We had the Invensys Operations Management press teleconference this afternoon, then I had to dash out right away for another appointment. I'm still trying to digest the information--and evidently my Skype dial pad wasn't working because I didn't get through to ask a question live. (OK, some of you know that I never ask questions when all the other editors are listening, but I thought I'd make an exception.)
I covered the press release before. This is a five-year agreement where Cognizant will serve as IOM's "global development partner." The 400 Invensys employees in India have been offered jobs with Cognizant in order to maintain domain expertise and momentum. IOM vice president of control segment R&D says the Indian employees are overwhelmingly positive about taking jobs with Cognizant. 90% have accepted so far, and 95% expected to accept positions by the time it's completed. On the other hand, U.S.-based development personnel head count was previously reduced by about 7 percent with no additional cuts expected due to this contract.
Both Young and Cognizant Senior Vice President Mahesh Venkateswaran told
press during the teleconference that this is not a traditional outsourcing
arrangement, but indeed a strategic partnership for co-development of IOM
products and services. IOM will retain ownership of all intellectual property
and will focus on development of domain expertise, architecture development and
system design. Cognizant will focus on client satisfaction, specific verticals
and expertise such as integration of real-time manufacturing information to
enterprise systems. It expects the relationship to propel its entrance into the
manufacturing space from its base in information technology. The relationship
is expected to leverage the breadth of the companies combined resources to
improve capabilities and achieve faster time to market. No specific dollar
amounts were divulged, but the deal is reported to be worth multi-millions of
dollars.
I have asked several more questions and will report back as I learn more. With the new division alignment, change of old company names to product brand names, new management and now a new partner, these are huge changes for the company. I've known Sudipta for many years and saw how he helped SAP in the manufacturing space. Something had to happen to jump start the company after the disastrous Eberhart period. I have a feeling that they needed a huge jump start to product development and this is it. Further, I never saw the kind of movement in organization for selling InFusion and still-to-come operations management software. Looks as if this partnership with a huge SAP integration house will jump start that, as well.
This is called a "game changing" relationship. Well, I've heard that a lot the last couple of years. We'll see what game it changes. But I think that this is perhaps the bold move that the company needs to regain lost momentum. (even though I know how tough it is to go through these changes--I've lived them myself; but those of you who have the opportunity to accept the challenge and change the company should see better days ahead) There's a lot of work for the new team--and all the employees. It's time for focus, getting the word out, getting serious. It's time for management to start leading. This kind of turnaround has happened before in our industry. Since I like healthy competitors, I hope it happens again.
10:01:52 PM 
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