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'Our strategy is to grow in the US markets'

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CIOL Bureau
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MUMBAI, INDIA: With Europe becoming a major outsourcing destination in the backdrop of economic slowdown in the US markets, many have begun to look at European countries with renewed interest.

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However, Sudhakar Ram, chairman and managing director of Mastek Ltd., has based himself in the US for the last couple of years to grow the market there.

In a brief tête-à-tête with Prasad Ramasubramanian of CyberMedia News, he shares the company’s main area of focus both from a revenue perspective and from the market front.

Europe is suddenly not just a tourist destination but also an IT destination. Comments…

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If you take the IT spend market across Europe — it would mainly center around UK, France and Germany. We operate in two out of the three: UK and France.

In France we had a partnership but it has not taken up in terms of revenues.

But we have our operation out there. More than 50 per cent of our revenue comes from Europe. Our strategy is to grow in the US markets. That’s why for the last 2 years, I have been sitting in the US.

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How challenging is the US markets for your company?

When you are small, the challenges are different; and it is not related to things like the economy, but in terms of managing your sales team, your company etc. We have been able to manage it pretty well.

How do you view India as a market now?

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In the next 3-4 years we would see India growing. We have a good base in insurance in India. Most of the insurance companies in India are our customers and we see India becoming more significant in the future.

What are main sectors that you have been focusing?

We have always focused on two sectors. Insurance and financial services and Don’t think it would change for sometime.

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With rupee appreciating against the US dollar, how has it affected your delivery systems?

Most of our billing was in pounds and we felt the pinch because rupee appreciated against the pound too.

With the future for this entire sector going for a toss in recent months, how do you see Mastek placed in such a scenario?

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We would be bettering the industry average in the next 2-3 years and even today we have grown in a good way. We have already been in the wave 3 and when the industry opens up fully to wave 3, we would be at the leading end of the market.

Challenges in the HR front have surfaced in the IT industry with many companies going for reduced workforce contrary to the trends over the last few years. What's your take on this?

For us, we are much smaller in terms of count and have about 3500 people in the headcount and we add about 1000 people every year. So, I don’t see much of a problem on that front.

Don’t you think your recruitments would be affected by this phenomenon?

We don’t see HR as a major challenge and the kind of work we do - we have not had a problem recruiting or retaining people.

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