Zensar’s acquisition of London-based digital agency Foolproof Ltd is just the first in its strategy to build a fresh technology portfolio, as it looks to transform its business from selling traditional services to digital services. Zensar CEO Sandeep Kishore spoke to BusinessLine about the company’s digital plans. Excerpts:

What was the whole idea behind the acquisition?

Foolproof is one of the largest experience-centric design agency across Europe and it fits in with our own digital go-to-market. Digital is about creating business impact and the customer centricity and customer experience design was a missing part which we were looking out to acquire and that’s where Foolproof fit in.

It’s about 360-degree customer experience, agility, on-boarding customers to digital and mobile platform. Foolproof does all of this and they have some of the biggest global brands as their customer.

It (the acquisition) allows us to do downstream business for large global corporations to create digital transformation.

Foolproof revenue growth has been pretty slow in the last couple of years. How does such a company benefit Zensar’s growth plans?

Foolproof has mostly been doing projects while our business is a combination of both projects as well as downstream and annuity led. I think the combination of the two is really valuable.

We will do projects on the front end and we will then have an opportunity to be a serious contender on digital downstream crossover work and digital application work.

How are you looking at integrating Foolproof within Zensar?

Foolproof will remain independent and the brand will continue because we think that’s the right thing to do. They have far better recognition in customer centricity and design, and we have full intention to make sure we give them autonomy.

At the same time, Foolproof now becomes a part of our digital application services group and that’s where the integration will happen.

Digital application services group will focus on creating value proposition for Chief Marketing Officers.

We all know CMO propositions are built differently and at the same time they have integration with the rest of the company, which is IT-led.

For any organisation to derive full benefit of the system, you really have to integrate the core application system, and lead with front end CMO suite which Foolproof will bring in.

Are you looking for more such acquisitions in the digital space?

With Foolproof, we are now north of 30 per cent on our digital net revenue. Last quarter, we were at 27.8 per cent and our plan was to be above 30 per cent by the end of the fiscal. With Foolproof, we are already above that.

Our focus has been to be digitally relevant to our customers. Foolproof adds that set of competency, experience and brand power into our offerings.

For us, digital includes mobile, cloud, analytics, social, IoT and cyber security.

We are looking at both organic and inorganic growth in that stack of digital. Foolproof is one such acquisition and as we go through the remainder of our growth plan, we’ll continually be acquisitive into all of those areas.

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