 "We are competing against big guys in majority of deals: Krishnakumar Natarajan")
Bangalore-based information technology (IT) services company, Mindtree, has enjoyed the 'best mid-sized' player tag for several years now. As the company completes 15 years into business, the company's CEO & MD Krishnakumar Natarajan says this tag is now becoming a limitation for the company in many ways. In an interview with Itika Sharma Punit, he talks about the company's journey so far and his vision of the next 15 years. Edited excerpts...
How would you sum up the journey of the company through the last 15 years?
The journey has been wonderful. Though several of our colleagues left on the way, but each one contributed enormously to the company. Just like we talk about a team sport, building an organisation is also a big team sport. If you go back and look at the companies that started out with us, Mindtree is the only company that has reached a certain scale, reputation and position.
Some of the co-founders parted ways on not-so-pleasant notes. Some even went on to join competition or set up competing firms. What do you have to say about them?
As professions, there are times when there are differences of opinions. But I don't think those differences are permanent. Frankly, I have a zero iota of negativity for anyone.
For several years now, Mindtree has enjoyed the position of the best mid-size IT services company. Was that aspirational?
To be honest, at some point it was a conscious call we had made. We believe that if we are a part of a segment, we should be the leader in that segment. There are certain advantages that a leadership position gives. So the objective, five-six years back, was to become a leader in the mid-sized pack, which we continuously worked on. But then, at some point when you are the best mid-sized company, that itself becomes a limitation. We realised that many a times there would be complex large deals where the customer will say that I'll go to the large guys alone.
So is the company is now ready to enter the big league?
Mid-sized and large-cap is really more of financial terms in terms of market capital, etc.
If we look at our competitive landscape, in the last 12 months, in less than 20% of the deals we went after did we compete with the so called mid-size companies. Majority of the time, we are competing with the larger players. So irrespective of where we are placed by financial analysts, the mindset of the organisation needs to be that 'I can play and win against the big boy'. That is really the mindset that we are creating within the organisation.
Mindtree had a target to touch $1 billion in revenue by 2014, but it is still far away. What stopped the company from meeting this?
We did state an aspiration of wanting to be a billion dollars. But to be honest, nobody knew what would happen in September 2008, and the implications of it. The market is very different now compared with what it was earlier when players like Infosys and Cognizant started out. Even if you look at the same companies, who probably grew at a compounded average growth rate of 70-80 per cent, today being in the mid-teens is tough for many of them.
So what is the next target for touching $1 billion in revenue?
This business is so dynamic that it is very difficult to take a very long view. So we have now decided that while internally we will have targets, we will not share them externally.
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What is your biggest regret in the last 15 years at Mindtree?
The one big regret I have is that we did not get large organisations as our customers in the early days. I think, we came close to it once or twice but we never made it. Today, we do have presence in a large segment like BFSI. But because we were late in the game, we don't have a single customer among the top ten spenders in the space.
What is your vision of the company 15 years from now?
It should be a company where people aspire to come and work. To be a really admired workplace is an ambition. Similarly, customers should say that whenever there is the most complex problem, here is the company that we should go to. There is no revenue target that we are sharing as yet. But all I can say is that we want to grow faster than the industry.