Top10 Vendors: 9 - Infosys: Innovative Approach

Brand Infosys is ready to turn heads in the telecom arena too.
Revenue from services in the communications segment, for Infosys, stands at Rs
2,681 crore for FY 2006-07-a whopping 71% growth over previous fiscal's telecom
revenue of Rs 1,566 crore.

The telecom segment contributes 19.3% to the overall revenue of
Infosys, becoming one of the highest revenue generators for the company. In the
previous fiscal it was 16.5% of overall revenue.

Infosys continues to look West rather than the domestic market.
It has increased its footprint in North America and continental Europe. Among
the 40-odd customers, Infosys has 15 original equipment manufacturers (OEMs),
and over 25 non-OEM telecom companies. The elite clientele boasts of 7 of the
top 10 communication service providers worldwide, 5 of the top 6 North American
telecom companies, 4 of the top 6 European telcos, a leading Asia-Pacific telco,
3 major cable operators, and 2 major ISPs. British Telecom and Telstra are two
key clients the company has officially announced its partnership with.

Infosys has looked at broadening its service offerings, moving
on from just a technology implementer to a business transformation partner,
assisting telcos in the entire lifecycle from concept to market. Broadly there
are three main families of solutions that Infosys offers to the communications
services clients. The first of these is called 'Concept-to-Market' solutions,
which includes a comprehensive set of processes or solutions related to business
process redesign, product development lifecycle and value added services. The
second family of solutions is called 'Lead-to-Cash' that addresses the process
cycle from getting a lead to an order, then billing, and finally getting the
cash (revenue). The third family of products is what it calls
'Trouble-to-Repair' under which Infosys offers 'scenario based customer service'
which covers the cycle of customer service from the point when a trouble is
reported by a client's customer to the repair point.

Among significant projects completed, Infosys enabled British
Telecom (BT) launch rate-adaptive broadband speeds of up to 8Mbps on a national
basis. Infosys leveraged its Global Delivery Model to deliver quality software
and developed an operations support system (OSS) for a down-stream rate adaptive
ADSL technology, instead of fixed rate technology. The new rate adaptive
technology allows BT to offer higher broadband speeds, and the development of
error correction methods ensures customers receive the most reliable service.

'We are trusted as an end-to-end transformation partner' To what do you attribute the impressive 71% growth rate over previous year's revenue, in the telecom segment? Beginning of last fiscal we had kept a modest target of 20-30% growth, and are very pleased to have exceeded it beyond expectations. I feel there are three main factors for this high growth: Most of our existing clients did exceedingly well last year, as a result we grew with them. Secondly, the Australian telecom business, which had earlier shown a dip, picked up considerably in the last fiscal-this accelerated our growth further as we have Australia's national carrier, Telstra, as one of our main clients. Last, but not the least, we have successfully diversified our focus into many areas beyond the wireline business, into wireless and Cable MSO. Subhash B Dhar vp, comm service providers What are the new areas of business you are keenly looking at? The job is to go deeper into the cable and wireless segments; we have only just skimmed the surface. We are keen to take up large transformation projects. We want to enable all three-wireline, wireless and cable companies, to leverage the concept of IP multimedia subsystem or a converged platform for voice, data and video. So we feel Mobile TV, IPTV, VoIP, are the holy grails and we need to be competent in to enable our clients to succeed. Can you share with us details of some significant projects undertaken?| We are engaged in some blue-blooded consulting engagements. For example, Infosys is advising a leading Cable MSO in North America in building a management business case for their investment in a new convergent platform. This is a high impact capital investment advisory service, which involves a technology direction. This is extremely challenging for us as we bring in not just our consulting capability but our understanding of the telecom domain and technology. We have also been asked by another leading cable company to partner in the product development process. This involves generation of services. We are very excited of such opportunities that go beyond technology and involve redesigning business processes. What are the challenges you face looking forward? There are two major challenges in my mind. One is to be trusted as a structure transformational partner. So far we have been considered to be very good implementers, but we would now like to be known as a complete end-to-end partner who can lead a client's entire transformational program; right from conceptualizing and executing the change. The other challenge is how to improve the non-linear growth curve. Today, Infosys growth is by and large proportional to the number of people we have in the company. The challenge is to break that norm, and grow revenues without having to add new staff. We would like to charge our customer not on time or material, but on function points, results, and features or per problem solved. This will be a value-add for customers as well. Now that you have set your bar so high, how do you plan to continue the momentum? Looking ahead we feel that we have just scratched the surface really. We are eyeing opportunities beyond business as usual. This is key as the business landscape of our clients is changing, and Infosys is adept in acclimatizing to changing client needs. We are more focused on being nimble-footed. Europe is our geographical focus for the current year as we haven't penetrated the region. We have a huge potential to grow in English-speaking countries and that would keep us busy for the next 4-5 years.

Infosys has enough projects to keep itself busy for the next
couple of years. It is designing innovative new business processes for IP
services for major global CSPs. In another venture, the company is designing a
next-generation network platform (MPLS, Metro Ethernet) and OSS for one of
Europe's largest service providers, among other projects.

Looking ahead, Infosys is eyeing opportunities beyond just the
business-as-usual. It is excited about the transformational projects that
pitches them as trusted partners of telcos who are going through a
transformation phase themselves. Infosys is upbeat about its ability to notch
high impact blue-blooded consultation services especially from wireless and
cable companies.