Deal Maker of the Year Awards 2012 The Interview

Hafner

After its smooth go-live the new solution has greatly facilitated shop-floor management by enhancing the reporting process, data structure and consistency, has enabled considerable cost savings by boosting manufacturing productivity, and provides solid productivity reporting as the foundation for future investment decisions. Given the success of the project, AGCO decided to implement the system for all machines in Fendt’s entire component manufacturing business.

Q

Infosys recently acquired Lodestone. Can you discuss the

background for this step?

Since the foundation of Lodestone seven years ago, we have built an excellent platform for growth. However, we had reached a stage where enormous investments would have been necessary to further grow and develop the firm into a truly global organization enabling us to deliver the same comprehensive and professional service in a consistent way across the globe.

This step into a combination with Infosys – which we wanted to take now from a position of strength, avoiding being forced to do a transaction we don’t want at a later time – enables us to act as a truly global company with presence in over 30 countries.

Q

How will your clients benefit from the merger?

Our clients will continue to work with the same teams of experienced professionals at Lodestone. Furthermore, they will get ready access to Infosys’ global scale and reach in addition to a broad spectrum of capabilities across consulting, IT services, process outsourcing and a suite of cutting edge, cloud-based products, platforms and solutions.

Q Q

anagement Consultants/Infosys Lodestone

A common passion for client value and excellence will strengthen this partnership even further. Together, we are committed to delivering value that will make a tangible difference to our clients’ business.

It is obviously with a smile and a heavy heart that we took this decision. Clearly all of us had invested a lot of time, effort and emotions into building Lodestone into what it is today. On the other hand I am absolutely convinced that this the right decision to secure the company’s future.

What makes you feel so optimistic about this move?

Infosys and Lodestone complement each other in many ways – capabilities, a shared culture of maintaining client trust and strategic alignment. Infosys started small, with just seven professionals with a dream and $250 in assets when they opened their doors in 1981. Lodestone started small with five professionals with a dream in 2005. Today, both companies enjoy trusted client relationships globally, have an immensely talented set of people and above all a common passion for client value and excellence. We strongly believe this will be a good and very successful partnership.

What is the focus and strategy for the acquisition?

Infosys’ next generation consulting practice has more than 30,000 consultants across ten industry verticals and account for over 31% of the company’s revenue. Lodestone has an excellent track record of helping its clients define and achieve measurable business benefits through their SAP-based business transformation programs. Lodestone brings more than 850 employees globally including over 750 top notch management consultants and adds more than 200 marquee clients to Infosys pool of over 700 clients. We will have close to 31,000 employees

in Consulting & Systems Integration (C&SI) and around 10,000 employees doing SAP work, post the acquisition. The acquisition strengthens Infosys’ global C&SI capabilities to deliver business transformation programs to clients. It expands Infosys presence in Continental Europe and APAC and enhances Infosys capabilities for the Manufacturing, Automotive and Life Sciences industry segments. The combined Consulting practice of Infosys and Lodestone will deliver revenues of over $1 billion for SAP programs and firmly establish Infosys amongst the global leaders in SAP consulting.

Q

The recent years saw global economic turmoil; How has this

situation impacted on your overall strategy?

It is needless to say that we have monitored these developments closely. We have always been known as a firm that is able to react swiftly to a changing environment and client needs. Against this backdrop, we have adapted our strategy on two fronts: we have adapted and changed our service portfolio to align it even closer with the requirements of our clients, namely where it comes to agile and safe supply chain or white collar productivity. Secondly, we decided to push even stronger into the growth economies and have opened offices in China as well as Brazil.

Contact: Ronald Hafner Partner & CEO

Lodestone Management Consultants AG Email: ronald.hafner@lodestonemc.com Website: www.lodestonemc.com