Next $1-billion revenue will come sooner: Mindtree's Rostow Ravanan

Irrespective of whether L&T’s bid to acquire Mindtree fructifies or not, the midsize IT services firm says it will stay focused on its next course of journey by growing faster than the market, and even adding the next $1-billion revenue quicker than the first one.
 
Though the Bengaluru-headquartered company is the fastest among the Indian IT services companies to achieve $100 million in revenues, it crossed $1 billion revenue milestone in the just ended financial year, on the 20th year of its operation. “Obviously, we are hoping that it (the next $1 billion in revenue) will come faster, there’s no doubt about it,” says Rostow Ravanan, co-founder and chief executive officer of Mindtree.
 
Ravanan, who has been at the helm of the  firm for the past three years, says the senior leadership team is not distracted by the L&T  move. While the board and Chairman Krishnakumar Natarajan are managing the shareholder-related issues (with regard to L&T bid), the rest of the team are focused on expanding the business.  “How did we know what way it (L&T offer) will happen? Whichever way the implication may be, right now we have the business and we are focused on growing it,” says Ravanan, who joined nine others to launch the company in 1999 when he was just 27.  “Look at it at this way. Someone (L&T) is willing to put Rs 10,500 or Rs 11,000 crore without even doing the due diligence. So, it shows the strength of the business that we have built and that's what we are focused on. The moment we stopped focusing on it, then that value will not come. Our job is to deliver good results and we will deliver it,” he adds.

 
Ravanan says the firm has laid out the strategy for the coming year which revolves around 3-4 tracks. The first one is to steer towards becoming a more solutions-oriented firm, instead of being people-oriented by building a strong intellectual property (IP)-led business model. This would also help the firm command a better premium in the pricing and help in improving the profitability which has the scope to grow by at least 200 basis points in the next couple of years.
 
The company is also looking at building a partner-led kind of sales model by building deeper relationships with global technology partners such as Microsoft, Adobe and Salesforce, and also with the analysts or the advisors. The third important layer is about people, says Ravanan.
 
The major part of the employee-related action would be to identify areas of improvement and skill them so that they continue to enjoy the works.
 
Mindtree has around 20,200 employees. For the current financial year, it is looking at adding 3,000 more people, including 2,300 fresh graduates, says Ravanan. As far as clients are concerned, he says the management is in touch with them and updating them wherever it is required.
 
 
“There's absolutely no sense of instability as our customer base is concerned as they know that our relationship with them has been quite trusted which has been built over several years. In fact, there are a few with whom we have been working since the company’s inception.”