InfoAnda - Plan in place for struggling Infosys, but no quick returns |

Pakistanis angry over detentions in Times Sq. case
Monday, May 24, 2010
ISLAMABAD – Relatives of three men detained by Pakistan for alleged links to the suspect in the attempted Times Square bombing say the men are innocent.
They

Taiwan denies boycotting Australian film festival
Thursday, August 6, 2009

AFP - Thursday, August 6TAIPEI (AFP) - - Taiwan's Beijing-friendly government on Wednesday denied boycotting an Australian film festival amid a row over the e

Merkel's support dips, regional ally resigns International
Thursday, September 3, 2009

By Sarah Marsh and Noah Barkin

BERLIN (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel suffered a double blow on Thursday as a senior party ally in east German

Minister seeks closure of anti-Berlusconi websites
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
ROME (AFP) - – The Italian government moved Tuesday to close down Internet sites encouraging further violence against Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who

Asian markets mixed after Wall Street rally
Wednesday, March 18, 2009

By ELAINE KURTENBACH,AP Business Writer AP - Wednesday, March 18SHANGHAI - Asia's stock market rally seemed to be running out of steam Wednesday, despite an

'Four Christmases' top movie for second weekend | Entertainment | | 8 December 2008
NATO strikes that killed many Afghan civilians | 23 February 2010
Woman arrested for offering sex for World Series tickets | 28 October 2009

South Korea replaces top econ, North policy makers | 19 January 2009

Forum Views () Forum Replies ()

Read more with google mobile : Plan in place for struggling Infosys, but no quick returns |

