Infy to up sales staff by 50% before year-end

Infosys, the country’s second-largest information technology services exporter, plans to increase its sales and client services headcount by almost 50 per cent by the end of this financial year, most of which will happen in Europe.

“We are going to add another 100-200 people worldwide in sales and client services by the end of this fiscal on a base of 500. This doubling is in line with our interest in Europe,” said Subhash Dhar, senior vice-president, Infosys Technologies. The headcount increase could happen for sales people in infrastructure and applications services.

Moreover, the company sees its communication, media and entertainment segment to be a cash flow driver. It currently gets around 18 per cent of its overall revenues from this area, up from single-digit in 2002-03. Infosys is bullish about this segment, as many of its customers are restarting their capital expenditure on networks, which usually accounts for half of a company’s total expenditure.

“The spend had slowed down in the last one year. But handheld devices are now driving more traffic. In the media and entertainment space, we are seeing greater activity in digital media and not conventional media,” added Dhar.

He expects budgets to be better next year, too, compared with this year. “We are servicing almost 25 clients in this space and are always in talks with 10-15 more. Usually, we sign one big client per quarter and two or three small clients,” he said.

The non-US revenue is greater than the US revenue for Infosys’ communication, media and entertainment vertical. And, though India does not figure in the top countries’ list, the IT major is seeing new business coming from within India.