NYSE-listed IT giant DXC sets up its first global analytics unit in India

As it bets heavily on big data and analytics, IT services giant DXC Technology has turned its attention to India, looking to leverage the skill set that the country offers in this emerging area of technology. 

The NYSE-listed company has chosen India as first location globally to set up its first Analytics Migration Factory, while two more are expected to come up in Poland and The Philippines by the end of the current calendar. 

"Big data requires deep domain knowledge and India provides this talent pool in plenty," said Samson David, India Co-Managing Director, DXC Technology. 

"We will be hiring people from campuses, apart from the lateral route for the factory. A significant number of our employees are also being reskilled."

DXC was formed in 2017 from the merger of Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) and the enterprises services business of Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). The company is the second largest end-to-end IT services provider in the world after Accenture, with revenues of $24.55 billion (in 2018) and a global headcount of around 150,000.

The Analytics Migration Factory that has been set up in Bengaluru will support Microsoft Azure. The company said it would provide advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities to enterprises for development, delivery and support services, which are designed for analytics workload migration solutions to Azure.

"Today, a massive amount of data is being generated, which is unstructured. It needs to be analysed for actionable insights. These insights will lead to new monetisation options and new business models," said David. 

"In this perspective, this is a strategic bet for us. We believe this is an industry-changing thing because, here, we are talking about the combination of cloud and analytics along with scale," he added.

Data analytics is one of the growing domains in the digital services space, given this tool helps enterprises to improve operational efficiency, apart from taking smart business decisions through predictive analytics. 

Commenting on the collaboration, Sashikumar Sreedharan, MD (enterprise commercial business) of Microsoft India said the combination of cloud and analytics would be a game changer. "It's just not the cloud. It's the private cloud which is the game changer. Due to rising competition, enterprises are increasingly looking at building up a fair amount of control (on their data)," said Sreedharan.  

Falling revenue in the IT industry from traditional or legacy business is prompting IT services firms to invest more in various domains of digital technology. Apart from setting up centres specially dedicated to data analytics, artificial technology, machine learning and Internet of Things (IoT) among others, they are also acquiring companies to build up digital capabilities.