Infosys’s India business unit to focus more on private sector

To break its large dependence on public sector deals, Infosys’s India business unit will be looking to deal more with private players.

CHENNAI: To break its large dependence on public sector deals, Infosys' India business unit will be looking to deal more with private players. In contrast to the company looking for large deals in the public sector, the private sector initiative will be marked more by smaller deals and a larger number of clients to generate higher revenue. 

"We realised that most of our revenue was coming from the public sector. Public sector has its own nuances and characteristics . We don't want to keep all our eggs in one basket. We are taking a pause to rejig the portfolio more towards private sector," said C N Raghupathi, head of the India business unit at Infosys.

The move is possibly also a result of slower growth seen by the unit in recent years. In 2011, Raghupathi had said at an analyst meet that the Indian business unit's share in Infosys' revenue would be around 10% by 2015. The share in Infosys' revenue currently at 2.6% compared to around 1.9% in 2011, is far from the 10% projection. Between 2011 and now the company has added only 10 or 20 active clients. It had 40 clients in 2011.

On the brighter side, Infosys' India unit has managed to bag few large clients like India Post and the Income Tax Department in this period.

He said growth for Infosys in the private sector was in sectors such as telecom where players were trying to implement valueadded services and financial sector where players like nonbanking financial companies would look at more compliance due to tighter regulations.

Raghupathi also said that the company is looking at small contracts in the public sector related to big data and analytics and is involved in intelligence and defence projects. Infosys is talking to the government about the National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) project. NATGRID is a national intelligence network which will connect the databases of various Indian law enforcment and intelligence agencies and ministries.