Infosys to up delivery capabilities in LatAm

After Mexico, the company sets up delivery centre in Brazil

Infosys Technologies, the second largest software company in the country, is opening a delivery centre in Brazil as part of its policy to focus on emerging geographies, including Latin America. The centre will initially have 50-100 people, mostly those hired locally and will be operational 'any time now,” S Gopalakrishnan, CEO of the Bangalore-headquartered company told Business Standard.

“We are waiting for the final approval from the Brazilian government, and expect the centre in Brazil to be operational any time now. The centre will primarily help us support Brazilian and South American customers,” Gopalakrishnan said.

Brazil holds an important place in Infosys’ overall strategy for the Americas. The company has bagged a few anchor customers in the country who are primarily asking for local delivery capabilities. Though the local IT outsourcing market in Brazil is comparatively slow, sectors like energy and utilities, financial services, retail and manufacturing promise a lot of opportunities for the Indian IT outsourcing services providers.

Gopalakrishnan said that the company had been consciously looking at expanding its presence in the emerging markets including West Asia, India, South and Latin America. This is the reason why the company has not slowed its investments even during the slowdown. Infosys already has a development centre in Mexico which employs about 250 people.

“Even in a period of slowdown, our desire to grow has not been reduced. It is because the environment today is different, that is how the growth has come down. Even in this environment, we are expanding our markets,” he said, adding that the company is focusing on emerging areas of opportunities including government, healthcare and energy and utilities.

In India, the company is primarily targeting the government space and has bagged a couple of deals to its credit. The Infosys CEO said the company was focussing on earning a revenue of $1 billion from the Indian market.

“India is in the forefront of our emerging market strategy, and the market is primarily driven by the government which is spending a significant amount of money on e-governance.”

Talking of the global economic situation, Gopalakrishnan said, “We are seeing signs of a recovery, and we are seeing customers turning more confident. They are now even willing to discuss discretionary projects.”

He, however, added that the data in the next two quarters would be crucial and that the real recovery had started. Infosys is also hoping that to bag a significant amount of deals as the global customers are now going in for vendor consolidation. Gopalakrishnan said that was an area of opportunities for the company.