The Not So Happy Face of IT
Accenture Plc, a company with $43 billion in revenue and over 5,00,000 employees across the world, lowered its FY20 annual revenue guidance in March to 3-6 per cent from 6-8 per cent earlier, despite record order bookings of $14.2 billion in the second quarter (it follows the September-August calendar). The assessment of one of the world’s largest tech companies of the impact of Covid-19 was an early indication of things to come. The prognosis was not far off the mark.
The Crisis And The Fallout
In the middle of March, the coronavirus death toll in the US was still below 400. Around the same time, even though infections in India were below 500, Centre decided to impose a nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of the pandemic. The domestic IT-BPM (business process management) industry, with 55 per cent share of the global outsourcing market, was forced to implement business continuity plans on a war footing, at a scale like never before, and
