Quality will play key role in Infy's growth, says Nilekani

Bangalore,
October 11, 2002

Software major Infosys is banking on 'flight towards quality in outsourcing' to drive its next wave of growth in software services exports. Announcing the details of the second quarter (Q2) results of the company, Infosys president, managing director and chief executive officer Nandan Nilekani said outsourcing clients have become 'risk averse' and look for companies with a good track record to place orders.

Nilekani said quality will be the differentiator in the market place and will shape the growth curve in the industry. Nilekani added that although the trend towards strategic outsourcing is getting consolidated "these deals continue to be price-sensitive".

Infosys seems to have shrugged off the impact of the slowdown in the technology sector a bit by recruiting 1806 people during Q2 of 2002-03 as against 566 in the corresponding period of the previous year. This is the highest employee addition figure in any quarter in the history of the company, said Infosys HRD head K Dinesh. The gross addition to employees was 2065 including 328 laterals taking the total number of employees as on September 30, 2002 to 13,110.

The utilisation rate excluding trainees was 84.2 percent for the quarter as compared to 80.2 percent for the quarter ended on June 30, 2002 and 72.7 percent for Q2 in FY 2002.

The company has added 18 new clients including sports car major Porsche AG, Commonwealth Industries, Arrow Electronics and Vcommerce Corporation during this period.

Financial services sector tops in terms of revenue earning while the share of business from telecom sector during the second quarter was 14.6 percent as against 15.2 percent in the corresponding period of the previous year. The onsite revenue for the quarter was 54.6 per cent as against 50.3 percent in the same period of the previous year while offshore business contributed 45.4 percent to the revenue pool against 49.7 per cent in the year-ago period.

The US accounted for 73.8 percent of the revenue while Europe provided 16.5 percent for the period under review. Rest of the world and India accounted for 7.2 percent and 2.5 percent respectively for the period.

Source: The Financial Express