted with COVID-19 sensors that can have battery lifespans of up to 10 years and support datalogging in the cloud, which makes them suited for real-time remote monitoring. For example, in case of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate, the solution comprises SenseAnywhere’s AiroSensors and Pt100 smart probes.

Why other vaccines too need digital monitoring and upkeep

Covishield, the vaccine candidate from Pune-based Serum Institute of India, may not require a very stringent temperature control and monitoring mechanism. The vaccines, which received the emergency-use approval and for which the dry run commences on 2 January 2021, can be safely stored in regular refrigerators. The storage temperature requirement for Covishield is 2–8 degree C, which also gives it a huge edge over other vaccine candidates in India.

Nevertheless, use of COVID-19 sensors can doubly ensure that the vials are constantly being maintained at the required temperature range. This is because power supplies can be quite unpredictable in smaller cities and towns and not all pharmacies and refrigerators are supported with power-backup facilities. By mandating that refrigerators used for storing vials be retrofitted with COVID-19 sensors for monitoring the temperatures, governments and health watchdogs can determine the efficacy efficiency of a vaccination program. In case of power failures and ineffectiveness of refrigerators, the necessary corrective actions may be taken in a timely manner.

Warehousing and distribution companies engaged in the logistics of COVID-19 vaccines would particularly need to get equipped with appropriate sensor mechanisms. It goes without saying that IT teams at these organizations will have a special role to play in ensuring integrated and foolproof solutions in this context.

and Aarogya Setu needs to overcome more privacy issues

TCS finds its new growth mojo in DX

After a shaky start in the FY21, due to the pandemic-induced weak business sentiments Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), top global IT services, consulting, and business solutions firm, made a solid comeback in the latter half of the year. (See: Technology trends for businesses in 2020). TCS’s strong growth momentum is the result of its persistent efforts to build transformational solutions and robust business fundamentals.

After seeing a drop in its revenues in April this year, the country’s largest software services firm successfully navigated the operational challenge of scale, velocity, and complexity in an unbelievable manner. Its net profit in the quarter ended September 30 rose nearly 5 percent y-o-y to ₹8,433 crores. The IT major had clocked a net profit of ₹8,042 crores in the September 2019 quarter.

A couple of days back, India’s largest IT Services firm’s share price reached an all-time high of ₹2,948 on the National Stock Exchange (NSE), with a market capitalization of ₹11. 03 lakh crore. One needs to note that TCS is the only company in India to reach this milestone after Reliance.

With its deep focus on the cloud, TCS share prices have made great strides this year, growing by more than 30% since March 2020. It was only because of its confidence in its capabilities to meet the rising Dx demands that TCS embarked on a recruiting frenzy even during the pandemic. It even declared salary hikes for its employees from October this year. (See: It turned out to be a good year for Indian IT services firms)

In Q2 2020 alone, TCS announced that it signed total contract deals worth $8.6 billion.

Let’s deepen our understanding of the secret recipe that has helped the IT major generate a positive climate around its growth even during crisis times.

Readying in time for Dx opportunities

TCS’s growth has been principally marked by its rising focus on cloud and accelerated digital transformation initiatives. Over the last twelve months, India’s largest software services exporter has made substantial headways into expanding its footprints in building new and innovative cloud offerings.

As discretionary spending and virtual work environment are gaining steam, businesses move from legacy to digital IT infrastructure. These changing dynamics have resulted in TCS witnessing strong growth across banking, financial services, insurance (BFSI), healthcare, and retail verticals in Q2’21. While BFSI grew at 6.2%, Retail saw a massive 8.8% growth and Life Sciences and Healthcare at 6.9% sequentially and 17.2% on a YoY basis.

The IT services giant has a strong focus on the BFSI sector, particularly in the wake of Europe’s growing demand. Most BFSI companies in Europe are reorganizing their IT structure and focusing on digital transformation, and this provides it a significant opportunity to accelerate growth.

In a statement issued to press and analysts recently, Rajesh Gopinathan, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of TCS mentioned that TCS’s revenues from Europe have more than doubled in the last five years. He reflected that substantial success was the result of TCS’s enterprise agility and machine first delivery model.

This year, TCS has also set up a new European cloud center in Finland to provide end-to-end infrastructure services. In 2021, the center is expected to expand even further to support its growing customer base.

On the acquisitions front, it announced a couple of purchases recently to beef up its BFSI portfolio – Frankfurt-based Postbank Systems AG and a certain percentage of Ireland base Pramerica Systems from insurance firm Prudential Financial Inc (PFI).

The company is also focusing extensively on its agile-based Secure Borderless Workspaces (SBW) model, which it launched recently during the lockdown. SBW is a new cloud-based operating model for businesses to seamlessly deploy virtual workspaces while taking full advantage of existing talent ecosystems and related investments.