Edition: U.S. Africa Arabic Argentina Brazil Canada China France Germany India Italy Japan Latin America Mexico Russia Spain United Kingdom Home Business Business Home Economy Technology Media Small Business Legal Deals Earnings Social Pulse Business Video The Freeland File Aerospace & Defense Markets Markets Home U.S. Markets European Markets Asian Markets Global Market Data Indices M&A Stocks Bonds Currencies Commodities Futures Funds peHUB World World Home U.S. Brazil China Euro Zone Japan Mexico Russia India Insight World Video Reuters Investigates Decoder Politics Politics Home Election 2012 Campaign Polling Political Punchlines Supreme Court Politics Video Tech Technology Home MediaFile Science Tech Video Tech Tonic Social Pulse Opinion Opinion Home Chrystia Freeland John Lloyd Felix Salmon Jack Shafer David Rohde Bernd Debusmann Nader Mousavizadeh Lucy P. Marcus David Cay Johnston Bethany McLean Anatole Kaletsky Edward Hadas Hugo Dixon Ian Bremmer Lawrence Summers Susan Glasser The Great Debate Steven Brill Jack & Suzy Welch Frederick Kempe Christopher Papagianis Mark Leonard Breakingviews Equities Credit Private Equity M&A Macro & Markets Politics Breakingviews Video Money Money Home Tax Break Lipper Awards 2012 Global Investing MuniLand Unstructured Finance Linda Stern Mark Miller John Wasik James Saft Analyst Research Alerts Watchlist Portfolio Stock Screener Fund Screener Personal Finance Video Money Clip Investing 201 Life Health Sports Arts Faithworld Business Traveler Entertainment Oddly Enough Lifestyle Video Pictures Pictures Home Reuters Photographers Full Focus Video Reuters TV Reuters News Article Comments (0) Follow Reuters Facebook Twitter RSS YouTube Read Obama to lay out economic vision in high-stakes speech | 4:56pm EDT ECB holds rates as inflation eclipses growth risks 7:49am EDT Wall Street closes at multi-year highs on ECB, data | 5:24pm EDT Analysis: Clinton shows he is Obama's most valuable weapon 2:17am EDT Powerful quake hits Costa Rica, two dead | 05 Sep 2012 Discussed 82 Democrats attack Romney, defend Obama at convention 81 Obama, Democrats to make their case as convention opens 78 At Jackson Hole, a growing fear for Fed’s independence Sponsored Links Pictures Reuters Photojournalism Our day's top images, in-depth photo essays and offbeat slices of life. See the best of Reuters photography. See more | Photo caption Putin vs. the wild A look at Russian President Vladimir Putin, a man of the wilderness. Slideshow Colombia's FARC war Colombia and the rebel group FARC are negotiating in the hopes of ending an almost 50 year long war. Slideshow Plan in place for struggling Infosys, but no quick returns Tweet Share this Email Print Related Topics Tech » Media » Employees of Indian software company Infosys walk past Infosys logos at their campus in the Electronic City area in Bangalore September 4, 2012. Credit: Reuters/Vivek Prakash By Harichandan Arakali and Tony Munroe BANGALORE, India | Thu Sep 6, 2012 5:03pm EDT BANGALORE, India (Reuters) - Infosys Ltd, the company that symbolized India's rise as an outsourcing powerhouse but has struggled this year, will have to wait longer than expected for returns from a remodeled strategy. The $7 billion company based in Bangalore, India's Silicon Valley, has missed sales targets, lost market share, put off an annual pay rise and seen its stock battered this year. "The realization of the benefits will be delayed short-term," said S.D. Shibulal, the company's chief executive officer, referring to the "Infosys 3.0" strategy that the company says will better position it for the future. It was a rare acknowledgement for a company famous for hitting or beating its targets. Under the strategy, Infosys will focus more on higher-value software and consulting that can be applied across clients and less on labor-intensive plain vanilla outsourcing services. The problem is Infosys is shifting gears at a time when its corporate clients in the United States and Europe, including its core financial services base, are tightening their belts, dealing with fewer vendors, and taking longer to make decisions. Industry-watchers say Infosys' position as a premium player, which allowed it to charge more and earn fatter margins, is a liability in this market, to the benefit of rivals like Tata Consultancy Services and HCL Technologies. "It is a challenging environment," Shibulal said in an interview in the tree-lined 80-acre campus on the outskirts of Bangalore that serves as Infosys headquarters. Shibulal, or Shibu as he is known in the informal Infosys style, is one of the seven engineers who launched the company in 1981 by pooling together $250. He is the fourth person from the group to become CEO, but will be the last -- the other three have quit. The company's troubles have spurred criticism of everything from its method of choosing CEOs to its pricing strategy to what is seen as an insular and risk-averse culture. It has also prompted worry that the recent troubles may affect the company's ability to attract and retain talent. Investors have reacted harshly, pushing Infosys stock down more than 12 percent this year, making it the fourth-worst performer among 71 stocks around the world in the large and mid-cap IT services sector. "It should be the right plan, but the issue is implementation and results," said Walter Rossini, a Milan-based fund manager with Gestielle India, who owns Infosys in his $300 million fund alongside TCS and Tech Mahindra. LABOUR PAINS? Infosys has long been ahead of the curve in corporate India, stressing high standards of governance and transparency, paying attractive wages to tens of thousands of young workers, and offering a stock option program that turned some salaried staff into millionaires. Instead of offices in business districts, Infosys prefers campus-style locations in places such as Pune and Mysore, a southern city where it has built a $400 million facility it says is the world's largest corporate training centre, which can train 14,000 staff at a time. One crucial worry over the company's recent poor performance is that it will hurt Infosys' stature as