Infy to hike revenues from Europe, to focus on verticals

IT major Infosys has firmed up plans to enhance the company's revenue share from Europe by focusing on verticals such as banking, retail, transportation and health care.

"Europe is a very critical market for us. Last year, its contribution towards our total revenue was between 23 per cent and 24 per cent. It is our intention to scale it up to 30-35 per cent in the coming years," Infosys chairman and chief mentor N R Narayana Murthy told a gathering of 50 interns from various US universities during the launch of the InStep programme for the current year at Infosys' Electronics City campus here on Thursday.

Interacting with the interns, he said Infosys was banking on its development centres in the UK, Germany and Belgium, and the BPO centre at Czech Republic to propel the firm's growth.

"However, our focus area will be Germany. It is a critical component of our plans to enhance revenue generation from the European continent. Very soon, we will launch a development centre in Germany," he added.

Murthy said Infosys would look at China as an opportunity rather than a threat. "We have to integrate China in our business plan. There are many good lessons to be learnt from them. We will make our presence felt in China in an increasing manner," he said.

Elaborating on plans for China, Murthy said Infosys aims to enhance the headcount in its Chinese operations to 20,000 over the next five years.

"We are awaiting approval of architectural plans for our new campuses at Shanghai and Hongshu from the Chinese authorities. We consider China as a growing market and we want to be there," he noted.

According to Murthy, China is yet to overcome various bottlenecks to emerge as the leader in the IT industry. "First of all, it is the language problem. They lack the ability to speak in English. Besides, it is not easy to teach Chinese youngsters business concepts as in India. As a consequence, we have deployed a large number of US and Indian professionals to handle the front end responsibility. The Chinese manage the back-end operations," he said.

He stated that Infosys was not very successful in reducing the number of daily sales outstanding (DSO) accounts receivables in China.

"The average DSO accounts for 61 days worldwide. In China, it is nearly 282 days. It is very difficult to collect money in China," he added.

Murthy hoped that the Chinese authorities would set right things. "I am very optimistic that things will change for the good in China. Our focus on China remains unchanged," he said.