Mastek CEO Sudhakar Ram has an article in ET on how the current financial crisis could be a boon for "second and third wave" of IT Services companies. When we dig into the reasons for the crisis, while we can blame blind optimism and greed, at a more fundamental level it is a failure of systems. The quality of underwriting at the point of loan origination had failed. Systemic controls that ensure uniform and consistent application of underwriting rules could have done much to avoid bad loans. Better controls and risk management systems governing individual firms as well as the entire financial system would have helped to track the quantum of leverage and the risks associated with it — both from the perspective of board governance and regulatory oversight. All these point to a desperate need for a massive overhaul of systems — and a substantial investment in new IT initiatives. For too long, large institutions have been trying to get away with spending 80% of IT dollars just...