India’s Edge Isn’t Just Talent – It’s the Will to Build ft. Ajai Chowdhry | Legends and Legacies

Sidhant: Hello Ajai, and hello everyone. Welcome to another exciting episode of the Zinnov Podcast: Business Resilience Series. I’m Sidhant, President at Zinnov and your host for today. I’m truly honored to have Ajai Chowdhry with us.

Ajai needs no introduction. He’s a pioneering entrepreneur, a Padma Bhushan awardee, and one of the founding members of HCL, going all the way back to 1976. He has been instrumental in shaping not just the Indian technology services space, but also — more recently — India’s electronics, manufacturing, and semiconductor landscape. He’s also been at the forefront of crafting government policies that enable and foster the technology ecosystem in India.

So I’m really looking forward to learning from him today — both about the evolution of tech services and the emerging technology landscape in India. It’s a privilege to have you here, Ajai.

Ajai: Thank you.

Sidhant: Let me start with a question that’s been on my mind. Over the last two decades, we’ve worked closely with the tech services community. And one of the first things that comes to mind when I think of HCL is this idea of a “Leadership Factory.”

If you look across the industry today, you’ll find so many leaders who started at HCL: Sandeep Kalra, President and CEO at Persistent; Sukamal Banerjee, CEO of Cyient, who spent 27 years at HCL; Srikrishna Ramakarthikeyan, CEO of Hexaware. There’s also Sandeep Kishore, and CP Gurnani, who all began their journeys there. And when you look at boardrooms, people like Rohit Kapoor and many others come to mind. I could go on.

What’s the secret sauce behind creating these kinds of leaders?

Ajai: You know, right from the beginning — when we started HCL — I remember in Year One, we went to IIM Calcutta. We gave a talk on what we were trying to build. At that time, we had zero revenue.

We told them we wanted to take the microprocessor and change the world. We said we were setting up a design and manufacturing company — it would be called Hindustan Computers Limited. A lot of the students were excited, but after the presentation, some walked up to us and said, “You’re just starting out. We don’t know if you’ll survive.”

Startups weren’t a thing back then. We were, frankly, a strange animal. But there was one thing we said that changed their minds: “We’re not offering you a job. We’re offering you an adventure.”

That, I believe, is the story of HCL. From the very beginning, we’ve been deeply entrepreneurial. And because of that, we’ve built a company that produced many entrepreneurs.

You asked about choosing the right people — and that, truly, is the secret. From the start, we followed a selection process based on McClelland’s Theory from Harvard. It was all about identifying people with a high need for achievement.

Sidhant: You mean — hunger?

Ajai: Exactly. But technically, McClelland spoke of three needs: need for achievement, need for power, and need for affiliation. What we did during hiring was give candidates a set of pictures — and ask them to write short stories based on those visuals.

When we read those stories, we’d analyze the language and themes to identify people who displayed a strong need for achievement. That’s how we built the company. That’s how we ended up with people who went on to succeed — across departments, across the industry — and kept the company moving forward in a big way.

Sidhant: Interesting, Ajai. I had a related question. You mentioned a few things earlier — hiring people with very high caliber, and emphasizing entrepreneurship, which I interpret as creating a sense of autonomy. Maybe that’s what allowed a company like HCL to grow at such high rates and sustain that growth over such a long time.

But give us a simple contrast — where do you think things have shifted? Because right now, we’re seeing the entire industry growing at a much slower pace, especially in terms of technology.

Take Generative AI for instance — when services companies talk about it, the focus seems to be mostly on wrappers and not on building anything core. So where do you think the real change has happened? Is it in the leadership? Is it in how we hire? Because — and you mentioned this earlier — I don’t think many companies today are going to IIMs to hire core talent the way you did. So what’s really going on here?

Ajai: Well, actually, AI has been around for more than 50 years — it’s nothing new. But it’s only when OpenAI released ChatGPT in 2022 that things really began to shift. And the pace of change since then has been phenomenal. I don’t think I’ve seen this kind of velocity in technological advancement before. You hear a major announcement every four or five days now.

But that doesn’t mean our industry can’t adapt. It absolutely can — and it has, many times before. The industry has gone through cycles, and it’s always found a way to respond in the right manner.

