IT firms shying away from COO roles now

So, organisations are becoming flatter. The senior leader has to have some expertise and has to create some impact. That is the reason that the industry has seen positions like Chief Information Security Officer, Chief Data Officer and Chief Innovation Officer among others. This is clear departure from appointing people to usual CXO roles - Aditya Narayan Mishra, CEO of CIEL HR, tells Bizz Buzz

Bengaluru: Indian IT firms are slowly phasing out the role of Chief Operating Officers (COOs) from their organisation structures as they are keen to man senior roles with specialised domains.

Experts in the know said that IT firms are distributing the roles of COOs among top executives as clients are looking at specialised technology domains before awarding contracts. The advent of many emerging technologies like AI, ML, data analytics, GenAI, cloud computing and others, is accelerating this trend.

“Indian IT firms are looking at specific areas of expertise than just layers of management to come in. So, organisations are becoming flatter. The person (senior leader) has to have some expertise and has to create some impact. That is the reason that the industry has seen positions like Chief Information Security Officer, Chief Data Officer and Chief Innovation Officer among others. This is clear departure from appointing people to usual CXO roles,” Aditya Narayan Mishra, CEO of CIEL HR, told Bizz Buzz.

This trend has already been obvious as many large IT firms have already done away with the COO roles in recent years.

Companies like Infosys had phased out the roles of COOs in past years. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has recently said that the company wouldn’t appoint anyone as COO after retirement of its current COO N Ganapathy Subramaniam. TCS COO will retire from services this month. In 2022, Infosys scrapped the role of COO after the retirement of its then COO, UB Pravin Rao. The Bengaluru-headquartered firm then distributed his responsibilities between a handful of top executives including its two presidents in the US and UK. Similarly, TCS has said that it would not replace anyone after its current COO retires.

“He’s (Subramaniam) been doing many things and no single individual can replace him, our current thinking is, our leadership team, we are re-distributing the work he’s been doing and we don’t intend to appoint a new COO,” Chief Executive Officer of TCS, K Krithivasan said addressing the post Q4 results press conference. Meanwhile, senior level hiring has come down in the IT services industry owing to the tepid demand environment. Experts said companies are becoming choosy in filing up leadership roles as compared to the post-pandemic period.

“Companies are hiring only for strategically important positions. Unlike good days, when IT firms were more willing to hire people on senior positions, they have been very selective in filling up senior positions, who can supplement growth,” said another HR expert.

He said that backfilling of many senior positions may not happen in coming quarters.