Seeing uptick in manufacturing, retail segments: Zensar

If you look at our own company we also do work in Europe and Africa. Both these are good markets; we are about currency. The South African rand is not doing well. Apart from that I do not see any reason to suddenly say that look is the outlook good or not. I think outlook will be good for all companies who are in the right segments and so long as you are in the right service areas I do not see a problem.

Sonia: What is your own exposure to the insurance and energy verticals and are you noticing any kind of pressure in those segments?A: We are not in the oil and gas segment and clearly that will be impacted because we all know what is happening to oil prices and the volatility. Insurance I do not agree because we are in that segment doing well. I do not see a problem there at all. In the other two segments, we are in manufacturing and retail we see a huge uptake because I was just listening to Rakesh Jhunjhunwala and his point is right I mean e-commerce valuations are pretty heavy. However, today if you look at the future any company which is a service provider in e-commerce space is likely to see a good run. As everybody is exploring e-commerce, it is not just retail- but it is retail, healthcare, insurance, manufacturing with internet of things. So, so long as you are in very strongly additional transformation, companies will do better.Anuj: Last quarter was very good for you in terms of dollar revenue growth. You had the best run rates in the IT sector? Do you think that kind of run rate is possible in FY16 as well? A: It is a good question, everything is possible, but clearly, we are watchful. The signs are good as I said both in digital as well as in applications and infrastructure. We had some set backs in infrastructure for the last two years because of an acquisition we did but even that is turning around. At this point of time I see no red signals anywhere and we should have a good FY16 without a doubt.

Sonia: Can you flesh out that point for us a little bit in terms of what the potential could be in the manufacturing and the retail segment? Because earlier you had mentioned that in e-commerce specifically you are looking at a 20 percent growth over the next three years. But just in the near term say in the next one year what kind of returns or growth do you think the retail segment could give you?A: Retail for us is complete vertical of on retail story which means right from supporting on infrastructure and moving to the cloud all the applications particularly in the Oracle area where we are very strong worldwide and now with e-commerce in fact we have just launched in the New York Retail Federation conference in January a complete end to end capability built an Oracle which is called Parade so if you take all these together we are definitely expecting to do very well.If you take the e-commerce horizontal out and then put that to insurance and manufacturing even that will be the kicker for growth. So retail absolutely should be our star next year and apart from that all the stuff we do in digital which will also pull in the traditional services I am very confident. We have the right strategy. We have the right mix of products and services and very confident about what we are seeing with our customers. Anuj: You said 75 percent of your business is US what about the balance 25 percent and the cross currency headwinds that some parts of geographies are now seeing and what is your hedging strategy at this point in time to care of that? A: Right now 10 percent is Europe and when we say Europe it is UK and a lot of work we do with the United Nations, companies and others so that is pretty solid so I do not worry about it. The African market has I said is growing extremely well we are still looking at 15-20 percent growth in constant currency terms in Africa even in the next year and we should do that this year as well. So, given that the only downer which I mentioned earlier is currency. We have a very conservative hedging strategy. We do cover 70 percent of our receivables and we can get affected if currencies dive one way or the other. Barring that I do not see any problems with the US dollar. If at all there are weaknesses in the South African rand that will get cover by the US dollar. So even next year I am fairly sanguine on the currency outlook as well on an overall basis for the company.

Sonia: A two part question- one if you could tell us what is the total quantum of deal wins that you have seen in the quarter so far and two- Mindtree was talking about some delay in commencement of orders from certain clients? Are you noticing any delays at all from clients at your end?A: Not at this point to answer your second question we are not seeing any delays. The pipeline continues to be very robust. We have over USD 300 million of deal pipeline. About USD 100 million in infrastructure and the rest is digital plus applications. I do not see any big challenges there.Deal wins we are closing our existing share of deals. We had a couple of large wins over the last six weeks. I do not see any reason why if we close the pipeline at the rate that we normally close we should have a good start to the next year and continue to do well.