Many years ago, we had issues around visas and the H-1B program. That was a big disruption. And the industry’s answer was offshoring. Initially, onshoring was the dominant model, and offshoring was relatively minor. But today, offshoring accounts for almost 95–98%, while only 2–3% is onshore.

In recent years, the new shift has been nearshoring — and again, this came directly from evolving customer demands. The industry responded quickly by setting up facilities in countries like Poland and other nearshore locations.

At this point, it’s no longer fair to call this just an Indian industry. It’s a global industry, based out of India. Indian companies have evolved into global organizations. They’ve understood what customers need, how those needs are changing, and the pace at which things must change.

So I think the industry has responded brilliantly to the major shifts over the past 15–20 years — from the 2000 dot-com bubble to today’s emergence of Generative AI.

But the challenge today is different. With AI and automation, a lot of the traditional work that services companies did is either changing dramatically or disappearing altogether.

So now we need to find replacements — new services, new value areas. If coding can now be automated, and call centers replaced by chatbots, we have to be ready to evolve again. This time, we need to explore new opportunities and new geographies to offset the work that’s being lost.

Sidhant: Let me take this one step further. You’re already alluding to it — but if we look at the kind of business model and engagement model shifts that have happened, there’s something deeper going on. When we talk about technology services firms — companies that are supposed to specialize in tech — the expectation from customers is that these firms should operate at a very high level of technological understanding.

But the general perception in the market doesn’t always match that. And I’ll push you on that with a quick example.

If you look at a company like Palantir, it’s a good case study. From around 2002 to 2015, it was essentially a pure-play tech services firm. They deployed people onsite, did high-end software development — and that was the model. Today, that company is valued close to $300 billion.

For context, even Accenture, one of the biggest global IT services companies, is valued around $250 billion. What changed? In the last five years, Palantir made a clear pivot — investing in IP, building products, deploying modular software at scale, and creating bespoke tools at almost disposable speeds.

So my question is — why is this transformation happening outside India, when we’ve led the global services space for decades? Why haven’t we built product companies at that scale? Why don’t we have firms that own solid IP, and generate meaningful revenue from it?

Ajai: That’s a very valid question. And honestly, 10 to 15 years ago, whenever I walked into drawing room conversations, people used to ask me the same thing — “Why don’t we have a Microsoft from India?” or “Where is India’s Google?”

You’re essentially asking the same question, just updated to today’s context. And my answer is — things are changing.

In the last 10 years, we’ve seen the rise of real software product companies in India. That’s a big shift. The leading catalyst for this change has been the creation of India Stack and UPI. Today, if someone asks me that drawing room question again, I can point to UPI as a gold-standard example of a world-class tech product built in India.

And that’s the benchmark now — which means we can go bigger in the product and IP space.

Take HCL, for instance. Around 7–8 years ago, we made a conscious decision to invest in software products. Instead of building everything from scratch, we acquired a set of enterprise software products from IBM — a billion-dollar deal — and created HCL Software.

Today, HCL Software is a $1.5 to $1.6 billion business. It’s the largest software product company in India, and the 18th largest in the world. So it’s very much possible — we come from a background of understanding software deeply.

That said, product is a different game from services. The kind of people you need are different. Product management is different. Sales is different. Positioning is different. It’s a whole other muscle — but it’s one we can build. The base capability is there. The bench strength is there. What we need now is speed.

We have to move — quickly — from being a services-first nation to a product-first one. And this applies not just to software, but to electronics as well — something I’ve been deeply involved with. Today, in electronics, we’re still operating largely as a services industry — doing EMS, or Electronic Manufacturing Services. We’re assembling, but we’re not creating products.

Unless we make the leap from services to products, we’re not going to break out of the middle-income trap. We’ll continue to sit at a lower level of per capita income.

So this shift — from services to IP and products — is something we need to push for, across industries. It’s not just desirable anymore. It’s essential.

Sidhant: That’s very well put, Ajai. And we also remember that one of the early contributions of IT services companies was their investment in large-scale, in-house training institutions. HCL had its own strong training programs. Infosys became legendary for its Mysore facility.

