We do not have a pink slip policy: HCL

HCL Technologies has always stood by its blue ocean strategy, wherein it creates new market spaces through strategy formulation.

The IT giant now plans to rework this strategy to create more blue oceans.

In a chat with Kirtika Suneja, Vineet Nayar, CEO of HCL Technologies, shares his vision on the strategies and the growth path ahead.

Edited excerpts:

How do you plan to rework the blue ocean strategy?

The IT industry moved from discreet IT outsourcing to total IT outsourcing.

Now, we need a next-generation strategy in line with the economic conditions.

This will take some years but we will make an announcement on the strategy this June or July.

Which are the new blue oceans?

Now, we don't classify the verticals as telecom, BFSI, retail, etc, but the reclassification categorises these as defensive, offensive and depreciating verticals.

Defensive are the growing verticals like healthcare, utilities and government, while offensive are those that will grow through increased investment in technology, like media and publishing.

On the other hand, depreciating verticals are sectors where de-growth is happening. We are focusing on defensive and offensive sectors.

Would acquisitions complement these new verticals?

Yes.

The next wave of outsourcing is in cloud computing, utilities space, on-demand services and software as a service, among others.

These acquisitions will not be for market or geographical expansion but value-based ones like Axon, in spaces like remote infrastructure management, engineering services and enterprise applications.

We are evaluating targets, but the acquisition will not be in APAC (Asia-Pacific).

How is the integration with Axon happening?

The integration is mid-way.

We have integrated sales and marketing and have closed three opportunities with Axon's customers, who have now taken HCL's services.

The integration will be complete in another three to six months.

How are HCL's employees bearing the pressures of the economic slowdown?

HCL's employees know that bill tightening has to happen, but in a collaborative manner.

There is a trust factor between the employees, the company and the customers and we do not have a pink slip policy.

That is why we squeezed utilisation up to 75 per cent and our hiring in the last two quarters has not been much.

Will there be no hiring in this quarter?

There would be, but only just-in-time hiring by recruiting laterals, though we will be honouring our campus hiring commitments in this quarter next year too.

On salary hikes, I do not see a possibility, but there are three months for us to wait and watch, as the hikes happen in July.

What does the Tech Mahindra-Satyam combine mean for HCL Tech?

Both Tech Mahindra and Satyam are exceptionally good companies and will be successful.

However, we don't have an overlap with either of them and their customers have not moved to us because of this.

We will see if their strategy changes, but all of us can coexist happily.