Why Sikka is upbeat about Infy's industry-leading growth by next fiscal

Infosys lost out to rivals like Tata Consultancy Services and HCL Technologies in terms of growth.

With a deal pipeline of about $3 billion and strong growth levers in place, software services giant Infosys on Thursday said it is confident of returning to ‘industry-leading’ growth by next financial year.

"The overall climate looks good, we are comfortable with what our Q4 looks like and it will set us up with a nice ability to execute the year ahead of us.

"We have earlier said we are confident of industry-leading growth in next financial year. . . We are on track for that," Infosys CEO and Managing Director Vishal Sikka said.

He added the momentum at which the business is growing is sustainable.

Once an industry bellwether, Infosys lost out to rivals like Tata Consultancy Services and HCL Technologies in terms of growth.

Besides, it faced other issues like attrition and exodus of senior-level executives.

Infosys, which is India's second largest software services company, aims to achieve an aspirational goal of $20 billion in topline by 2020.

"We have signed four large deals this quarter with $ 360 million in total contract value.

“There were three deals that we couldn't close in the quarter because of holiday season, we have already converted two of them. . .

“We see a deal pipeline of $3 billion," Infosys President and COO U B Pravin Rao said.

The company has also revised its revenue guidance for the fiscal ended March 31, 2016 to 12.8-13.2 per cent in constant currency.

In October, the company had forecast its revenues for the ongoing fiscal to be 10-12 per cent in constant currency.

Infosys CFO M D Ranganath said the company will continue to focus on enhancing operational efficiency through multiple levers in the coming quarters.

The company has also been able to bring down attrition rates (annualised consolidated) from 21.3 per cent in December 2014 and 19.9 per cent in September 2015 to 18.1 per cent in December 2015.

Infosys added 5,407 people in the October-December 2015 quarter to take the total headcount to 1,93,383.