BANGALORE: With the recession driving enterprises across the globe to re-align businesses and squeeze the last drop out of every investment, IT service providers are faced with numerous challenges. Sudip Bannerjee, CEO, L&T Infotech talks to Sigi Achappa of CIOL on how the company is battling its way through the downturn.

Excerpts.

CIOL: How would you define the current buyer environment and how is it affecting L&T?

Sudip Bannerjee: I think these are difficult times for the industry. Growth rates are modest, so we are also doing the same we need to tighten investments, while investing in significant areas of growth like infrastructure management, testing and consulting services. We are also improving on our thrust into new growth markets such as the Middle East and Africa.

CIOL: What changes has the company made to its service offerings considering the recession, flat IT budgets?

SD: We are looking new areas of offerings such as infrastructure management and testing. There are no alterations as such, customers are now looking at in product engineering extra commitments models like rich reward and working on part payment. In the enterprise space – I think the thrust in on service level improvements, productivity and in product space its more of sustenance and reward models.

CIOL: What are the main issues clients want their IT service provider to handle?

SD: It's the same with everybody—they are all under pressure, so they are looking at improve SLAs and reduce cost by cutting out what is not necessary, which projects can be deferred by doing the critical projects and we are working with them to reduce wastage.

CIOL: What are the projects L&T is currently working on? Do you find that companies are putting on hold large projects?

SD: Well they will always be rationalizing as what projects can be done tomorrow versus what can be done today. The projects we are working on are mostly ongoing ones- work signed in the past such as ERP, in legacy modernisation space and testing.

If you can pick one or two technology trends coming out of the recession, what would they be?
The significant trend is that people are looking very closely at the services levels of vendors, they are giving a lot of importance to the service levels. They are giving a hard look at the provider so those who were focused not just today but in the past with the right levels of service and innovation, they will be the winners.

CIOL: Are there any new revenue opportunities that you foresee?

SD: Opportunities in new markets, new opportunities in improving use of IT assets, SAP or Oracle or what applications can be done without any mores investments and get customers to make the best of their existing IT investment.

CIOL: What are some of the key learnings from your experience at Wipro that you will be using at L&T Infotech in such challenging times?

SD: Operational efficiency is one that all large companies have done very well, core productivity . The big thing is that in a downturn companies not only focus on operational efficiency but growth – opportunities that will give you growth–investing in new markets.