TCS Q2’21 growth performance

Region	Growth (in %)
India	20
EMEA	8
Continental Europe	6.1
Latin America	5
UK	3.8
North America	3.6
Asia Pacific	2.9

New focus areas

Amidst the pandemic, most global enterprises have fast-tracked their transformation initiatives to beef-up their cloud-based foundations for a safe and resilient remote-work environment. There is growing momentum towards deploying AI and automation solutions for future business continuity in the remote work environment.

Given the above, TCS has been working hard to integrate accessibility and contactless aspects into its most recent digital transformation solutions portfolio. It has also invested significantly to develop deep-technology expertise and strengthening cyber resiliency services with built-in service assurance, data segregation, and compliance with various local regulatory requirements. In October this year, the company unveiled 10 new threat management centers worldwide to provide cybersecurity services to its enterprise customers.

It also introduced several internets of things (IoT) related research and innovation programs for visionary and autonomous infrastructure, personalized medicines, and smart machines.

A wide range of research and development efforts are also being undertaken to create intellectual property (IP) on the sustainability front by leveraging emerging technologies and developing solutions around them. TCS is even venturing into data masking tools, cryptography, hash control, and access rights management for taking a substantial leap and achieve better growth in 2021.

Another crucial focus area for TCS is the machine learning approach, i.e., delivering cloud-based solutions based on AI, automation, and actionable insights to improve operational efficiency.

Maintaining a strong outlook

COVID-19 has turned out to be a catalyst for business transformation. Due to the pandemic-induced lockdowns, enterprises are rapidly scaling their digital efforts to reduce their operating expense, protect their market position, and ensure customer retention. As such, TCS, which is putting automation and new age technologies at the core of its comprehensive service offerings, is in an exceptional place to continue winning the trust of its existing clients and gain new customers

In 2021, it is expected that most enterprises will continue to see an exponential rise in their technology budgets to improve their innovation capabilities and redefining their customer experience. Touchless solutions and remote monitoring solutions, in particular, will gain significant adoption.

While TCS may see a slowdown in its accounting books due to pandemic-caused delayed revenue realizations, its strong technological fundamentals and cash position will make it an essential driver of change in many global companies’ digital transformation efforts.

By leveraging differential technologies, TCS is positioning itself to become a digital transformation leader and gain a future edge.

Focus on DevOps set to grow more in 2021

The coronavirus pandemic has caused an unprecedented impact on the operational and IT processes of nearly all organizations. With the role of IT changing from business enabler to mission-critical function, a growing focus on DevOps augurs well in a cloud-centric ecosystem shaping the enterprise world with breakthrough innovations.

During the crisis, one of the crucial learnings that have been identified by the enterprise leaders and everyone else is how important is the role of technology in enhancing people’s ability to continue to collaborate, work, receive essential services and learn new skills. (See: Top technology trends to look for in 2021)

The crisis also provided technology leaders an opportunity to re-energize their legacy ecosystems and reshape their business continuity plans. In light of this, DevOps, which is all about continuous improvement, is expected to play even a more crucial role in enhancing businesses’ digital capabilities in 2021.

DevOps is a software development methodology that blends software development with computing operations. Implementing a robust application methodology allows organizations to accelerate delivery and time to market in a competitive environment.

Let’s focus on some of the top DevOps trends that will shape the DevOps market next year.

AI-enabled automation

Automation is the foundation of DevOps and plays an essential role in building a robust application framework that can drive the future of agility. In 2021, AI-based DevOps automation tools will be extended across enterprise ecosystems. They will automate the incorporation of rapid data volumes, equip organizations better analyze data, and use it for automation or decision-making.

Artificial intelligence and Machine Learning, in DevOps will allow the DevOps team to review the problems and preselect the best solution after a complete assessment.

Emphasis on training, learning, and skill enhancement

Among top DevOps trends, DevOps training and learning will be a crucial priority for technology leaders. A study by DevOps Institute found that more than 50 percent of organizations prefer to build their DevOps teams from within the organization. But most organizations don’t have the luxury of creating a DevOps team from in-house resources. And due to the rapid decrease in IT budgets, it may not be possible to hire the best DevOps talent from the outside world.

As a result, organizations will increasingly focus on training and refinement of DevOps methodologies in-house in 2021.

Serverless architecture approach to grow

The technology leaders continually realize the inherent benefits offered by the serverless architecture approach. Serverless architecture is a monumental leap that gives advantages such as fully managed, scalable, and the pay-as-you-go model for DevOps applications. It also helps businesses improve delivery and quickly identify prototypes tailored to evolving customer needs.

The most significant benefit of serverless architecture is the pay-as-you-go model, which means you will pay only for resources that you would use. It’s one of the top DevOps trends that make DevOps cheaper and help many businesses reap their benefits in 2021.

