Covid-19 impact: IT companies adopt no-shore model, let employees work from any location

As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to tighten its grip over global economies, its long-term impact on the way people work is inevitable.

With work-from-home becoming the norm, several IT companies have shifted to a new model where the location of their employees isn't much of a concern. The remote working situation has transformed the need for proximity, taking attention off the offshore, onshore or near-shore aspect of service providers and heading towards a 'no-shore' style of functioning.

One of the IT firms to gravitate towards this model is Wipro. The global information technology and consulting company moved to the 'no-shore' model a while ago, stating that it "meets the needs of the digital era while helping businesses pivot toward the future."

"Our No-Shore approach assembles cross-functional teams that achieve the efficiency and power of co-located staff, but using a distributed-delivery model," the company said.

Many companies like TCS, Wipro, Infosys have asked most of their employees to work from home with the Covid-19 situation unlikely to change in the near future.

“As long as they have the talent, they are able to connect and deliver the project. Whether you are working from Sydney, New York, Chennai or Kolkata, it doesn’t matter because the net has become much wider in the form of a ‘talent cloud’,” N Ganapathy Subramaniam, chief operating officer, TCS told Business Standard. “Our operating model is bringing together a team of talent across the globe with the right cost structure ... It is a multi-shoring model and a no-shore one. It is democratisation of the talent base,” he added.

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However, there have been voices within the industry that have raised concerns over shifting to an absolute no-shore model.

Sid Pai, the founder of venture-capital firm Siana Capital, told the publication that though the remote-working option was always available, companies were averse to switching to it for reasons like difficulty in policing the delivery. "But if the Covid-19 situation continues, there is a disaggregation. There is also a possibility of employees directly working for the clients and IT firms as intermediaries may no longer be relevant,” he said.

Some big names like Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy have also expressed their apprehensions over the work-from-home set-up in the past.

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"I believe the office is the place to work, home is the place to spend time with your loved ones. Mixing the two is not a good idea on a long-term basis. Yeah, I understand that there is no alternative therefore, we have adapted. But this should be a short-term solution," Infosys co-founder N R Narayana Murthy had said in September.