Q: You spoke about holding a more than 20% dollar revenue growth. What is your margin outlook for 2009 and do you think that kind of revenue growth might come with a 20% kind of an EPS growth as well?

Senapaty: But let me first correct a bit, you said would that be the minimum number and I was trying to respond to that - it was not as if I was trying to give a guidance for this. But what I’m saying is as of now it doesn’t look to be that low as a number. So as far as margins are concerned, we have exited the year with about 21%, which means that for the year we have 21.6% and that was despite the fact that we had foreign exchange 11% appreciation, which hit about 3.5%. And similarly the acquisition impact which was about 0.5% a combination of this two but still our margin dropped only by 2.7%.

So our objective for the current year would be to be able to hold the margins on YoY basis or give an expansion; our aim will be to seek an expansion from what operating margins we got for FY07-08. Because we are looking at much more operational efficiencies, we are looking at utilization, bulge in exchanges, we are looking at onside contract reduction, we are looking at expansion in margins in the acquisition. So combination of these; we feel comfortable that for the year we should be able to hold and expand the operating margin for the year.

Q: Most of the large companies like yours and Infosys are exuding some confidence for the second half of the current fiscal. What is giving you that confidence because it could easily happen that the US economy and large companies there goes through a sticky phase even in the second half of the year. Is your hope for second half improvement predicated on a short recession in the US and a pick up in the second half, or do you have confidence from your clients that they will almost certainly pick up business may be 3-6 months from now?

Senapaty: It’s a function of two things. Firstly, we have talked to the customers and the customers are articulating this confidence. And secondly, some of the pipelines that we have or some of the pipelines that we are already working for, and the pipelines that you are seeing in the market place, it gives us the confidence that while it is possible that some of the pipelines could disappear, or some of the pipelines may not fortify. But net-net looking at the size, looking at the seriousness with which the engagements are happening that gives us the confidence, that firstly the decision-making could get delayed but eventually they are substantive good value propositions that the customers are seeking. Customers are wanting to take the cost out much more and they are in those spaces which is more of lights on kind of space and not necessarily the discretionary one, which could therefore disappear and combination of these three factors gives us the confidence.

 If you also look at Europe and I think growth for us in Europe has been very good, we crossed a billion dollar revenue from Europe in this particular fiscal, and we got 9.2% sequential growth for the Q4 - that looks very promising. It is not only UK but also outside United Kingdom in terms of the other parts of the Europe.

Q: What is also similar while we have spoken to a lot of the large tech companies is the fact that they all agree there will be more sluggish volume growth, but pricing remains intact. In some cases maybe it has moved up a little bit. What is your own estimation on what happens on the pricing front? Does it remain where it is right now, do you see an upward bias, or do you think you might have to over the next few quarters renegotiate pricing on a couple of deals?

Senapaty: No I think we have got decent price increases in the last few quarters. We want to continue with them. I appreciate the fact that what we got in the last two-three quarters may not hold good going forward particularly from some of the segments in the US. But pricing realisation is not a factor of the coupon that you get from the customer, but what is your price realisation. There are multiple other components, which can reduce the price that you negotiated for versus what is getting reflected in the P&L account. We think there are a lot of opportunities for us in that space.

Some of the mixed changes that you could do, which means getting more growth out of good projects can again enhance the price realisation component. So, net-net new customers are coming at 4-5% better pricing. So, net-net I would expect pricing to be stable to I would say, a little bit of an upward bias rather than any kind of a downward bias that you are looking for.

So far as volume is concerned, I think last year we got a 30% volume growth, which has been very satisfying. We will continue to look forward to decent volume growth too.

Q: It will become an integrated part of your number, but can you just line out what Infocrossing did this time around by way of a revenue contribution and where margins are compared to your standalone margin performance?

Senapaty: Yes, I think the margins for Infocrossing was about 9% for Q4, which was significantly up from the previous quarter. I wouldn’t say that it has gone to steady state because we are looking at many more in terms of getting into the global delivery model so far as Infocrossing is concerned. That is beginning and will happen in the next two quarters. So, we will see some amount of price margin drop. But as the years and quarters pass by, we would be expecting in Q4, the margin of Infocrossing to be very close to what the overall Wipro Technologies’ operating margins are.

Q: You indicated that growth this year might be slightly lower than last year, can you give us some sense of how much reduction in percentage growth you are looking at on your bottomline?

Senapaty: I think bottomline-wise the growth would be superior to what we saw last year, because last year the exchange definitely contributed significantly to a decline in net income growth as compared to revenue growth. Like we saw a 38% dollar growth, and in rupee terms the growth was 23% and in terms of net income growth it was only 11-12%. So, that was the effect because whatever happened on the dollar to rupee and that got translated up to the net income level, hopefully in the current year, one would not see that kind of a sharp exchange adverse so far as the exporters are concerned.

And we also have our own hedges to be able to make sure that we stand more protected. We would not get into a situation of 3.5% adverse that we saw in ’07-’08. We think at worst, we will have 0.5% to 1% impact so far as the foreign exchange is concerned.

So, given the typical headwinds that one has and the typical opportunity levers that one has, one is fairly optimistic that we should be able to hold or expand margins for the current year.

Q: So, you won’t give us a number, I understand that, but like you set a floor or a bar of around 20% for dollar revenue, can you give us a rough number to work with, closer to 20-25% or 15%, just a ballpark benchmark growth for EPS?

Senapaty: First of all I have not given any bar of 20%. Secondly, if as long as we hold the margins on a YoY basis, I think therefore the net income growth or at least the operating profit growth would be in similar lines with the revenue growth.

Q: There have been some changes in designations as well, and there have been a lot of press reports about some senior people or somebody being elevated as Vice Chairman of Wipro, any truth to that?

Senapaty: No, I think the announcement it talks about is that there are three individuals who have come into the board, which is me, Suresh Vaswani, and Girish Paranjpe. Suresh Vaswani and Girish Paranjpe become the Co-CEOs for our combined IT business. So, you will have a round of discussions with them after this session. Otherwise my role has not changed, except that I have been elevated to the board. So far as the other two gentlemen are concerned, Girish Paranjpe and Suresh Vaswani, their role is changing in terms of becoming Co-CEOs and also getting elevated to the board.