Infosys Technologies Setting Trends

The
first company from India to tap the US capital market, Infosys maintained a
steady growth in the last fiscal. It grew by 73% to rake in Rs 882 crore.
Exports grew by 74% to touch Rs 870 crore and contributed 99% to the total
turnover. In the domestic market, it improved its performance over the 1998-99
period.

The last year saw Infosys embark upon an aggressive mode to
push its banking products. The net profit of the company from routine activities
grew by 115% to Rs 286 crore from Rs 133 crore in the previous year. Looking
at the vertical segments, banking and finance at 31%, garnered the largest chunk
of revenues. Manufacturing contributed 23%, telecom 15%, while retail and others
contributed 31% to the overall turnover of the company.

Infosys followed the de-risking model, be it with vertical
business segments or clients. Consequently, it limited the revenue from one
client to
10% of the total revenue, with the largest client contributing 7%. The company
was able to add 99 new clients in the last fiscal, many of whom were start-ups
in the telecom and ebusiness spaces. These start-ups contributed 5% to the
company’s total revenue. And the top-five clients contributed 30% while the
top 10 contributed 46%.

As part of its de-risking strategy, the company was able to
successfully decrease its revenue from Y2K conversion projects from 12% in the
first quarter of 1999-2000 to just 1% in the fourth quarter, while its ebusiness
revenue went up from 6% in the first quarter to 19% in the fourth quarter.
Moreover, the company had a mix of 49% from onsite projects and the rest from
offshore ones.

The US continued to be its happy hunting ground–accounting
for 78% of the export revenue. Europe contributed 15%, Japan 3%, and other
countries the rest.

The company enjoyed an employee strength of 5,389 at the end
of the last fiscal with the productivity per person going up to Rs 16.4 lakh.
Its attrition rate stood at a low 9.2%.

Fiscal 1999-2000 was also the year when one of its founder
members, NS Raghavan, retired after being with the company for 19 years. He,
however, continued to be a trustee of the Infosys Foundation. As part of
corporate governance, Infosys also brought in Philip Yeo, Executive Chairman,
Singapore Economic Development Board, to its own board. The company also opted
for a 2:1 split of its stock in the last fiscal to increase liquidity. As part
of its globalization program, the company set up a global development center at
Toronto, Canada, and two proximity development centers (PDCs) in the US. Having
bagged a five-year contract with London’s Sainsbury’s Supermakets, for £28
million, it would also establish a PDC in the UK. It also opened sales offices
in Australia, Belgium and Sweden and had 16 sales offices overseas.

Infosys also offered an incubation mechanism to encourage budding
entrepreneurs, and piloted Onscan, a web-focussed wireless-enabled comprehensive
notification service which was hived off as a separate entity. It also made its
first investment worth Rs 13 crore in a Massachusetts-based B2B ecommerce
application from EC Cubed Inc. Infosys also achieved the SEI-CMM Level 5
certification last fiscal. The market capitalization of Infosys stood at Rs
58,887 crore as on March 31, 2000, and Infosys’ share was the first IT stock
to breach the five-figure mark in the last fiscal. And last but not the least,
it became the first Indian company to get listed on NASDAQ. DQ