an employer of choice for Indian graduates. It has seen a handful of high-profile executive exits in the past couple of years. Recently, Shaji Farooq quit his post as the Americas head of financial services to lead a new unit at rival Wipro. Three senior officials at its BPO (business process outsourcing) arm have also recently quit. While staff turnover varies by season and the state of the industry, Infosys' attrition rate over the year to June was 14.9 percent, compared with 10.9 percent at larger rival TCS. In June 2009, another challenging time for the industry, attrition at Infosys was 11.1 percent, compared with 10.7 percent at TCS. "The single most important reason, in my view, as to (why) Infosys needs to demonstrate some bit of growth momentum is employee retention, because ultimately this is a business that is really dependent on people," said Bhavin Shah, CEO of Equirus Securities in Mumbai and a longtime industry watcher. At the Bangalore headquarters, this does not seem to be a problem. Throngs of young IT workers stroll the pathways through lush lawns and futuristic steel and glass buildings. Parts of it seem like a U.S. university campus, although security is tighter and many of the young men wear neckties. Shibulal said it has not been any more difficult to retain staff since Infosys implemented the 3.0 plan early last year. "The numbers don't show any difference. Finally I have to look at data. Perceptions can be very misleading at times, and if you look at single point instances also it can be very misleading," he said. "Our conversion rates from (university) campuses remain high," he said, adding that the pay rise for this year at Infosys had been postponed, not cancelled. Before economic crises hit the industry in recent years, it was not uncommon for India's IT workforce to get double-digit pay rises. Still, TCS said its staff in India will get an average of 8 percent increase in salaries this year. Part of Infosys' strategy is to break the almost direct link between growth in sales and headcount, which sees the industry hiring tens of thousands of campus recruits every year and spending six or more months training them to be billing-ready. The idea is to sell more intellectual property, not just the sweat and brainpower of its 150,000-plus employees. "If you look at the long term, we clearly believe you can't recruit so much high talent, because there'll be a bottleneck at some point," said Shibulal, who at 57 is less than three years shy of Infosys' mandatory retirement age. FIGHTING COMMODITISATION The company's aim is take more of a problem-solving or solutions-based approach for customers such as Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, as opposed to simply selling technology services. "What Infosys is doing is absolutely the right thing from the long term standpoint. The only way to offset the immense commoditization that the industry faces in the business IT services is if one focuses on higher value-added services," said Kuldeep Koul, an analyst with ICICI Securities in Mumbai. To that end, Infosys wants its software business to contribute as much as one-third of revenues in five or six years, from a few percentage points now. It wants IT services, the bread-and-butter industry offering that accounts for roughly two-thirds of its business and where competition is the most fierce, to make up just a third of its revenue. The market is wary, with analysts expecting Infosys to post the slowest earnings growth among key rivals over three to five years, at a compound average annual rate of 12.6 percent, Thomson Reuters data shows. They expect 13.8 percent growth for Wipro, 17.3 percent for TCS, 18.2 percent for HCL and 19.4 percent for Cognizant Technology Solutions. "Medium-term, I think we'll see the benefits. Medium to long-term we should be fine," said Shibulal. "In the short term, the only thing we need to do is win deals." (Additional reporting by Patturaja Murugaboopathy; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan) Tech Media Related Quotes and News Company Price Related News Tweet this Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints We welcome comments that advance the story through relevant opinion, anecdotes, links and data. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can flag it to our editors by using the report abuse links. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of Reuters. For more information on our comment policy, see http://blogs.reuters.com/fulldisclosure/2010/09/27/toward-a-more-thoughtful-conversation-on-stories/ Comments (0) Be the first to comment on reuters.com. Add yours using the box above. Edition: U.S. Africa Arabic Argentina Brazil Canada China France Germany India Italy Japan Latin America Mexico Russia Spain United Kingdom Back to top Reuters.com Business Markets World Politics Technology Opinion Money Pictures Videos Site Index Legal Bankruptcy Law California Legal New York Legal Securities Law Support & Contact Support Corrections Connect with Reuters Twitter Facebook LinkedIn RSS Podcast Newsletters Mobile About Privacy Policy Terms of Use AdChoices Copyright Our Flagship financial information platform incorporating Reuters Insider An ultra-low latency infrastructure for electronic trading and data distribution A connected approach to governance, risk and compliance Our next generation legal research platform Our global tax workstation Thomsonreuters.com About Thomson Reuters Investor Relations Careers Contact Us Thomson Reuters is the world's largest international multimedia news agency, providing investing news, world news, business news, technology news, headline news, small business news, news alerts, personal finance, stock market, and mutual funds information available on Reuters.com, video, mobile, and interactive television platforms. Thomson Reuters journalists are subject to an Editorial Handbook which requires fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests. NYSE and AMEX quotes delayed by at least 20 minutes. Nasdaq delayed by at least 15 minutes. For a complete list of exchanges and delays, please click here.

