French firm Steria eyes 4-fold rise in India revenues

Despite a challenging domestic market for most IT companies, French software major Steria is targeting a four-fold rise in revenues from its Indian clientele over the next three years.

The Euronext-listed company is confident of generating €40 million from Indian domestic business by 2017 against €10 million currently, Francois Enaud, Group Chief Executive Officer, told Business Line.

Enaud said that there is increasing demand for its technology services in the areas of transportation, homeland security and e-governance.

UP deal

Last year, the €2-billion Steria had bagged a contract from the Uttar Pradesh Police Department for deploying its computer aided dispatch platform that will handle distress calls from the residents of Kanpur.

The Geographical Information System-based platform is primed to capture caller information and location coordinates.

These details are then dispatched to the nearest police patrolling vehicle for emergency handling.

The company is eyeing similar projects from police departments of other States.

In fact, Steria has managed to double its India revenues to €10 million from €5 million in a year, partly due to the low-base effect.

Interestingly, the jury is still out on how much domestic IT spending would happen in 2014, which is a year of Assembly elections.

Most industry commentators expect the Indian IT business to slow down once the model code of conduct, which debars authorities from sanctioning grants and payments out of discretionary funds, is enforced before the elections.

A lion’s share of Steria India’s revenues comes from work outsourced shipped out of Europe. Francois says that the sovereign debt crisis has compelled European clients to first outsource and then experiment with offshoring.

Logical step

“Outsourcing is not just about moving an in-house work to a third party player. It is all about automating, consolidating and transforming your delivery model.

“Once that is done, outsourcing is seen as the next logical step, as clients in Europe are now finding out,” said Enaud.

Steria has been present in the country for more than two decades and 30 per cent of its global headcount is India-based. The company employs over 5,000 staffers across delivery centres in Noida, Chennai and Pune.