WNS Global Services, the second largest BPO firm in India, has geared up its near-shore strategy to meet the increased demand from clients. Its group chief operating officer Anup Gupta says the focus of the firm is also moving towards horizontals like finance and accounting and business analytics. In an exclusive interaction with FE?s Rachana Khanzode, he says the company is witnessing stabilisation in volumes from travel and insurance sectors. He also talks about the firm?s strategy to pay back debt. Excerpts:
Could you give us some perspective on the current business outlook? How does the pipeline look like at WNS?
Clients are now looking at BPOs as a survival tool. We are in talks with small and large clients. We expect better growth in the medium term as sales cycles tend to reduce to 6 to 9 months from 9 to 18 months. Our pipeline is very healthy and we see good expansion and growth opportunities across the board. Last quarter, we did beat Street expectations both on revenue and adjusted net income. We have reiterated our guidance and are confident of meeting the top end of our guidance for the year. Operating margins continue to be in the 19-22% range. In terms of volume pressures from travel and insurance, we’ve seen some stabilisation.
What are clients demanding and how are you looking at it?
Clients are increasingly looking for providers who can manage their business processes globally. In the last 18 months, WNS has expanded its global delivery footprint to Romania, Philippines, and Latin America. Today, we have over 21 global delivery centres with approximately 8-10% of our total work force located outside of India. But before making further investments, we want to gauge the right scale. We are also focusing on horizontals like finance and accounting and business analytics that are more in demand now.
You have a net debt of $195 million. What is your strategy for repaying the loan?
At any point in time we have a cash flow of $5 to $6 million per month and over a period of six months it is about $30 million, which is enough to meet our debt requirements. During the quarter, we paid our first scheduled loan instalment of $20 million, together with the second prepayment of $5 million. With this, we have paid down $30 million of our loan in the first year, as against a scheduled $20 million. That is 50% more than we were required to pay.
