We aim to be a 100% digitally-ready workforce: Sumit Sood, group v-p & head Asia Pacific, GlobalLogic

SUMIT SOOD, Group Vice President & Head of APAC, GlobalLogic

Recently, Hitachi announced it has completed the acquisition of GlobalLogic, a digital product engineering services company headquartered in San Jose, California, United States. The acquisition was valued at $9.6 billion and is “one of the biggest in the digital engineering services space,” says Sumit Sood, group vice-president and head of Asia Pacific, GlobalLogic. “Together, Hitachi and GlobalLogic will create greater value for our clients by delivering social innovation business through digital technology,” he tells Sudhir Chowdhary, while discussing the specific details of the deal and plans for India. Excerpts:

What will be the implications of this acquisition on GlobalLogic and its clients and employees?
The acquisition was valued at $9.6 billion and is one of the biggest acquisitions which is approximately 2.5 times the size of the last recorded deal of Capgemini’s acquisition of Altran for $4.1 billion in 2019. This has opened a new vista of opportunities for us as we are now servicing from five to 14 industries and are expanding our footprint from 14 to 80 countries. This will benefit our clients with a broader range of offerings that are available through Hitachi. So, this could be summarised as deeper capabilities and larger geographical footprint for our clients.

The digital transformation journey of clients around the world consists of recasting their business across infrastructure (both IT/OT), data and digital talent. Hitachi’s expertise with operative technology in domains like power, transportation etc, where the Lumada platform offers deep vertical expertise as well as the IT and data analytics part, and GlobalLogic’s digital engineering talent and services, will advance the IT/OT solutions and data from Lumada to accelerate the creation of new digital customer experiences and business models for our clients. Together, Hitachi and GlobalLogic will create greater value for clients by delivering social innovation business through digital technology.

Our employees now have an opportunity to work with stakeholders across the greater Hitachi ecosystem. They will be deeply involved in the vast range of Hitachi offerings and Hitachi’s five social business domains. We aim to be a 100% digitally-ready workforce, identifying the next and best practices, and more importantly, driving towards a bright future through DARQ (Distributed Ledger, Artificial Intelligence, Extended Reality, and Quantum Computing) technologies.

How does it increase GlobalLogic and Hitachi’s synergies?
Hitachi’s expertise with operative technologies in domains like financial services, manufacturing, healthcare and life sciences, energy and utilities, retail, government and transportation where Lumada’s platform (which helps in deep digital and operating insights across Industry 4.0 and smart life) combined with GlobalLogic’s robust digital product engineering capabilities and services will accelerate digital transformation and development for the industry. This will accelerate the development, market penetration, and client delivery of Hitachi’s Lumada advanced digital solutions and services on a global scale, alongside their sister company, Hitachi Vantara. GlobalLogic will be a valued engineering and go-to-market partner to Hitachi’s key social innovation business domains: mobility, smart life, industry, energy, automotive, and IT.

What are GlobalLogic’s plans for India, in terms of accelerating business growth and continuity?
The engineering research & development (ER&D) space has come to a prime focus for many organisations as engineers/developers today hold greater significance in boosting India’s digital transformation journey than ever before. India’s share in the global ER&D market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 12-13% to reach $63 billion by 2025 from $31 billion in 2019.

Within wide IT, ER&D is the fastest booming industry and then within ER&D space, GlobalLogic is amongst the fastest growing companies. For GlobalLogic’s ecosystem, India is the fastest growing geography and hence, we have the power of three in our favour as far as growth is concerned.

What is the state of the product engineering space in India versus global? How do you see this landscape changing?
Digital engineering is expected to grow rapidly and will have close to 40% share in global ER&D spend by 2023. With scalable advantages available with cloud engineering, India can emerge as the hub for digital solutions across ER&D space with advanced technologies such as AI, IoT, 5G, Edge, etc., and collaborations with industry leaders to shape the digital future. Sectors across automotive, consumer electronics, healthcare, telecom, semiconductor, will drive growth.

However, as we cross the threshold of the post-digital age, the actual game-changer will be the new technology stack DARQ. These technologies are defining the new wave driven by the shifts in business models, customer experience, operations, and employee experience. This has augmented the focus of firms and the resultant shift of businesses to invest in emerging rather than foundational technologies; DARQ will either together or in their individual ways become a permanent deployment in all we do in the future.