Despite govt cushion, BFSI may be hit: Arvind Thakur

Interview with CEO, NIIT Technologies

Despite the 'turbulent' economic environment, mid-cap IT services company NIIT Technologies today posted a 33.8 per cent growth in profit. The company, which derives over 37 per cent of its revenues from Europe and the US each, sees both threat and opportunities arising out of the recessionary trends. Arvind Thakur, CEO, NIIT Technologies tells Piyali Mandal which are the verticals and geographies that are going to bring good news for the company going ahead.

The market is getting mixed cues from the IT firms. While, some companies are bullish, some others have given a bearish outlook. What is your reading?
Quiet clearly, the environment is very turbulent and it creates a lot of volatility. What we are seeing is that there are signs of improvement in the US. The economy seems to be recovering although not at the rate we wished it to recover.

But, the unemployment figures that are coming in shows a reduction, which is a good sign. There is lot of volatility in Europe. The economy may show recessionary trends. It would be prudent to be more cautious about the future than be gung-ho. The Asia region is growing; the inflation is coming under control but the region had been ravaged by many natural calamities. So that has impacted the manufacturing space. We can hope to see strong recovery in Asia.

What is the outlook from NIIT?
We don’t give out outlook. But I feel, if the environment is stressed, companies have to be competitive and look at technology to support them. We have built up a good order book, but we continue to be 'positive and cautious’.

You talked about regions; what about the industry verticals, how they are going to perform?
The BFSI sector would be affected more than the travel and manufacturing sectors.

So are going to change your current revenue mix from different verticals?
Our strategy is to ensure that we have a balanced portfolio which will help to mitigate risks in difficult times. We are not overtly dependent on any one segment for our business.

The government is a great cushion in times of turbulence. Irrespective of whether the economy goes up or down, the government has its own agenda, budgets and spends. Going forward we will be looking at newer segments and geographies. We will be focusing a lot on the West Asia.