Order pipeline robust; start ups to push innovation: Sikka

In Q3, our industry is traditionally a weak quarter and so, we are very proud of that. We upped our utilisation to 82.7 percent and that was also something we are very happy about. So overall it was a very good, very satisfying quarter but there is still room to do much more.

Q: You have also announced a USD 500 million startup. Can you give us some highlights on that?

A: We are very excited about that. We used to have a USD 100 million fund which our board approved today to expand it to USD 500 million. The reason I am happy about is that more and more innovation will come from start up companies.

In many ways the IT industry has been failing the needs, the software and the system needs that we have in the world around us and therefore, a lot of innovation will come from start up companies.

Therefore, investing in them not just for capital gains but also to help them grow, help them achieve better scale. I was reading that start up companies in India have particular difficulty in achieving scale and this is an area where we can help a lot so we are really excited about it for all of those reason.

Q: How does the deal pipeline looks going forward?

A: It looks good, it is again a tale of two cities and many industries like retail especially where there is a lot of disruption happening and in energy there is tremendous amount of volatility so there is a pressure about pricing pressure as well as economic pressure in the IT department and so there is a negative pressure. However, in other industry especially in the financial services and insurance we see great short-term momentum so we see very healthy pipeline there. Overall, we see a very good pipeline and we see good deal flow.

When we look at the need of innovation with a longer-term view, the world has every industry going through disruption and the need for this next generation services is tremendous. That is something I have absolutely no doubt about that we have this which is small today but that is where the future is. This is something that we are gearing up more and more ourselves to go after.

Q: Are you looking at different business models?

A: Yes, it is still very early but we are already seeing business models where we are biasing things based on miles traveled and based on amount of traffic going through a site or based on volume of purchases done and new kinds of value-based projects, value-based delivery of services.

It is still very early; by April I should have a better handle on how much is there that we can quantify and give guidance around. However, it is clear that things are moving in this direction.

Q: You have been talking about new and renew strategy; can you give us an outline of the strategy?

A: Renew and new is simply about every business renewing their existing systems for better efficiency, for transforming them into new areas. However, in parallel to that renewal, doing new kinds of things, new ways of the business models that you talked about, the new ways of reaching consumers and so far building the system for that so that duality of renew and new is there in every business, in every industry as far as I can see.

Therefore, we are doing the same to ourselves, we are renewing all our existing services using automation. However, in parallel to that we are doing new kinds of services using design thinking, artificial intelligence for new solutions, open source based Big Data platforms and things of that nature.