The Hindu Business Line : India growth on a roll, says Accenture

Goa, Sept. 16 Global IT major Accenture recently completed 20 years of operations in the Indian market. Accenture, which has won several key deals in recent years, is looking to accelerate its growth in the Indian market, which is witnessing a significant momentum. Business Line caught up with Mr Sadeesh Raghavan, Managing Director, Accenture India Domestic Business, at a media-offsite in Goa on Saturday. Excerpts:

What’s your current take on the Indian domestic market?

India is witnessing a growth pattern that other economies such as Korea, China and Indonesia witnessed earlier. I think growth is here to stay. The momentum is so great that there has to be something dramatic or traumatic to slow it down. Some good things are happening in India compared to countries like China. A slowdown in America will be a massive thing for China. India, on the other hand, is somewhat insulated, though the software sector is connected. But software does not drive the Indian economy. Moreover, the domestic demand is strong in India. There is some degree of insulation from the global shock, which makes me more optimistic that the growth here will be relatively robust.

Considering a possible slowdown in the US, is Accenture looking at growth in India to offset it ?

No. We don’t look at India as compensatory to any other geography. India is a market in which we have to be a major player.

Do you see any changes in the spending pattern of Indian customers?

There is increased sophistication in the IT spending pattern. The realisation is that clients are not getting the bang for the buck. They feel that whatever they have invested in earlier packages is not delivering the value, and are looking to do more implementation in the same solutions. That’s typical to any market, wherein every few years there is a new implementation. The re-implementation market is sizeable in India and companies who had done a package implementation earlier will do it again to support their strong growth.

What’s the nature of deals emerging here?

The volume of business is going up obviously because clients want to do more things. They are growing very fast and the scale is getting larger. We are focusing on clients who are aspiring to be high performers and where we can have a long term relationship. When you have long relationships, you can do small projects and also major outsourcing deals. We don’t measure in terms of how many sales we have had, but in terms of clients we have, the length of the relationship, and the share of the wallet. Majority of our deals are transformational in nature and entry into new accounts are consulting-led. Our deal pipeline is pretty healthy and the challenge is to grow fast enough.

From which sectors do you see growth coming from in the Indian market?

We largely cater to the communication and technology market, financial services, Government, products and the resource sectors such as oil and gas, and minerals among others. We are not present equally in all of them. The push that we are making right now is to have all of them on par. But growth is coming from all of them. Our products and resources business is the largest now. We are relatively new in the e-governance and financial services, where we are beefing up our presence.

Any challenges that you face in the Indian marketplace?

Getting the right people is a big challenge. The war for talent is serious. It is good for an individual, but not so good for the companies. We are looking at other sources of recruitment such as Universities both in India and overseas and also the people returning from overseas. We are bringing our IT assets like knowledge capital, intellectual property and best practices among others.

It’s widely perceived that MNCs like Accenture are pretty aggressive in pricing their services in the Indian IT market. What’s your take on it?

We don’t compete on the pricing frankly. But if we need to, we will do. We run a very profitable business in India. We don’t subsidise our business in India, which some of the Indian companies used to do. But if we need to be aggressive on price, we will do it. We do it for competitive reasons as opposed to standard practice because we are not about price. If some clients want to buy our services because we are cheap, then it is a problem. It is a wrong reason and we get scared. We must see a value and inevitably it’s a premium.

How often do you come across domestic IT firms?

Not as often as one would imagine as not all of them are active in India, which to me is surprising. To us India is a strategic market. We have to grow even faster in India and other BRIC countries, where the action is going to be.Moreover, our footprint is so diverse that we have competition from other firms such as consulting firms, human resources firms, advertising firms, investment banks, audit firms, and private equity firms among others.

More Stories on : Interview | Economy | Software

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Vodafone Essar moves court on I-T notice

M&M, Reliance Ports invest in LocaModa

India growth on a roll, says Accenture

Bartronics in consolidation mode