Davos 2023 | Infosys sees growth prospects on digital, cloud projects and cost efficiency

Infosys, one of India's largest technology companies, is optimistic about its future growth prospects. In an interview with CNBC-TV18, Salil Parekh, the company's CEO and MD, highlighted several reasons for this optimism.

He said, “For Infosys, last quarter, we had good growth, we in fact increased our guidance. We think two drivers for growth. One is the continuing work on digital and cloud and the second is much more on cost efficiency and automation. So we are seeing a real thrust on that as well. We believe we are well positioned for that. So from our perspective, we think the growth will continue.”

Parekh noted that there is a positive sentiment coming out of sessions at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Additionally, consumer sentiment in many parts of the world remains positive.

He also stated that the company's deal pipeline is still strong and even bigger than it was 12 months ago. Parekh said, “The deal pipeline is still strong. In fact, a large deals in the last quarter was 3.3 billion, we still have a very good pipeline for that. In fact, it is bigger than what it was 12 months ago so there we feel good.”

The CEO added that Infosys is confident in its ability to continue its good growth run in Europe.

Parekh also said that Infosys is actively looking for acquisitions, as valuations have become more reasonable.

He said, “We are even more ready than we were in May to look at something in terms of acquisitions. As you have seen the valuations are much more reasonable now. Both areas on digital, and of course on cost and automation there are opportunities, but we don't know how it will play out in terms of the timeline, but we are actively looking at.”

He also believes that the company will see a 5-20 percent productivity gain based on new AI and other technologies.

He said, “We have been using generative AI in our automation quite a bit, we see a productivity gains between 5 percent and 20 percent from some of the technologies we have used with client work today. So we see a good potential for this.”

Regarding the long-term outlook for technology, Parekh is very positive. He said, “I think the five year or the longer term outlook for tech is extremely positive. The world around is moving to digital and we are literally in the early stages. We have many such capabilities that are helping clients drive that and our partnerships with large cloud players so we believe there's huge traction and huge optimism for the next five years.”

He predicts that more people will come back to campus in India and across the world.