Tech Mahindra Eyes Intelligence-Driven Growth in 2026 with ‘AI Delivered Right’ Strategy
As enterprises pivot from automation to AI-first strategies, Sahil Dhawan, the President and Head of IMEA Business at Tech Mahindra says his company is set to seize growing demand for generative AI and sector-specific solutions in manufacturing, BFSI, telecom, healthcare, and retail.
What opportunities do you foresee for 2026, and how do you plan to leverage them?
2026 presents a wealth of opportunities for us as enterprises worldwide evolve from pure efficiency toward intelligence-driven transformation. With the shift from ‘automation-first’ to ‘AI-first’, sectors such as manufacturing, BFSI, telecom, healthcare, and retail are increasingly seeking cost reduction, agility, resilience, and creative reinvention.
Building on our 2025 recognition as an emerging leader in generative-AI consulting and implementation services, we see significant demand for deeply integrated AI/ML-powered enterprise solutions. To leverage these trends, we will accelerate rollout of our ‘AI Delivered Right’ strategy, embedding AI into core business processes, developing new AI-native products and services, and helping customers modernize legacy architectures. We will also expand our domain-specific AI offerings (e.g. manufacturing-AI, banking automation, telecom operations) to enable customers to sense disruption early, adapt rapidly, and compete at speed.
What major challenges did you encounter this year, and how did you address them?
2025 was a year defined by accelerated enterprise demand for intelligence-driven transformation, and with that came the need to reshape how organizations expect technology partners to operate. One of the most significant shifts we navigated was the rapid move from experimentation to scaled AI adoption.
Customers sought strategic intelligence, and this required us to elevate our advisory depth, strengthen responsible AI frameworks, and ensure transformation programs were anchored in measurable impact. Market volatility and geopolitical complexity also reshaped delivery expectations. We responded by strengthening our distributed delivery model, enhancing operational resilience, and deploying our own AI platforms to drive predictability, quality, and speed across engagements.
The talent landscape evolved as well, driven by the rise of multi-agent systems and new AI workflows. We deepened our investments in upskilling, built stronger fusion teams, and expanded AI literacy across roles. This ensured that our teams remained ahead of the capability curve and could guide customers through the next phase of intelligence-led reinvention.
Can you elaborate on your strategic partnerships this year and plans for next year?
The year has been remarkable in terms of deepening and new strategic partnerships that reinforce our AI and cloud-transformation roadmap. Notably, we expanded our collaboration with Google Cloud to scale enterprise-wide AI adoption, combining our domain expertise with their advanced AI platforms (including Gemini and agentic-AI capabilities) to deliver industry-specific solutions across sectors like telecom, healthcare, manufacturing, and BFSI.
Simultaneously, we partnered with AMD to accelerate hybrid-cloud transformation and high-performance computing adoption globally, integrating AMD’s compute infrastructure with our Cloud BlazeTech offering to support scalable, secure AI workloads. We also collaborated with niche AI firms (e.g. Nuix and KOGO AI) to deliver advanced investigative analytics, fraud detection, and private-AI infrastructure, closing gaps in compliance, data security, and on-premise AI deployment for regulated industries.
Looking ahead to 2026, we plan to deepen these alliances, co-innovating with hyper-scalers, infrastructure vendors, and startups to accelerate tailor-made AI solutions, as well as expand ecosystem collaborations to enable rapid go-to-market and global scaling for customers.
What will be your primary focus areas and strategic priorities for 2026?
Our focus is centered on strengthening the foundations that underpin long-term, intelligence-led transformation. Rather than articulating forecasts, our priority is to deepen the structural capabilities that matter most to our clients: trusted AI delivery, domain-aligned solutions, and human-centric transformation models. A key emphasis will be reinforcing the principles of responsible AI, governance, transparency, and ethical use ensuring every deployment meets the highest standards of trust.
Equally important is strengthening our ability to work through fusion teams that blend domain, technology, and AI expertise, which has become essential as enterprises move from pilots to scaled intelligence. We will also continue sharpening our industry depth across telecom, manufacturing, BFSI, healthcare, and retail through platforms, accelerators, and architectures built around real-world operational needs. The intent is not expansion for its own sake, but deepening our capability to help clients navigate complexity with clarity, resilience, and intelligence.
Are there plans to explore new markets or introduce new products/applications in 2026?
As we look ahead, our priority is to stay deeply aligned with where industry demand is evolving and to position our AI, engineering, and domain-led capabilities to shape differentiated value. The shift toward intelligence-driven enterprises is creating new opportunity spaces—sectoral, operational, and application-centric—where our strengths can translate into high-impact, context-rich solutions.
We are engaging closely with customers and ecosystem partners to understand these emerging vectors of demand and to identify where focused expansion or solution refinement can amplify outcomes. This includes assessing adjacent domains and thoughtfully advancing offerings that enhance our portfolio while reinforcing our strategic posture. Our approach is disciplined, insight-driven, and anchored in capability maturity, ensuring that as new opportunities surface whether in markets, segments, or solution layers, we participate with clarity of purpose, strategic selectivity, and deep value conviction.
How is your company approaching sustainability, digital transformation, or AI adoption in preparation for 2026?
Sustainability is not an independent agenda for us, it is deeply interwoven into how we design, deliver, and scale transformation. We continue to integrate environmental, social, and governance principles into our core operating model, focusing on energy efficiency across facilities, green-cloud architectures, low-carbon engineering practices, and responsible supply-chain engagement.
On the digital and AI front, our approach remains centered on responsible adoption. Through ‘AI Delivered Right’, we have built a structured framework that ensures transparency, governance, risk-management, and ethical usage are embedded into every deployment. This allows enterprises to scale AI confidently, without compromising trust or regulatory compliance.
Equally important is the human dimension. We continue to nurture AI-literate talent, encourage experimentation, and build cross-functional fusion teams, ensuring that the future of intelligence-driven transformation remains inclusive, ethical, and centered on human potential.