Other News on Friday, 7 September 2012
Insight: Taking on the toga-wearing bandits in Brazil's courts |
Palestinian PM says willing to resign over economic protests |
Hong Kong goes to polls with many fuming over China influence |
Unrest threatens Bangladesh's key garment export |
Ex-U.S. soldier pleads guilty to smuggling guns to China |
Girl hid under bodies after French Alps shootings |
France 'millionaire' tax to be watered down: report |
Amazon unwraps larger Kindle Fire, takes on Apple |
Nvidia's miss in Kindle Fire surprises some investors |
Plan in place for struggling Infosys, but no quick returns |
Audience says Apple may drop its technology from iPhones, shares slump |
China's Huawei negotiating conditions to join U.S. hearing |
Green Day on for MTV awards after dehydration scare |
Looper, Kristen Stewart in focus as Toronto opens |
Greek tax man targets business, Chili Peppers concert |
Buy James Bond's car, clothes, watch at golden sale |
U.S. congressman confirms high-level U.S.-Israel spat over Iran |
Exclusive: China president-in-waiting signals quicker reform
U.S. cargo ship captain arrested, vessel detained in Venezuela |
Moldova rebel region marks independence with Soviet ritual |
U.S. to blacklist Haqqani network: New York Times |
Christian girl granted bail in Pakistan Islam defamation case |
Japan to boost isle defense capability despite cuts |
Eleven killed in fresh violence over land in Kenya |
Merkel braves Bavaria beer tent to pitch euro message |
Intel to showcase new chips as investors eye stagnant PC sales |
Apple cuts memory chip order to Samsung for new iPhone: source |
Amazon takes on Apple with larger, cheaper Kindle Fires |
Audience Inc says Apple unlikely to use its tech in new iPhones |
HTC eyes sales boost for Windows phones |
Staples to carry new Kindle Fire models as early as this month |
Judge approves U.S. settlement with publishers over e-books |
Actress Kristen Stewart steals limelight as Toronto film fest opens |
UK boy band One Direction big winner at MTV video awards |
Simon Cowell lashes out over Voice, X Factor showdown |
Actors Amy Poehler, Will Arnett separating |
Ben & Jerry's wins order blocking porn copycat DVDs |
Bombardment, blasts rock Syrian capital |
Iraq blasts target Shi'ite mosques, kill eight |
Family feud in focus as French seek clues to Alps slaying |
South African police shot fleeing miners, witness says |
Portugal PM to address nation; more austerity seen |
Hong Kong to vote amid discontent over China influence |
Quakes in southwest China kill dozens, damage 20,000 homes |
Nigeria police protect phone masts after attacks |
Patience and dodgy deals needed to cash in Sudan bourse gains |
Nokia to start selling make-or-break smartphone in November |
Pandora shares plunge on fears of Apple service |
Exclusive: Insiders suspected in Saudi cyber attack |
Best Buy starts pre-sale of new Kindle devices |
Venice film festival rounds off with steamy Passion |
Britain's Proms singing its way to happy finale |
Greece at new risk of being pushed off euro
Bodies of missing Tenn. mom, Jo Ann Bain, and daughter found
Female Breasts Are Bigger Than Ever
AMD Trinity Accelerated Processing Units Now in Volume Production
The Avengers (2012 film), made the second biggest opening- and single-day gross of all-time
AMD to Start Production of piledriver
Ivy Bridge Quad-Core, Four-Thread Desktop CPUs
Islamists Protest Lady Gaga's Concert in Indonesia
Japan Successfully Broadcasts an 8K Signal Over the Air
ECB boosts loans to 1 trillion Euro to stop credit crunch
Egypt : Mohammed Morsi won with 52 percent
What do you call 100,000 Frenchmen with their hands up
AMD Launches AMD Embedded R-Series APU Platform
Fed Should not Ignore Emerging Market Crisis
Fed casts shadow over India, emerging markets
Why are Chinese tourists so rude? A few insights

USD EUR - 1 year graph	VPN on MacOSX	BlogMeter 1.01