As the $60-billion Indian IT industry is reflecting the second wave of economic recovery in their July-September quarter results, Vineet Nayar, CEO, HCL Technologies, is optimistic about all verticals and geographies to show positive revenue growth. He tells FE’s Diksha Dutta about the companies hiring strategies and the recovering BPO business.
Why did the US reflect lower sequential growth than Europe this quarter and which region is giving you bigger deals right now?
America is buying business of hope and the country wants to get prepared for post-recession period. They are investing in engineering services, mobility and the enterprise business there is being redefined. Though the deal flow has increased, there is still investment in ‘change the business’ or transformational deals which are not very big. On the other hand, Europe was growing negatively for the past four quarters and now the business is back. We are seeing 100 million to 500 million deals coming from this region. Nearshoring and proximity to the US clients is another traction to expand in Europe.
How are you focusing on IT destinations like China and Japan to handle the competition from them?
China is the second largest economy in the world and we are focused on globalised China. The two segments where China wants to globalise is financial services and manufacturing and that is where we want to participate. Talking about Japan, we are experiencing the maximum number of Fortune 500 companies entering the region. The country has come a long way. Of late, we have seen consumer electronics business and cost pressures to encourage Japanese companies outsourcing to Indian companies. However, local vendors in there regions give the same competition as other country vendors give.
What has brought in a shade of recovery in your BPO business?
The BPO has grown 5.7% sequentially and all the recovery is coming from non-voice and transformational or business services deals.
What about hiring?
We hired about 5000 professionals this quarter and have been concentrating on lateral talent because there was opportunity. But now we are looking at fresh talent. We also gave salary hikes from July this year as per industry standards.