Capgemini, one of the leading IT companies based out of Europe, is competing along the likes of IBM, Accenture and other Indian IT outsourcers. The company, which has a different revenue mix when compared to its competitors as it is headquartered in France, is seeing more opportunities despite a massive slowdown in IT outsourcing from the troubled Euro Zone region. Capgemini India Chief Executive Officer Aruna Jayanthi, who is rated as the third-most influential business person, talks to Business Line about opportunities in outsourcing in Europe and the changing face of the industry. Jayanthi, who calls herself an “eternal optimist,” feels global companies are opening up further to outsourcing.
Excerpts:
What’s the mood on the ground in Europe when it comes to outsourcing?
The mood is not upbeat. However, you have to remember that there is business out there. Firms are sitting on trillions of Euros which are waiting to get invested. It is up to us to figure out ways to instil confidence and get a pie of this IT outsourcing. I have visited Sweden twice in the last three months and have to talked to many companies regarding outsourcing. Also, Nordics regions are opening to outsourcing hugely. I don’t see it as a slowdown as many companies are only now opening up to the idea of offshoring and outsourcing.
So, do you think 2013 will be the year for increased offshoring?
It is opening up. Also, clients are conscious about the fact that it is not all about cost but are asking us about the Intellectual Property (IP) that we can build for them. For the new deals, we build IP into our proposals.
The Indian IT players are talking about outcomes based pricing a lot. Businesses are getting complex and in this context, do you see this model becoming mainstream?
There is a lot of fog around outcomes-based pricing. The old models of time and material or fixed price pricing were straight forward. While outcomes based pricing looks ‘cool,’ companies have to figure out ways of linking the fees back to the outcomes in an increasingly volatile and complex business environment.
Other models like automating more IT thereby not needing large workforces are increasingly being talked about…
Most of the companies that talk about non-linear growth are far away from it. At present, not more than 5 per cent of billion dollars come from this model. Bulk of the revenues still comes from bread and butter business that involves large workforce additions. It will not happen overnight but the way forward is non-linear.