But today, being closer to the industry, what I observe is that this kind of hyper-focused training — whether in new technologies or deep upskilling — seems to have reduced. Do you think that’s fair to say? Have companies shifted from building talent to mostly just buying it — hiring from wherever it’s available? What’s your view on this shift, given your long-term perspective?

Ajai: I think it’s happening both ways. Training and upskilling are still going on — but yes, hiring “readymade” talent has increased significantly. Companies want to move faster, respond to market changes more quickly, and that often means hiring people who already have the required skills rather than building them from scratch.

This trend will continue. But one major change in the last 10 to 15 years is that companies are no longer just delivering services — they are now delivering advice and consulting. That’s a fundamental shift. Top firms are positioning themselves not as vendors who do what they’re told, but as partners who add real value. That’s the evolution that’s taken place.

Within the software services space, there are certain verticals where India has built exceptional capability. One of them is R&D exports — and interestingly, that’s an area that doesn’t get disrupted as much by AI. In fact, R&D will benefit from GenAI. You can design a chip better using AI. You can reduce time, increase precision, and improve outcomes.

This is an area I’ve been deeply involved in from my early days at HCL. I was part of the original Cisco Development Center setup, and many other chip design initiatives. HCL itself started as a hardware company, and the first big step we took was in R&D exports.

We also innovated in infrastructure services, which became another strong vertical. So over the years, these verticals were built not just to drive growth — but to create differentiation.

And while consulting and advisory are now mainstream, I still believe India must move toward products. That’s the next leap.

A recent example: in the latest conflict, we saw India demonstrate its own technological capability. We didn’t rely on tools from China, America, or Turkey. Indian technology stood on its own — and in many cases, outperformed alternatives. That tells you something.

The ingenuity, the innovation — it’s already here. I’ve always believed the Indian mind is capable of doing anything. Now we just need to channel that capability toward IP creation and tech sovereignty.

Just this past Sunday, I delivered a talk on Technology Day — which coincides with the anniversary of the Pokhran nuclear test. And what I said was simple: it’s time for India to go beyond Atmanirbharta.

We need to move from Atmanirbharta to Atmiyata — from self-reliance to true technological ownership. The future must be built on our own technology, in areas like quantum, semiconductors, drones — everything.

We need to become an IP nation. And we need to build the next Qualcomm right here, in India, in the coming decades.

Sidhant: You mentioned two things earlier — first, the idea of hunger, that those with a deep need to achieve become great leaders. Second, you spoke about the growing shift toward consulting in tech services. Let me give you a cricket analogy — in the 2002 NatWest Series, when Saurav Ganguly’s team beat England at Lord’s and he took off his shirt, it was a turning point. A statement of confidence.

I feel like the Indian IT industry needs a moment like that. Because even today, we often position ourselves as executors — “Tell us what to do, and we’ll do it well.” But when clients meet companies like Palantir, they see them as the experts who tell them what should be done. I don’t think it’s a capability issue. It’s about mindset. Confidence. Do you see that too? Is that something you coach leadership on?

Ajai: Absolutely. I’ve always believed that an organization must be sales-led. I’ve written about it in my book too — there’s an entire chapter called Salesmanship.

Every startup I mentor hears this from me: If your CEO is not sales-oriented, you will not succeed. It’s as simple as that. That’s how we built HCL — it’s always been a sales-driven company, led by remarkable sales leaders. And now, more and more companies are realizing this.

Until about a decade ago, many leaders thought, “The technology will sell itself.” That’s just not true. Technology doesn’t sell itself. A salesperson sells it. That’s the fundamental difference.

Now, a lot of people say, “Salespeople are born.” That’s nonsense. Salespeople are created. Trained. Built. And while people used to treat sales as an art, it’s really a science. Behind that science is a whole system — robust processes designed to empower sales.

I’ll give you an example from HCL. Around 15 years ago, we had built a sales factory — a structured process to support account strategy. For every major customer, we built a customized strategy grounded in a deep study of that company — its balance sheet, P&L, customers, competitors.

So when a salesperson walked into the room, they weren’t winging it — they were armed with intelligence. When a proposal was needed, it came back to the “factory,” which knew how to respond. That kind of process orientation in sales — it’s what gives you confidence. It’s what helps you lead conversations rather than follow them. And that’s what we need more of in the Indian tech industry today.

