ENTERPRISE NEWS
Infosys focuses on French & German markets
FRANCE
INDIA GERMANY
INDIAN Business Consulting and IT services provider, Infosys is opening new offices in France and Germany, where it is bringing additional leadership, which includes country managers, business consulting and programme management capabilities. “We’re starting to increase investments in local
capabilities, specifically in France and Germany that we believe are the two largest markets in continental Europe, and where we’ve just appointed two country managers - respectively Eric Laffargue and Franz Joseph Shuermann; we’re also strengthening the front offices both in sales and consulting services, and hiring as well,” Head of Europe at Infosys, BG Srinivas told IT Europa. As a result of its success, Infosys is planning to
hire 30,000 employees in the coming fiscal year, or about 4,000 more than in the previous year. Indeed, having predicted a decline in revenue y-o-y of 7% last year, Infosys actually saw a growth of 3%. “Going forward in 2011 for the full fiscal year, we’re giving a guidance between 16-18%. This is a significant jump from what happened last year, and in my view if businesses do pick up we could do better than that,” he continued. This is reflecting the stabilisation he’s seeing on the marketplace, he explained, the investments Infosys made in building capabilities in the last year, as well as the relationships with its clients that are giving him the confidence that Infosys actually has business visibility. Commenting on its fourth quarter results,
Srinivas emphasized the growing place that Europe
aIntel make Iberian
PORTUGAL
ppointment
SPAIN
NORBERTO Mateos Carrascal has been appointed as General Director of Intel in Spain and Portugal. Carrascal (right), who joined
Intel in 2000, will be responsible for implementing the company’s strategy and gaining new markets, especially in the corporate sector. He replaces Brian González who had the role for three years having joined in 2000. In his 10 years at the company, Carrascal has
held various positions in Spain, including Director of Alliances and Director of the Public and Corporate sector. Before joining Intel, he worked four years in sales and marketing at Oracle Iberia.
www.intel.com
6
is taking in its global share. “As a percentage of the global revenue, Europe grew marginally and now stands at 22.5%, up from 21.9% in the third quarter.” In Q4, Europe grew sequentially 7.9%, so faster than the rest of the world, including the US. “Europe has caught on the US in terms of stabilisation, and we’ve seen an increase of overall interactions with our clients.” In the UK Infosys saw growth coming from
energy & utilities, retail, and to some extent banking, whereas in continental Europe growth came from manufacturing, pharma and Insurance, which explains the differences of strategy in those regions. “In the UK, we have industry verticals leadership, which is slightly different from the way we’re approaching France and Germany, where we believe that requires more a country focus, and that will be the primary driver of our investments.” Infosys’ strategy will remain vertical-focused in
each European country, in its six dominant verticals being manufacturing, telecoms, energy & utilities, services, retail and healthcare. “Because Europe has diversified portfolios in
terms of individual countries, in each of them we’re identifying the key verticals where we have strengths and building capabilities, and where we’re going to focus on the key accounts. We have a clear strategy of what we call internally ‘must-develop’ and ‘must-grow’ accounts for our existing clients, and we have a strategy of acquiring focused-lines large enterprises in these countries which we call ‘must-have’ accounts; and these deals are starting to pay in terms of our ability to bring new clients every quarter,” concluded Srinivas.
www.infosys.com
Security dogs cloud poll
EUROPE
An online poll conducted by Unisys Corporation shows that enterprise users are ready to move a broad set of workloads to the cloud, although they remain wary of moving their most critical business- application workloads there. Answering the question “What parts of
enterprise workloads would you choose to move to the cloud first?” 46% of the 120 respondents said that they would choose to lead with development/test and support workloads. Another 17% would move quality assurance and pre- production systems first. “Even though the poll respondents clearly see
the value of cloud computing, the results indicate that they remain reluctant to relinquish control of complex enterprise applications using sensitive information,” said Colin Lacey, VP Solutions and Services, Unisys.
www.unisys.com
GFI Informatique sells Italian branch
ITALY
ITALIAN provider of business software platform for the mid-market, Solgenia has signed an agreement to an industrial plan for GFI Italia, the Italian branch of French services company, GFI Informatique. This is part of GFI’s strategic plan announced in
July last year to focus on its core business on the French and Spanish markets. At the beginning of March, GFI sold its German branch, GFI Informatik, to Vision IT Group. “We are very pleased to have finalised the sale
of a business that was depressing our earnings, while at the same time creating a value added partnership with Solgenia Group that should be profitable for both parties,” commented Vincent Rouaix, Chairman and CEO of GFI Informatique. This is also part of Solgenia’s broader strategy to
reinforce its domestic market by acquiring different business activities. GFI Italia currently operates in a major account sector, with a turnover for software services of more than €40m and 350 employees. It will become part of a group with a turnover of more than €60m and 550 employees, with an overspread presence through its own branches in Turin, Genoa, Milan, Vicenza, Bologna, Florence, Spoleto, Rome, Bari, Naples, as well as Calabria and Sicily through significant participation in other subsidiaries. Finally, GFI Informatique has decided it will also
distribute and commercialise Solgenia’s solutions on its main markets - France, Spain and Benelux - in Business Applications and Unified Communications. “The opportunity to regain our role as part
of a new Italian group is very important for us”, concluded Eugenio Pontremolesi, managing director of GFI Italia. “It is more and more common to consider innovations as a real chance to increase competitiveness and it is important to see how Italian companies can play a main role in the technological innovation process for private and public companies.”
www.gfiitalia.it www.solgenia.com www.gfi.fr
OUR ANALYSIS
This return to core functions is becoming apparent as part of a divergence in the industry. The giants want a part of everything, especially cloud - the smaller companies know they have to concentrate on what they do best. Italy has always been a unique marketplace for IT, dependant on a complex web of local relationships, and a vast small and medium customer base.
30 APR 2010
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