The IT major Infosys plans to focus on the developing markets to expand its business and boost its revenues in order to counter the slowdown in the US and Europe.
There was a need to shift priorities to include new geographies and economies, Mr S. Gopalakrishnan, Co-Chairman, Infosys Technologies Ltd, told newspersons on the sidelines of a CII leadership summit here on Friday.
Developing markets
“We are looking at the developing markets like India, China, South Africa, Indonesia and Malaysia,” Mr Gopalakrishnan said. The shifting of priorities, however, would be a slow process.
“Any new business or any shift in priority will take time. Economy will slow down and so will businesses and then new business opportunities will emerge,” he pointed out.
The IT sector has shown resilience despite the global turmoil, he said and added that there have been no lay-offs.
Infosys, in fact, has already hired 35,000 professionals so far this fiscal and would add another 10,000 by March 2012. The present headcount of the company is 1.40 lakh.
“There will, however, be consolidation in IT sector and those who have the niche capability will survive,” he said.
The global economy was facing a more difficult situation at present than in 2008 when a world-wide recession occurred.
“In 2008, all the nations came together including India. And there was a coordinated action which in fact brought us recovery. But now the coordinated action has been more difficult. This is because at that point (in 2008) there was a significant opportunity to stimulate the economy by nation states. Now the nation states themselves are in deficit and debt. And, thus, they are finding it much more difficult to stimulate the economy. So the situation is different now from 2008,” he said.
Campus in W. Bengal
Infosys will commence construction work at its first software development centre in West Bengal, at Rajarhat, in the next three to six months, he said.
“We have paid the entire money for the 50 acre land amounting to about Rs 75 crore. We have to take possession and apply for necessary approvals. We hope to start construction work in three to six months,” he said.
The first phase of the project will entail an investment of about Rs 100 crore and will help create about 5,000 jobs in the State, he added.