BENGALURU: Wipro has initiated a new model of outsourcing that can potentially revolutionise the information technology services space: it has launched a platform that enables enterprises to crowdsource highlyskilled works, particularly in emerging technologies.The platform, Hybrid Crowd , is built on Topcoder, the world’s largest workforce marketplace for designers, developers and data scientists , which became a Wipro company in November last year when the Bengaluru-based firm bought US-based cloud services company Appirio. While this is a relatively new model, Wipro and other companies including TCS are slowly working on crowdsourcing models that can help in delivering complex technology works at competitive rates.Experts say this model can turn out to be disruptive, as it precisely solves the problem of quality talent supply for many businesses including IT firms that have otherwise faced dearth of people to innovate and crack complex business challenges.“Crowdsourcing, of which Hybrid Crowd is a great example and leading product, clearly competes for the contingent labour market (subcontracting),” said Peter Bendor-Samuel, chief executive officer at Everest Group, a global IT research firm. “At this time it is only capturing a very small share of this market but it is growing fast,” he said.IT services companies such as Wipro, TCS and Infosys traditionally resorted to models such as deployment of software engineers on visas, and sub-contracting staff to work on projects. These models are increasingly facing challenges due to pricing pressure in IT services business coupled with protectionism in global growth markets.Hence the expected rise of platforms such as Hybrid Crowd, where employees and freelancers certified in emerging technologies can work on complex problems of clients across geographies.“The industry is just learning how and where to use offerings such as Hybrid Crowd,” Bendor-Samuel said. “Clearly the new capability allows Wipro to do new and interesting things that its old model was not well suited for.”Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Wipro’s larger peer, has a closed crowdsourcing platform called KnoMe that has communities focused on emerging technologies such as data analytics, internet of things (IoT) to solve complex business problems of its customers. Hybrid Crowd or KnoMe do not reflect large numbers that may transform the existing strategies followed by IT services companies overnight. But this model appears to be in line with the industry’s transformation mantra — agile or location-independent services.“It is like ‘Uberisation’ of talent,” said Madhu Babu, IT analyst at brokerage firm Prabhudas Lilladher. “We foresee this to become prominent in three to four years,” he said, adding that more companies are experimenting with similar platforms. A crowdsourcing platform typically works on a challenge-based approach. Certified company employees and freelancers code programmes to solve complex problems on a pre-set price. IT sector experts and equity analysts said such platforms would help create an alternative talent pool for IT services companies to work on complex problems of businesses. An executive at a large IT firm said a crowdsourcing platform can eventually translate into deployment of a certified talent like a sub-contracted staff, albeit in fewer numbers.“Through such platforms you have this big database programmers participating in projects on your platforms (and) you have a captive audience to whom you can go and make a job offer and say would you like to work on a sub-contract for the next three to four months,” the person told ET.KR Sanjiv, chief technology officer at Wipro, said Hybrid Crowd is not a substitute to sub-contracting. “It will be an additional channel for delivery for enterprise customers to get work done,” he said. “It is a model of crowdsourcing where certain types of work can be carved out by an enterprise, and the hybrid crowd platform will be leveraged to deliver that.”Two analysts, however, said a crowdsourcing platform, especially an open forum of IT professionals, has limited option for enterprise clients and startups would be the interested lot to put up more innovative assignments before them.Sanjiv of Wipro insists it’s a competitive model. “It enables the best of the talent to work on any part of the work. In a way, it enables on-tap skills,” he said. The $8.5-billion Wipro spent close to a billion dollars last year in acquiring companies in cloud and strategic designing.