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We'll post industry-leading growth this year: HCL CEO Anant Gupta [India Business] [Times of India](Times of India Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) NEW DELHI: HCL Technologies, one of the best performing IT services companies in recent years, posted somewhat underwhelming financial results in the quarter ended September. The company's CEO Anant Gupta spoke to TOI soon after the announcement of the results. Excerpts: Your year-on-year growth at 13% in the first (September) quarter is lower than the 14% you did in the whole of the last year. Are you slowing down? Will you be at industry average growth rates in the full year? We will post industry leading growth this year. The global economy remains volatile and that means pressure to optimize costs. So there's lots of demand for our services. And we have a well-balanced portfolio. So even if one or two service lines go down, there are others that will do well. Engineering services did well this quarter and you say you are placing your bets on it. Every now and then we are told that engineering services outsourcing will take off, but it hasn't really happened. It will be one place we will invest, take risks on. Outsourcing of engineering services is beginning to happen in a structured way, in the sense that there are advisors and an eco-system building around it. Engineering services deals are also becoming bigger and full-service; customers are not offering just small piecemeal work. We are already one of the biggest engineering outsourcing players and we will invest further. HCL is strong in certain horizontals like infrastructure, but it is not a No. 1 or 2 or even 3 in most industry verticals. Is that a constraint in sustaining your growth rates? As customers expect vendors like you to help them in modernization, industry-specific elements may become more and more important. I don't believe you have to be a vertical guru. A little bit yes, for modernization, and we have that. Otherwise, horizontal really works. An SAP implementation or an infrastructure implementation or testing is the same for all industries. Now that you are hiring a lot of people in the US and building onshore capabilities there, why don't you look at a US listing? Some like Infosys have built their brand with such listing. We can do a better job of branding through other means; our efforts to build relationships "beyond the contract" are in that direction. As for a US listing, we also have to look at the expense and time it involves. (c) 2014 Bennett, Coleman & Company Limited |