We want to sell platforms outside our customer base: Pravin Rao, Infosys

Infosys' COO says platform-based services can help the company scale up disproportionately

India's second-largest IT services company Infosys had cut its guidance twice for the current financial year. It has, however, increased the lower band of the revenue growth guidance from 8 per cent to 8.4 per cent after better utilisation and growth in platform-based services. 

 

In addition, a likely improvement in the US economy would encourage banks there to focus on innovation and investment in technology. In fact, considering Donald Trump's entrepreneurial track record, the company believes the new administration would turn out to be a business-friendly one in the US, a market that contributes 62 per cent to the company's revenue.

Any new investments in the US would mean new investments in technology, which Infosys looks to tap. In an interview with Raghu Krishnan and Ayan Pramanik, Pravin Rao, chief operating officer, Infosys, reassures the company's 2020 revenue target and how software plus people model will help the company to boost growth in the future.

 

Edited excerpts:

Are you confident now of achieving the $20 billion revenue target by 2020?

I believe theoretically it is possible. The idea is to put ourselves in the leadership position by setting a target of $20 billion revenue by 2020. In the past, we have seen our peers such as TCS and Cognizant clocking double-digit growth. We have articulated that we would achieve this with a combination of acquisitions, new platforms and traditional services. Around $16.5 billion from traditional services, $2 billion from new services and platforms and $1.5 billion from acquisitions. We still have time to make the acquisitions. We have Skava, Mana, EdgeVerve and other platforms. We are looking at more platforms and take it to the markets outside of our existing customers. 

So, how would you take it to outside customers?

The platform business allows us to scale up disproportionately unlike increment growth in traditional services. We have used it at around 100-odd customers, we have used it internally and now we want to offer it to customers outside. We have a base of around 1,000 customers. But the universe is huge. Vishal (Sikka) says that in SAP they sell the product to tens of thousands of customers. We are just exposed to our customers. Can we look at substantial growth from selling the platform outside our customer base? We can't just have four platforms, we need more. There are thoughts on this and we will formalise in our strategy meet in March on how to take this in a bigger way.

 

Vishal Sikka has said that Infosys would be a services company and would not get into products...

These would be platforms, not products such as SAP or Oracle. These would be platforms that any customer can use. There is a lot of talk about how we need to approach these models. Even if it grows exponentially, the business will be still small because of the base. Our core continues to be traditional services. But increasingly, we are moving to software-led services so that we differentiate to the customer and earn higher revenue.

 

Vishal Sikka has spoken about focusing on using technology to optimise on-site operations. Industry experts globally say businesses are seeking better on-site presence for services for digital technology. Is there a gap?

It depends on the kind of services we deliver. Some clients look for 95 per cent offshoring and 5 per cent on-site service, while some ask for 40 per cent onsite presence. We are saying that we can deliver services using newer technology from an offshore facility.