How IGATE's well-calculated investments helped its revenues grow

Even as the IT services industry struggled under the impact of cross currency fluctuations, IGATE managed to pull off an impressive show as compared to the previous year, clocking a 17% increase in the top line. The company’s FY15 performance was backed by significant client wins and its efforts to streamline processes. The IT services provider has been heading in the right direction with its investments in differentiated industry utility solutions, client-centricity, and next-generation capabilities.

The company saw increased business from recurring customers as a result of its strategy to focus on the expansion of its relationship with existing customers. IGATE’s industry utility solutions, Reference Data Management Solution for the financial sector (IDMS) and Long Term Care Solution for the healthcare sector (IBAS) continued to see growth momentum and helped drive a differentiated industry value proposition in a highly competitive services market.

Currency fluctuations did impact margins to some extent and the company also faced some margin headwinds due to the continuing investments it had to make in some of its transformational client engagements, expanded client coverage, and hiring for growth. Yet, the performance across service lines was strong enough to keep it on a positive growth track. The major highlight for FY15 was IGATE’s acquisition by Capgemini for a sum of nearly `25,000 crore. The buyout is expected to beef up Capgemini’s presence in North America and also bring about greater scale and operational efficiencies for IGATE.

The company is focused on building its onshore presence and aims to attain a healthy mix of onshore, nearshore, and offshore operations. The US continues to be the leading market for IGATE witnessing about 10% revenue growth between January to December, 2014. The IT services company is also looking at expanding its delivery centers in Canada. Additionally, it opened a new delivery center in Budapest, Hungary. The year saw some key partnerships building up for IGATE. It announced a new partnership with OpenSpan to utilize OpenSpan Desktop Automation and Activity Intelligence to enhance its contact center operations and consulting services to customers in North America and Europe.

IGATE and XTEL, a provider of sales automation solutions, announced a partnership to deliver comprehensive sales solutions to the consumer goods industry in the US and Canada. The company also entered into an agreement with Experitest, known to be a leading provider of quality assurance tools for mobile DevOps including test automation, manual testing, performance testing, load testing, and monitoring for mobile applications. The partnership will allow IGATE to offer Experitest’s endto-end mobile application testing tools to businesses throughout North America.

One of the significant deal wins in FY15 included the one with Rio Tinto, a global mining and metals company, as part of which the IT services provider will develop its Analytics Excellence Center in Pune. IGATE will provide Rio Tinto with analytical capabilities to identify opportunities for enhancing efficiency and productivity across Rio Tinto managed operations.

Towards the beginning of the year, the company also unveiled a new brand identity, with a new logo designed to showcase its refreshed vision, mission, and core values. In line with its expansion plans, IGATE announced a new facility in Noida, India. The new facility added to its existing offices in Noida that are housed in the Special Economic Zone.

The acquisition by Capgemini is expected to instil better scale and efficiencies and add to its overall strengths. The company’s digital practice will be a key focus area in 2015. Its investments around tools, methodology, automation, and program management are expected to pay off significantly in the coming quarters.