Sidhant: I think the reason you see me smiling is because this is something that’s very close to our heart as well. One of the things we’ve noticed—and the reason I brought up the HCL leadership factory upfront—is that each of these HCL leaders were natively strong sales professionals.

Ajai: Yes.

Sidhant: And if I look at the industry today, I’d say there’s been a significant decline in truly great sales talent across the board. One of the questions I really wanted to ask you was exactly this—there was a time when almost everyone who rose through the ranks was a high-hustle salesperson.

But now, the number of pure-play, high-performing salespeople has dropped, and the consultative sales layer hasn’t grown enough either. The industry had it a little easier for about a decade—there were incoming RFPs, demand was high, and growth came more naturally.

Was the model just different back then? HCL had both product and hardware sales, so people honed their skills there—before getting into services. Where do you think we fell behind? And what would your recommendation be for today’s leadership—to rebuild that high-hustle sales DNA?

Ajai: You may be right there. When things are going really well, and margins are at 40–50%, companies become complacent. That era is over.

And I think India always responds best in times of crisis. And this — what’s happening today — is a crisis.

Sidhant: So you agree we’re in a services crisis?

Ajai: Definitely. It’s staring us in the face. Automation and AI are serious headwinds for the services business—very real. You can see it reflected in the drop in manpower additions, and in some cases, outright reductions.

But this crisis will be good for us. Crises bring out our best. I often refer to COVID—when we had zero PPEs, zero ventilators, zero vaccines—and in 12 months, we had everything. The whole country came together.

Similarly, this industry needs to come together and think differently.

In the last 10 years, we’ve seen a huge influx of global companies into India. Alongside Indian firms, these global players have hired some of the best people. That’s the challenge facing Indian companies today.

So the question is—should we fight them? Should we partner with them? Should we supply to them? Should we set up a GCC model within our companies and support them?

This is the real dilemma. Because today, we’re looking at 1700+ GCCs in India—and more coming in.

And thank God the geopolitical uncertainty is subsiding—because if that had continued, many investors would have started rethinking their bets on India.

So yes, this is a new kind of challenge. And the GCC boom is a completely different kind of inflection point.

Sidhant: Ajai, that’s very fascinating — that you call GCCs a new challenge. Because if you look at Zinnov, we’ve been doing both parts for about 20 years. We’ve always helped companies come in and invest. Is that issue specifically with you? Because it’s something that you cannot ignore.

Ajai: Correct.

Sidhant: So in your mind, let’s maybe just spend a couple of minutes on the GCC topic itself. There are two ways we’re seeing services companies respond to this. One is by trying to compete. And when I say compete, I mean they’re developing their own models — like HCL has done, Wipro recently announced one, and every company seems to have a version of the BOT-plus-plus offer.

At the same time, what a company really wants is someone who can help them set up, hire talent, and operationalize quickly. Do you really think helping companies set up GCCs is a place where service providers should even spend that much management bandwidth? Or is there enough work to be done as a technology specialist — to say, “Hey, I know what to do with my data engineers, and I’ll deliver a semi-finished product or work package”?

That was the direction the industry had always gone — up the value chain. And now, suddenly, we seem to be saying, “We’ll hire for you in India,” which sounds more like a recruitment business, not even a services business. I’d love your candid take on that.

Ajai: That’s a tough question. Because it really depends — company to company. It depends on their reach. It depends on their verticals. And it depends on the quality of their leaders and salespeople. If they have the capability to lead and sell, why would they need to go the GCC route?

They should have the confidence to stand on their own. But if a company’s thinking, “Maybe for the next three years I’ll do GCC-plus-plus,” then that’s a different game. That’s a short-term play. It’s about picking up some low-hanging fruit while you figure things out.

To me, that’s a temporary strategy. A long-term strategy is to upgrade yourself — move towards more and more consulting, build high-level sales capability, and stand on your own two feet.

And let the GCCs come — they’re going to come, and there’s no harm in that. The way I look at GCCs is actually quite positive.

Especially when I look at my work in semiconductors, I see GCCs as a great training ground. A launchpad for new startups — the kind that will become tomorrow’s Qualcomms. The fabless companies of the future are going to emerge from today’s GCCs, because they’re building real products here.

