JOIN USEven as Infosys is cutting down on slack in its overseas operations by eliminating onsite supporting services jobs in the US market, the company’s subsidiary Lodestone Holding AG is actively ramping up its strategy and consulting practice in Europe.
Lodestone is currently scouting for consultants in the key BFSI space in Europe, sources said.
Infosys Lodestone has a presence in 17 countries but, has following its acquisition, become earnings-accretive on the Infosys balance-sheet and emerged as the template for Infosys’ European growth plans.
Infosys had completed the $390-million acquisition of 700-plus employee strong Lodestone Holding AG in July last year.
Since then, Zurich-headquartered Lodestone has swelled its headcount to over 1,300 people as it seeks to increase its share of revenues outside the Swiss IT services market in continental Europe as well as from Latin America and Asia-Pacific. Lodestone has been nurturing its consulting heritage by pursuing a value-added combination of management and IT consulting.
The company is understood to have over 500 clients in continental Europe alone. It is planning to grow its consulting base in Europe where it has business transformation projects across the banking, financial core insurance sectors under its belt.
Areas like core insurance applications, claims handling and policy administration are strong growth areas where the company sees growing requirement for new talent with experience in running and managing entire project life cycles.
“Infosys continues to be keen on ramping up in the strategy and consultancy space where process and cost optimisation are key issues with clients. Consequently, Infosys Lodestone is increasingly targeting higher leverage with its European consulting clientele, while simultaneously, Infosys rationalises its business support personnel requirements onsite by recruiting sparingly. Or, eliminating job roles where instances of functionality duplication occur wherever possible, including in the US market,” HR sources said.
Infosys did not reply to an email seeking comment on Lodestone’s recruitment plans.
Infosys Lodestone had 1,307 employees on its rolls as of the second quarter ended June 30 this year from 1,191 employees at the end of fiscal 2013.
Revenues from the subsidiary increased 29 per cent to $90.67 million in the second quarter from $70.33 million the previous quarter ended March 31, 2013.
Per person productivity (PPP) at about $92,350 per annum at Infosys Lodestone has been the second highest among Infosys’ subsidiaries in 2012-13 after Infosys Public Services which showed PPP of $604,000 per annum.