Infy looks to acquire innovative, small firms

New capabilities with a focus on 'design thinking' on anvil

In its effort to shrug off the tagline of being a services company, IT major Infosys is rolling out strategies to enter new segments and acquire small innovative companies in the product development space.

Speaking at an analyst meet of the company held in Pune on Thursday, Infosys Chief Executive Officer Vishal Sikka said the company will look at firms working on the “technologies of tomorrow” like artificial intelligence (AI) and automation for acquisition.

“The company is looking to move its business process outsourcing (BPO) and infrastructure management services to the automation area, which will help in bringing down financial cost. The strategic focus of Infosys will now be on ‘renew’ and ‘new’,” he said.

“Of course, our key focus is our own organic growth, our renewal from within, but we believe that it is necessary to complement this with an active inorganic strategy as well,” Sikka said.

He said Infosys is building new kinds of capabilities with a focus on ‘design thinking’ and has already begun training employees in this direction.

“As of September, we are at $53,000 revenue per employee. We have been engaging with employees for great new technology,” he said.

As part of Infosys’ strategy to give thrust to Big Data, analytics, cloud and digital, the company has attracted some of the best industry talent, including Navin Budhiraja (SAP’s SuccessFactors chief architect) and Abdul Razack (SAP’s customer engagement and strategic projects head).

Sikka, who took over as Infosys CEO in August, wants the 33-year-old firm to regain industry bellwether status soon. For the last two quarters of fiscal 2015, Infosys has registered moderate growth.

But it is yet to gain momentum to be back on a high-growth trajectory like its peers TCS and HCL Tech.

There has also been growing worry on the largescale exodus of senior-level executives from the company.