Europe to give one-third revenue to HCL Technologies

Prakash Chawla

Davos, Jan 27 (PTI) When European debt and sovereigncrisis is giving anxious moments to multi-national CEOs,India''s HCL Technologies is bullish on the continental Europe,aiming to get one-third of its revenue from the region.

"The Europeans are finding that their costs structuresare not competitive...this is first-time that the Europeansare opening to outsourcing," Vice-Chairman and CEO of USD3-billion firm, Vineet Nayar, told PTI on the sidelines of theWorld Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting here.

With the USD 800 million acquisition of the UK-based Axontwo years ago, HCL Technologies which offers IT solutionsacross different sectors, gets 28 per cent of its revenue fromEurope.

"Our share of revenue from the continent Europe will beonly higher...," Nayar (48) said.

He said the European companies want to become costcompetitive, particularly in the manufacturing sector,offering opportunities for the Indian IT firms to offer themsolutions to improve their bottomline by use of technology.

"We see fear in Europe because of debt and Euro crisis...

there is a significant emphasis on cost cut in Europe andtherefore they are open to Indian IT companies like neverbefore...," he said.

Sending a strong message to the opponents of the Indiaoutsourcing story, Nayar, a regular at WEF meetings, said thatHCL Technologies would hire 90 per cent of their Europeanmanpower from the locals.

The company has already built a delivery centre atHelsinki and Poland.

For the US markets, the HCL Technologies would focus ontelecom and entertainment because these industries face threatof survival and are looking for solutions, he said.

The entire space of life sciences will also remain apriority area, reason being President Barack Obama''s focus onhealthcare.

The company with a 72,000 headcount gets 55 per cent ofits revenue from the United States, 28 per cent from Europeand the balance from Asia, including just about five per centfrom India.

With the potential of the private sector ininfrastructure, the HCL Technologies will focus on offeringsolutions to the Indian power firms, besides the financialservices, Nayar added.