Five Points On Offshore Outsourcing From Infosys' CEOFive Points On Offshore Outsourcing From Infosys' CEO

Kris Gopalakrishnan is making some changes at Infosys. Gopalakrishnan, an Infosys co-founder who was promoted from COO to CEO in June, announced on Oct. 26 a company reorganization that creates six units focused on vertical industries and five on horizontal service offerings.

Infosys is also putting more focus on what it views as "growth markets" in which to sell its services, including Australia, China, and Japan. Infosys' revenues are growing at a healthy year-over-year clip of well over 30%. For the fiscal quarter ended Sept. 30, its quarterly revenue crossed $1 billion for the first time.

In a recent interview with information editor-at-large Mary Hayes Weier, Gopalakrishnan shared his thoughts on such things as hiring outside of India, the call-center problem, and India's talent shortage.

On hiring outside of India:

Most of Infosys' employees are in India, but the company is quickly expanding globally, Gopalakrishnan said. Infosys just opened a development center in Monterrey, Mexico, and has others going up in Canada, China, and Poland. "Most of the companies we work with are global companies, and they need people around the world," Gopalakrishnan said. In fact, there are even a few surprises in Infosys' hiring trends. "We are recruiting in the U.S. and the U.K., even at the entry level, and bringing those people to train in India for six months and then deploying them globally," he added.

On the call-center problem:

You've heard about it, perhaps experienced it: an English-speaking customer calls a company about a product or service, and becomes frustrated trying to communicate with a heavily accented customer-service rep. Infosys recognizes this problem, which is one reason it's expanding into more English-speaking areas and other areas where they can hire service reps that fluently speak the language of a customer's clients. "In business-process outsourcing in the U.S., language support is important," Gopalakrishnan said. "Customers are demanding this."

On the continuing importance of India:

India's low-cost advantage and high level of expertise still outshines other global areas, and will continue to be a strong incentive for Infosys customers. "The number of IT professionals in India exceeds any other location," Gopalakrishnan said. "We can develop complete end-to-end systems in Bangalore."

On India's talent shortage:

"It is a problem," Gopalakrishnan acknowledges. "The whole economy is growing at 9%. The competition for talent is not just from technology companies but retail, infrastructure, and financial companies. From an industry perspective we're working with government to increase the number of graduates from colleges and recruiting globally."

On variances in talent costs around the globe:

Of course, talent outside of India may not be as inexpensive. "The cost structure is proportional to where work gets delivered," Gopalakrishnan said. But for some customers, it's more important to have local talent than inexpensive talent. In such a situation an engineer or IT worker will go to Infosys' headquarters for training and then get dispatched to a client's location in the U.S. or elsewhere.