Summit: Disintermediation and disruption key to innovation, says Virtusa’s Kris

Apr 12, 2016 (LBO) – Disruption goes hand-in-hand with disintermediation and is a key feature that drives innovation, Kris Canekeratne of global IT outsourcing company Virtusa said.

He was speaking at the well-attended LBR LBO Enterprise Summit 2016: Build Smarter Businesses with Smart Technologies or be Outsmarted, held in Colombo on Thursday.



“What would life be like today without your favorite app, to do what you want it to do when you want it to?” Canekeratne, chairman and chief executive, Virtusa said. “In the last ten years there has been change that has made our life so much better.

” He said there are new breeds of companies that are the fastest-growing in history. Uber and Airbnb, these companies are indescribably thin layers that sit on top of vast supply systems, where the costs are, and interface with a huge number of people, where the money is.



So what does this trend have to do with “disintermediation” and “disruption,” said Canekeratne.

“Disintermediation is basically the removal of brokering entities between producers and consumers.” Disintermediation occurs every time someone clicks a website order form instead of talking to a person. “I think we all have the ability to come up with a novel idea to dramatically change the way you serve your end consumer.





And if you don’t the chances are that you will be disrupted,” he said. "Would you believe that in the past ten years 50 percent of the Fortune 500 companies are no longer there." That experience is driving fundamental change in business models across the globe, and this is obviously enabled by technology. “Big data is at the epicenter of creating a good experience or moments, and at the end of the day it is about creating a vessel or an experience for the end customer.



” Virtusa says for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2015, revenue was 479 million US dollars, an increase of 21 percent compared to 396.9 million US dollars for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2014.



This represents revenue growth of 21 percent in constant currency. Virtusa in March 2016 announced its India subsidiary acquired all of the outstanding shares of Polaris Consulting and Services held by Arun Jain, founder and chairman of Polaris, for USD270 million.