Infosys Ltd is looking beyond the IT landscape to fast-forward its growth as the company wants to impact the complete footprint of the clients.

It also plans to increase share of its European operations to nearly one-third of its revenues to reduce dependence on the US.

The newly-appointed board member, Mr B.G. Srinivas, told Business Line that since the onset of recession, the company has been keenly observing the trends in the market “The tech landscape has changed so much, there is so much of convergence. The rules of the game are no longer the same,” Mr Srinivas said.

Mr Srinivas, who spoke to this newspaper a few days before he was elevated to the Infosys board, said the company was closely working with its clients to create and engage in a partnership model. He said the company was working on revenue and margin. He said computing was becoming pervasive and several key trends were driving the markets. “For example, the healthcare economy which has a distinct dimension of its own.”

Cloud support

He said the company was helping the clients in building products that will help embrace the cloud. “The software products of yesterday are not compatible to the cloud,” he said.

Mr Srinivas, who heads manufacturing and European operations for Infosys, said the company wants to increase revenues from Europe, currently at about 22 per cent to 30 per cent, though he did not share a timeline to achieve the target. It also plans to hire 500 people more in Europe, taking the number of employees, including those who come on deputation, to about 5,000 there.

The North American market contributes nearly 65 per cent to the revenues of Infosys.

Mr Srinivas said the macro-economic environment in Europe was under strain, and the company was closely watching the situation as it unfolds there. He pointed out that the fiscal stimulus was getting over and therefore “we will see the real growth this year and the next.” With a grim debt situation in the UK, Spain and Greece and oil prices shooting up, Europe was turning out to be a tough challenge.

‘Doing the right thing'

He said though the UK has passed a new immigration law, it might result in cost implications even though there was no cap on hirings. “Our ability to hire local talent has not been a challenge. The law is more to do with government business and we have no exposure to that,” Mr Srinivas said.

He said Infosys will continue to invest in Germany and France, which has led to increase in brand-awareness among the clients there. “It is still early days. Markets there are not so open as it is in the US but the visibility has certainly gone up. Clients see us for being there for the long haul,” he said. He said the first-year investments have already started to pay offbecause of increasing interactions with the clients which shows that “we are doing the right thing there.”

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