AI opportunity in reimagining core biz processes: Infosys delivery head

Infosys chief delivery officer Satish HC says AI is opening opportunities to redesign enterprise processes and reshape delivery models, as companies accelerate adoption of AI-native services

Infosys unveiled its AI first value framework last month to coincide with the India AI Impact Summit. The framework is expected to help global enterprises unlock the value of AI at scale. Satish HC, chief delivery officer at the IT major, tells Avik Das how the delivery model is likely to change because of AI and the transformation in the role of a delivery manager going forward. Edited excerpts:

 

You had earlier talked about how GenAI is the bedrock for every conversation right now. And now that you have a proper AI strategy in place, how do you think the delivery model is likely to change? 

The six sides of the hexagon represent the big value pool or opportunities in AI-native services. These include AI strategy and engineering, data for AI, process AI, agentic legacy modernisation, physical AI and AI trust. It's not that it was not there a year ago. With last year's evolution of agentic AI and the foundations that are coming out every other month, these have now become sizeable opportunities. And the risk is of execution. Within an enterprise, the biggest gap is enterprise adoption versus the rate at which the technology is moving. So we realized that the big opportunity is to relook at some of the core business processes and reimagine it. Topaz Fabric is our suite of services through which we will deliver AI services. Then it is about talent transformation.

 

How do you make your employees ready for this change? 

To do work like this, you need a dexterous workforce, very deep in engineering because today you're solving new problems at the intersection of engineering domain and intelligence. We have embarked on a talent strategy and transformation a year ago. We started something called a Y-shaped architecture, where instead of traditionally how we grew in large teams and management being the higher end of the career spectrum, now we are saying, you need not be a manager for you to have a great career. You need to have depth. That's a very distinctive change in services industry. It can be depth in engineering or domain. So we are now creating the career pathways for developing into these areas of depth.

 

Which are some of those processes that need to be reimagined? 

From tech services, we see our tech services itself is going through phenomenal change. You take CRM, you take supply chain, you take risk management and financial services. Each and every one of those functions is ripe for transformation. I don't think with AI, we're going to throw away the systems of record. We will only strengthen it. The systems of intelligence will become more intelligent with co-intelligence of human plus machines and the systems of engagement will be further reinforced with human plus machine intelligence.

So each of these layers will get amplified. But what is unique now is, a lot of this work, which used to happen at the top, will now happen through new systems of cognitive work, which will be powered by AI.

  ₹How does the role of a delivery manager evolve actually in this circumstance?

 

One needs to be curious. You need to be very clear about the art of the possible with technology, and they have to be a fundamentally a change agent, because they need to pivot conversations. If they're not able to do it, it's first of all, you have to guide teams. You have to problem solve with clients. So all of this starts with leadership at the top. Starting from CEO down to the leadership and down to even delivery manager or even project manager, which is the management layer, which runs the bulk of our organisation. They need to have an appreciation and hands-on experimentation with technology. So one of the things that I do is we constantly do reviews where we crowdsource ideas. See, I have to focus on activation. This is our change management approach.