Earlier, GCCs were doing just a part of the work. But from what I understand now — when I speak with folks at Intel or AMD — they tell me they’re literally developing the entire chip out of India. That’s a capability we didn’t have in the country before. And it’s of immense value to India.

So yes, there are challenges. But we also need to look at the positives. That’s how I see it.

Sidhant: You look at the war that happened just now, was it a war between India and Pakistan?

Ajai: I think Pakistan was a proxy for China, and so it’s very critical that we start to create our own industry, our own products, design our own systems, and be self-sufficient beyond what we need to have, which is, you know, technology sovereignty.

And I think here semiconductors play a very major role. I think like seven years ago I read about this senator in America, his name was Ben Sassy, senator for intelligence, and he wrote a very beautiful line. He said, “The next wars will be fought with semiconductors.” And they were, I mean, the last five days have proven that that’s exactly what happened because technology.

And today, we have an outstanding team at Metis and that helps us because Trishna is superb, uh, actually is superb, and the team below is also very, very good. What I see is that this was needed and it is being done. We have a long way to go.

Sidhant: So Ajai, I wanted to pick you on the sales-led or the sales-first organization from an IT services context. And I could not agree with you more on that side. The more I speak to the leaders, I see this constant struggle to find the right leadership who is able to have this structured process plus the hustle to sell.

In your experience, and maybe if you were to advise some of them, is there a way to maybe create either an ecosystem or a way to train some of them to actually be really good salespeople? Because right now, somehow you are almost supposed to automatically graduate to become a salesperson. You do great delivery, then you become account manager, and then you become a salesperson.

In my mind, this process doesn’t work, right? It’s a hit and miss. Some person might be good, naturally they work, but more often than not, they’re almost set up to fail. We know how to train people on technology. Is there a way that, you know, this should happen as a process to train people to become good sellers or consultative sellers on technology?

Ajai: I think very critically, training of salespeople should be done before they become salespeople. If their delivery people select the right people from there who have the need for achievement. If they don’t have the need for achievement, it’s a waste of them. Test them for need for achievement. If they have need for achievement.

They start to become heads of delivery, then they become account managers, then they become sales managers. Before they become account managers, give them a solid three-month sales training. If you don’t do that, you are not gonna be successful. Yeah. See, what we used to do to test in HCL was that we would just take two salespeople, make one a seller, one a buyer, and have an actual conversation take place in a video where we would record this. So one becomes a salesman, the other becomes a buyer, and they’re all fighting with each other to be successful. And the better guy wins. You’ll be able to figure out whether they’ve achieved that capability or not. I mean, there’s a very simple model, I’m telling you, there are many other ways to test.

Sidhant: Got it. So that, and also the sales process, like you mentioned there.

Ajai: Yes. See, the biggest challenge with salespeople is they never follow processes. That’s almost, it’s supposed to be that we almost, right? Because they, well, “I know everything. I don’t need to put it in CRM.” Well, that doesn’t work. That heroism doesn’t work. It is process.

So what you’re saying is, one, you need discipline, you need process, and obviously you need to be equipped, well trained. And also motivated. You need to have that hunger in the first place of achievement.

You see, what we used to do in HCL was that we had a senior management training program, which when we would hire from an institute of management, we would give them an 18-month plan. In these 18 months, this is what you have to achieve. It was called a zero or one plan. So in 18 months, if you succeeded, you would go two levels up in the company or you would exit.

Sidhant: So Ajai, almost my last question to you, and I wish I had more time. My last question is everything that’s happening today, if today you were to start, uh, tech services firm, what areas would you look at? What type of people would you hire and what kind of mix of product versus services versus consulting revenue would you target in the next three years?

Ajai: I wouldn’t start a services company again. I was kind of expecting this answer because, you know, previously we discussed this. Right. I like your answer. I would not want you to change that. The next question I have is, do you actually see another $10 billion IT services company happening, or do you think that structurally the market has too many players and is not that easy?

It is a bit saturated. You’ll never get something or it’ll be in so long. Or it’ll be only through M&A. So what’s your take on that? I feel that a $10 billion company can majorly happen through M&A because for you to create it from scratch to $10 billion is not gonna be easy.