iGate on Thursday announced it had successfully completed the acquisition of Patni Computer Systems. CEO of iGate Patni, Phaneesh Murthy talks to FE?s Goutam Das about the integration process and the firm?s new lean look.

Take us through the integration plan of the two companies. By when will the two entities be truly integrated?

There are three large areas of integration. The first one is go-to-market integration ? it is really about taking our combined story, using the benefits of size, scale and bench strength to win deals; showcasing your size so that you can win larger deals than either of the two companies have so far won. Also, ensuring that the win ratio goes up. This is already underway. That?s going to be done fairly immediately. The front-end team ? sales, account management and marketing ?broadly 350 people, will be integrated. The second piece, delivery, will be a much more measured approach. This is because it involves 25,000 people. It will take 12-24 months. The third piece is where you can get cost synergies. It will be through running back office services more efficiently and as a shared service. This can be done by the end of this year. We will probably save $25-30 million in the second year because of common ERP, common IT systems, better procurement of software and networks, working from common facilities.

Market watchers had often commented that power centres within Patni would make your life difficult. Have all the power centres been eliminated?

Patni had got fragmented because it had an 18-member executive leadership team. When you have such a large leadership team, the organisation starts getting fragmented and everybody starts building his own empire. That is what really happened. Now, we have moved to a very lean structure and most of the people have been eliminated. It is a fairly good balance now in the executive committee ? five from iGate and four from Patni. At the executive level, if you want to align around a vision, particularly while you are doing some pathbreaking things, it is very difficult to do it with very large teams.

What would be the role of the new executive committee?

It would be to take the organisation to Version 2.0. It is moving from pure services to the iGate direction, which is more IP-based services. More investment in R&D, more domain encapsulated in the from of solutions and more reliance on alliances. That?s what I call Version 2.0.

Will you retain the Patni in iGate Patni, going ahead?

The go-to market is through iGate and the brand would be iGate Patni. For some time, we will retain it. I want Patni customers to slowly understand the new brand. It can be diluted later because I am not a large fan of family names. It is very difficult to protect it ? you cant prevent somebody from starting Patni Jewellers or Patni Software or Patni Restaurants. There will be one identity in 9-24 months.

Have you thought through the joint go-to-market strategy? What areas will you target?

It will happen through verticals. We have identified multiple verticals ? banking and binancial Services is one large vertical. Insurance and healthcare is the second while manufacturing, retail, distribution and logistics is the third large one. We also have a couple of emerging verticals ? media and entertainment and communications, energy and utilities. In addition, we have an interesting specialist line called product engineering solutions.

Were there client exits over the last few months?

No. Clients are very positive about the whole transaction. They are quite happy that the company is in stable hands.

Does the acquisition mean iGate will grow at a slower pace than earlier years because of the base effect?

This is an industry where the larger companies have been growing faster than the smaller ones. I don’t think we need to sacrifice any growth. I think we need to find the right execution model. The joint entity is supposed to get us bigger and more deals.