Infosys President On The Company’s Planned Fluido Acquisition

Buy vs. Build

Infosys unveiled a plan to acquire Fluido, a Salesforce Platinum partner in Europe, a deal that will give Infosys a dominating presence in the Nordic region.

Beyond that, Bangalore, India-based Infosys said the move – which is expected to close in the next 30 to 45 days -- will give the firm a beachhead in Europe. Fluido is the leading Salesforce adviser and consulting partner in the Nordic region and a recognized leader in cloud consulting, implementation and training services.

Infosys declined to disclose the terms of the acquisition.

In an interview with CRN, Ravi Kumar, Infosys president and deputy chief operating officer said that while the deal is a bit out of character for Infosys, which seeks to grow organically rather than through acquisitions, the potential to scale the Salesforce capabilities of Fluido across the ecosystem were too rich to ignore.

All this is happening as the 204,000-employee company is on a hiring binge in the U.S., adding 5,000 employees to its payroll in the last year, with another 5,000 yet to come.

Here’s more of Kumar had to say about the company’s latest deal.

Why not build this capability yourself?

Organically, this is an engine that is growing much faster than the market growth of the Salesforce ecosystem . Any asset of this kind added to the mix will take us further in a market where customers are looking at scale and speed of execution being the two important things. In the space of digital, the ability to accelerate and the ability to build scale on a short runway is very important. That’s why this makes a lot of sense for us. Organically, we are doing very well. Salesforce just gives us the scale at a faster speed.

This is one of those inorganic acquisitions that will help us to capitalize and build scale for our clients. So we will continue to sharpen our capabilities in the market, especially in new areas which will help us to stay ahead of the curve.

Why buy Fluido? What did Infosys see in the company that made it an attractive acquisition target?

Salesforce is one of the hottest capabilities in the market. So the ability to build these beachhead capabilities, and actually use them to accelerate the organic engine, is the strategy.

By bringing this company into our fold, it will help us to capitalize and accelerate this process faster. So it will give us the beachhead capability needed, and of course it is not going to give us the required scaling in the United States, but it is going to give us the beachhead capabilities of Salesforce in Europe.

I think the strategy for us is very simple. We are an organically grown company. You have noticed over the decades, Infosys has done very few acquisitions. We want to do acquisitions in specific areas where we could accelerate the journey of our client.

I think the real reason we acquired it was to expand our capabilities in Europe … While the primary objective was Salesforce, it does come with the additional opportunity to scale ourselves in the Nordic region.

(Fluido has) an identity with clients. They’re the largest in the Nordic region in the Salesforce world. So we do think it will help us. They’re almost becoming our European arm for sales force for Infosys. So its almost like they take the onus and the responsibility for the European Salesforce practice.

Was this in response to the actions of any rivals who have completed Salesforce acquisitions?

Many players in the market have done Salesforce acquisitions. If you go through the list in the last two years. We’ve been waiting for the right fit and the right culture. It isn’t to counter any competitor of ours. It is just to bolster our own capabilities and accelerate that journey. So we also have a very well established salesforce capabilities.

It’s actually one of the fastest growing service lines. So this just gives us the extra capacity needed to support it. So it isn’t a counter to anyone else doing an acquisition.

What are some leverages you saw in this deal?

This has multiple levers to press. This is a company, a very specialized boutique company in the Nordic region. It doesn’t have a full lifecycle salesforce, end to end opportunity because it doesn’t have an off-shore arm. So we could potentially add the, downstream, off shore arm as one lever. The second leverage is its going to help them deepen their capabilities, for the significantly larger install base of Infosys. They have an opportunity to play with the large install base of Infosys customers in Europe.

They’re also a Salesforce training partner. So they can internally help us to train a larger pool of talent. It’s a great fit because it kind of falls into four or five leverage points for us to get the best value out of this package.

The leverage is its going to help them deepen their capabilities, for their significantly larger install base of Infosys. They have an opportunity to play with the large install base of Infosys customers in Europe.

They’re also a Salesforce training partner. So they can internally help us to train a larger pool of talent. It’s a great fit, because it kind of falls into four or five leverage points for us to get the best value out of this package.

Infosys CEO Salil Parekh said in January that the company planned to hire 10,000 employees in the U.S. by 2021. Is that plan still on track?

We hired 5,000-plus local Americans in the last 12 months. We hired 1,500 from schools in the United States in the last 12 months. We are a top 50 employer in America, for new campus graduates. (The company is No. 47 on the 2018 Forbes list of Best Employers For New Grads).