How Vishal Sikka is helping Infosys get its mojo back

BENGALURU: Infosys has bagged more large deals in the past one year than its rivals. The company, which counts Bank of America, Procter & Gamble and Apple among its major customers, has won at least 10 large deals with total contract value of over $50 million during this period, according to data from technology research and outsourcing advisory firm ISG.

Infosys bagged large deals from companies including Deutsche Bank, Mercedes-Benz and the Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN) in India. TCS came in a close second with nine such deals, including contracts from China Telecom Global, Axis Bank and Al Baraka Bank, according to ISG data. Wipro and HCL Tech won five such deals each during the period.

Infosys' resurgence in bagging large customer accounts is in stark contrast to its performance in the previous two years, when it consistently lagged larger peers such as TCS and Cognizant in the market-share battle, and got edged out even by smaller rivals such as HCL.

CEO Vishal Sikka, the man behind the recent resurgence, has said that the firm's recent track record in winning large contracts is the best in its 35-year history.

"We have outperformed for the first time in many years. Our large account growth rate has exceeded the growth rate of the company, which is quite encouraging. Our deal wins have improved dramatically and we're approaching $800-900 million a quarter in large deals. That's more than double of what we used to do," Sikka said.

Over the past 18 months, Infosys' sales engine has undergone a large-scale revamp and Sikka has made it his topmost priority towards protecting the company's top 200 customer accounts and mining additional business from those clients.

Infosys has also put together a crack, Navy SEALs-like team of 'supercoders' as part of its 'Expert Track' programme.

"We have observed a distinctly higher level of drive and hunger from Infosys to win large deals. Visibility and drive from top management on the deal pipeline appears to be paying dividends," said Dinesh Goel, partner and India head at ISG.