The pandemic has impacted the IT sector to such an extent that every major domestic IT services company has put off giving out guidance, a ritual each of them unwaveringly followed every quarter earlier. The next quarter results are expected to be worse. In an interview with BusinessLine , UB Pravin Rao, Infosys COO, spoke about the challenges ahead for the company. Excerpts:

Since the announcement of the results, has there been more clarity on the way forward for the IT industry and Infosys, in particular?

We are witnessing a gradual lifting of the lockdown in many parts of the world. Therefore, there is a lot more focus on getting back to work or getting back to whatever the new normal would be. From our own and from an industry perspective, we did fairly well. We were able to get up to 95 per cent of the people to work from home in a very short period of time and, obviously, we got very good feedback from our clients.

Now, with the relaxation, we have slowly started focussing on returning to work. We want to do it in a calibrated manner. We will probably have up to 5 per cent of the workforce coming back to work, then extend it to 15-20 per cent and then to 40 per cent. In another four to six months, we will get a good percentage of the workforce returning to work. Starting this week, we have already seen a few of our centres opening.

Obviously, the future model will be a more hybrid one where a certain percentage of people will work from home and the rest from office, and the model will enable you to switch seamlessly between work from office and work from home.

Will the industry see any large-scale changes or even a paradigm shift in the way it carries out its engagement with clients?

We have started having some interesting conversations with clients. They have started looking at what short-term and medium-term impact they’re facing. Almost every industry is seeing some impact. They are looking at re-prioritising their investments; for them, conserving cash is very critical and they want to increase the cash flow.

They have started looking at cost takeout opportunities and monetising certain assets. For instance, they want to focus on whether it makes sense to have captives in India and other countries. They also recognise the fact that they have to invest in making their own infrastructure resilient so that it will be easy for the staff to work remotely. Also, they have started investing in digital channels and have had to engage with many stakeholders in ways they have not done in the past. But these conversations are all at the early stages, and they are always open to new ideas as well.

But how does the India outsourcing story look post-Covid? Will there be any major changes in the way you engage with clients, going forward?

I keep hearing from our clients that they are pleasantly surprised with the speed at which the industry has reacted and been able to enable work-from-home. I think they were expecting India to break, but are pleasantly surprised. So, that way, India has proven its resilience. In the short term, there will be some struggle, but in the medium to long term, they will have to invest in technology and in accelerating some of the digital transformations.

Sectors like retail use e-commerce in a big way. But many other industries have not embraced it in a big way. Now, that will only accelerate because of social distancing and working remotely. So, a lot of investments will go towards migrating workloads to the cloud. Going forward, we may be less visa-dependent. So, I am fairly optimistic that not only will spends come back, they will also increase and Indian IT companies will have a great opportunity to capture a big share of it.

That’s a huge positive coming from you, with the US government looking at reviewing non-immigrant visas in the next 30 days. Will it impact getting H-1B visas in a big way?

Obviously, this being an election year, we expect some issues coming up, but during the last two years, our industry has dealt with these irritants quite well.

So, to a large extent, the industry has learnt to live with it and so, in my mind, it is less of an issue. As a company, we have been less dependent on visas over the years. We have recruited more than 10,000 laterals and recruited people from universities; we have created hubs.

Infosys co-founder and former Chairman NR Narayana Murthy, in a recent webinar, talked about how employees should work 10 hours a day, six days a week, for the next two-three years. Does the company plan to do away with weekend holidays and switch to 10-hour shifts?

Finally, it depends on the client’s comfort. If you talk about the 10-hour shift, then I don’t know in what context it was said. I can’t really comment on that, but the point is that we have the ability for people to work from office or from home. In the short term, it is not about supply; it is about demand, right? So, if you have a lot more demand than supply then we need to look at the models. But, in the foreseeable future, it’s more about demand than about supply.

So, as long as we can create an environment where people can productively work wherever they are, and with integrity and never compromising security, I think that’s the one the industry is really looking at. I do not think the number of hours will be a matter of concern. I mean, if there is a need for people to work extra, I’m sure they will work extra, but today it’s more about demand and not about a shortage of talent.

Will there be, at some point in time, a renegotiation of existing contracts as a fallout of the pandemic?

In the short term, we are seeing more of deferment of payment terms and extensions as clients are grappling with bad cash flow and shortage.

They are also asking for a postponement of projects, but they are open to ideas. In some cases, when the client wishes to put a project on hold, we have to come up with a good alternative where we can still execute the project.

We are looking at it on a case-by-case basis and seeing how best we can help our clients because, today, they are in trouble and it is important for us to go the extra mile to help them. They are open to cost reduction, but if we are able to help them meet their objectives through other levers, they are open to that, too.

We are not losing clients. It is business as usual in the sense that clients will always have to spend something or the other. So, at a glance, we will have to take cost out of other places where they have to invest. It is like repurposing spending in other areas and trying to keep costs under control. But the need for IT or IT services will not go away.

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