Service Mesh to have more significance

Service Mesh is a built-in application infrastructure layer that facilitates data sharing across services and integrates actions such as encryption, load balancing, authorization, and verification. While Service Mesh may be a relatively new concept in DevOps, many industry onlookers believe that this is the best way for businesses to scale, secure and track apps, especially in the cloud-native application building process.

Security at every layer

As widespread telecommuting is becoming the new standard in the post-pandemic world, data governance, information protection, and compliance will be taken more seriously than ever. It will make it critical for enterprises to build mechanisms that give them full visibility into applications, networks, devices, cloud platforms, and other IT environment components. And DevOps is no exception either.

The DevOps model enables various cross-functional teams to collaborate effectively and make wiser decisions. However, as the DevOps model gets mature, it also faces the challenge of simplifying growing complexities in its applications.

In 2021, as one of the top DevOps trends, it is anticipated that companies will focus on implanting strong security layers to help teams collaborate without fear of threats to their network ecosystems.

With AIOps, organizations will put intelligence at the core of IT operations. There will be increasing stress on integrating artificial intelligence, machine learning, and analytics within DevOps. Concepts such as AIOps and DataOps will help businesses accelerate their software development lifecycle – build, test, release, deploy, and maintain – in 2021.

It turned out to be a good year for Indian IT services firms

Back in March this year, when the Indian government announced a nationwide lockdown to break the chain of COVID-19 infection, doubts were looming large if the Indian IT Services firms would be able to weather the storm.

The situation was truly unprecedented! Employees in distress, a drop in consumer demand, frozen wages, and a struggle to adopt full-fledged work-from-home models. Top IT Services firms such as TCS, Infosys, HCL, and Wipro were all scrambling to find a way to deal with the crisis and revive their business continuity plans.

Global uncertainty had heightened the fears of a deep recession among all IT Services executives. The worst part was that the crisis had come when the GDP of the Indian economy was falling.

At that time, several industry observers called it an irreparable disaster for Indian IT Services firms. However, others were hopeful that India’s showpiece IT sector had a comeback potential. But even they could not envisage that the resurgence would be too quick.

Better deal flows

In Q12020, the pandemic outbreak stalled the growth of almost every software services exporter. However, since July this year, the top IT majors have announced about half a dozen large strategic deals that indicate strong growth momentum for the industry in 2021 and beyond. Infosys large deal with Germany’s Daimler AG and American investment major Vanguard; Wipro’s with German multinational Metro AG; and HCL’s with Swedish telecom giant Ericsson are some of the major highlights during this period.

Infosys’s Vanguard transaction, valued at $1.5 bn, is the biggest deal ever signed by the tech major in its history.

All the Indian IT services firms saw a massive upsurge in their stock market fortunes throughout the year, indicating stronger investor sentiments despite the pandemic blues. For instance, the TCS stock has gone up over 24% compared to the pre-pandemic days in February; Wipro’s stock saw 20 years high at Rs 385 and Infosys’ recorded a 52-week high share price at Rs 1,259.

Tech Mahindra, a mid-tier IT Services player, saw a record new high of Rs 909 in November 2020 on the BSE due to its large deal pipeline and 5G focus.

Silver lining of new possibilities

In the wake of the growing location-independent digital workplace, enterprises are increasingly focusing on modernizing their architectures, deploying public, private, and hybrid multi-cloud models. There has been a sharper focus and resurgent demand for analytics, intelligence, insights, cybersecurity, and operations outsourcing to improve customer experience, employee expectations, and meet diverse information security needs. (See: Tech Cos take M&A route for digital transformation supremacy)

This has provided a mammoth opportunity for IT Services companies to address these challenges by delivering high-set engineering solutions to make the organizations productive and agile. (See: CIOs’ digital transformation focus accelerates recovery for IT firms)

The credit should go to the rapid technology investments made by IT services majors to respond to enterprises’ new critical challenges. (With Encore buy, Wipro eyes DX edge in fintech)

Indian IT Services firms have been aggressive and acquiring capabilities to address the structural changes in the delivery models and long term consequences of the pandemic in the times to come. Moreover, they also offer a low-cost delivery model, helping them race ahead even in tough times.

Skeptics, who had slammed the Indian IT services firms before the pandemic and doubting if it had reached a maturity stage in terms of growth, are being proven wrong.

Better World User Survey on WhatsApp Privacy Policy

WhatsApp Privacy Policy Survey Report

Survey and analysis by Deepak Kumar

WhatsApp’s privacy-policy change and the aftermath

What’s the big deal about privacy in the age of social media?

The myth that users are unaware and don’t care for privacy is broken

The damage-control measures may be too little too late; more is needed

There is a need for stakeholders to establish certain minimum privacy-policy norms

The choice of alternative reinforces that privacy is the key concern

Analyst’s Views

A consolidated view of respondents’ profiles

About the Analyst and the Survey Methodology

Deepak Kumar

About the report

Acknowledgements