This is your second IPO. How do you compare this to your Mindtree days?

When we started Mindtree, we looked at what was changing and, here too, we are looking at the changes, but there is a lot of difference. Mindtree began as an internet systems integrator when the dot-com boom was going on. And, when the dot-com bust came, it took the whole world by surprise, such that, for every hundred companies that came up globally, not more than 2% survived, because the market disappeared and it required re-strategizing. It took some adjustments and yet we did it, and then went on to do a very successful IPO. Now, let’s shift to where we are today with Happiest Minds. In the last 10-15 years, we didn’t see many new companies come up that said they will focus only on new disruptive technologies. Everybody got onto the bandwagon, but there was nobody who said they would integrate and bring all the latest technologies and solutions together. We began with SMAC (social, mobile, analytics, cloud), but updated ourselves with whatever was relevant to our customers—in technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain, virtual and augmented reality (AR/VR), robotics and drones. We see ourselves as born-digital and kept up-to-date in that space.

Which are the key sectors driving Happiest Minds’ growth?

76% of our business are in sectors that have not been impacted by the covid-19 crisis. About 42% of our revenue comes from the edtech and high-tech sectors, which are moving strongly. We have a decent presence in e-health and e-commerce, which are also continuing to grow. The other 24% has been impacted, and that can make an impact on growth for the year, but they are also beginning to show signs of recovery. We expect market growth next year and to come back to at least a level where it was in the previous years, maybe with a little bit of pent up demand also added.

Where is the demand coming from, geographically?

In terms of our geographic landscape, North America continues to be the largest at around 78%. India, at 11%, is larger than most other Indian IT services companies. We agree that in Europe and the UK, we could have done better. But in the last six months, we have seen an increase in our orders. We recently won a large deal in the corporate digital services management space with a high TCV (total contract value). We started our operations much later in Australia and the Middle East, but we are quite optimistic that they will contribute to our growth and diversification. The focus on North America will continue and we will make sure the revenues go up, but we want others to grow faster.

What are the new opportunities for a mid-sized IT services company like yours in a post-covid era?

We see opportunities in the networking and telecom space, including 5G, where we see accelerated investments. In the digital space, in a post-covid world, customers are looking at developing brand-new, revenue-generating platforms for the end customers. So, they have expedited their investments, as well as approach to the market, because now they have to look at alternative business models, right supply chain optimization, etc. From that perspective, improving the customer experience, rolling out digital platforms to their end customers, improving sales forecast, supported by significant investments in analytics and digital process automation, are some of the areas that we continue to see significant progress in. Security incidents have gone up 5-10 times during the pandemic, so there is an increased need for security operations risk management, identity and access management, data privacy and compliance.

From an IT (information technology) security perspective, we are also seeing an increase in the interest base, especially in cloud migration. Even small and midsize companies are now making strides to the cloud. Customers are also looking to automate, not just to reduce costs, but to increase efficiency, productivity and minimize human errors.