In a sign of higher automation kicking in, Infosys has redeployed thousands of engineers in the first quarter of the 2017 fiscal.

Talking to BusinessLine on the sidelines of the first quarter results, its Chief Financial Officer MD Ranganath said the company had ‘released’ 2,156 employees in the June-ended quarter. However, these engineers were deployed in other projects that involve maintaining IT infrastructure, BPO and others, he added.

This is not the first time that Infosys has made efforts in automation. In the quarter ended March, Infosys had released 1,710 employees from various projects only to deploy automation.

Interestingly, the company believes that it does not make sense to release entry-level engineers in these areas as it does not result in cost takeaways. “The exercise (of releasing engineers) has to be done onsite as well as offshore in some of the projects. Only then can it be meaningful,” said Ranganath.

Automation is starting to seep in to Indian IT providers but most of them are still in their nascence, wherein it can have meaningful impact on bottomlines. This means most of the workforce is in middle management — employees with six or more years of experience in maintaining IT systems. Mana, Infosys’ Artificial Intelligence platform, is beginning to see acceptance amongst clients such as JCI and Syngenta.

“The middle management has to wake up to the fact that companies will hire less and look for significant productivity enhancements,” said Kunal Sen, Senior V-P at TeamLease, a temporary staffing company.

Rising attrition

The company’s attrition, which includes subsidiaries, has gone up in the June quarter to 21 per cent from 17.3 per cent in the March ended quarter, largely due to employees pursuing higher studies — a phenomenon common in the sector.

Infosys is not alone to embark on automation. Recently, cross-town rival Wipro said that it plans to release 4,500 employees from some projects and reskill them in the latest technologies.

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