CapGemini does not believe in talking aloud about its work. Is this the right approach?
We have always believed in letting our work talk for us. It has both its pros and cons. In a mature market, talking and promoting yourself in a big way might not get you any bigger deals.
If everybody decides to go public with $150 million deals, I see no reason why we should imitate them. We could have gone public with our $500-million deals. But only good news, that I can imagine, would be for the bourses. Contracts are not won by external portrayal alone.
Besides underplaying the deals, what else works for CapGemini?
We have had a modest beginning. And despite not being in headlines, we have survived the competition and done well. We have grown organically to touch the 4,000 employee mark, which is 100 per cent growth from our inception in 1999 in India.
You have decided to take the headcount to 10,000 by 2007. Is this to ensure a manpower base here in India to boost your image overseas?
Not really. We see better opportunities in the Western markets and overall the general health of IT market is also heating up. We now expect bigger deals to happen in the near future, and having a knowledge base is crucial for us.
Cost effective solutions are the key today and this can be done by players who have the right size and knowledge base. And price-management is easier when you have a certain volume in this game.
So, will your business mix remain the same this year?
The contribution of technology services to CapGemini's revenues in 2004 was 35 per cent followed by outsourcing services at 33 per cent, indicating that managing our cost and delivery efficiencies will hold the key to our future growth.
The business mix will remain the same, but we are also seeing demand for consulting services, which remains the smaller arm for us (with revenue contribution of 16 per cent in 2004).
Will CapGemini be gunning for offshore supremacy?
CapGemini believes in doing things differently. We apply the rightshore model wherein we strike a balance between on-site work with near-shore, offshore capabilities. This essentially translates into faster turnaround time for processes and reduced cost of ownership.
What do you feel about the trend of big outsourcing deals being broken into smaller bits?
One can see that multi-billion dollar IT outsourcing deals, where the likes of IBM, Accenture, EDS and Wipro have traditionally held top positions, are on the decline. They are now doled out to a number of vendors.
What remains to be seen is whether it will last or is just a passing phase. The problem here seems that the vendors need to have a level of maturity to handle the different processes of a system individually, and yet make the system talk to each process with complete ease.
