Retail sees growth as Infy shifts gears in India

India's second largest IT services company Infosys expects retail segment to contribute more in its revenues in India in the coming days.

The retail vertical's share in the company's total revenues during the first quarter of current fiscal stood at 16.6% as against 15.9% in the March quarter of previous fiscal. The total revenues were Rs 19,128 crore during the first quarter ended June.

"In retail, we have had some success in India, based on our global work. Other than BFSI, I would say retail is where we have seen some success," U B Pravin Rao, the company's COO told DH in an exclusive interview.

Banking, Financial services and Insurance (BFSI) vertical contributes the highest portion of its revenues and accounts for 31.8% of the company's revenues.

Retail segment witnessed the highest revenue growth among all its business verticals for the just concluded quarter at 5%, whereas BFSI revenues declined by 1.5%.

Change in focus

Infosys has decided to go slow on the government projects in India. Domestic business contributed 2.6% of the company's revenues for the quarter ended June 30, 2018. Rao attributed the move to the volatility in the government business in India.

BFSI business of the company has been a success in India, owing to the Finacle, which is used by most of the banks in India -- both public and private banks. Several major customers of Finacle include State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Union Bank of India, Bank of India, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Punjab National Bank and J&K Bank, among others.

"We have now started penetrating the insurance sector. We have McCamish platform that we use to gain traction. We haven't seen much growth in manufacturing, healthcare and life sciences," Rao said.

To address attrition

Commenting on attrition rate, Rao said it was much higher than their expectations during the first quarter. The company had seen attrition jumping to 20.6% in the first quarter, from 16.6% in the last quarter of 2017-18. While the company had hired 17,709 employees during the quarter, it saw 11,911 of its employees leave the company, thereby leaving with a net addition of 5,798 employees.

"It's a bit worrying factor, but at the same time we believe that we will fix it in the next quarter. It was bit surprising. We have done many things in the recent past probably better than what we have done earlier. For instance, we have given 100% of the variable pay. We have not done a good job in terms of articulating to the people. It's just about intervention, and whatever deficiency we will be correcting it," he added.