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infogain
SERVICING
THROUGH RELATIONSHIPS
Kapil Nanda, President & CEO
[ Cover Story ]

Servicing
Through Relationships

I
By Poonam Bhattacharya

nfogains President and CEO Kapil Nanda loves golden-haired English Setters. His pet Sketch is
gentle and affectionate and reminds one of how Infogain treats its clients. And just as how English
Setters are known for their hunting abilities, Infogain has got its act right in spotting growth oppor-
tunities and winning customers despite the slowdown. Infogains business from its top ten clients
has continued to grow since the beginning of the macroeconomic downturn. Also, the services
company headquartered in the Silicon Valley (Los Gatos, California) has not lost clients but instead its
clientele has grown to close to 100. And Nanda insists that the performance stellar, given the times we are
going through has very little to do with the competitive rates Infogain offers its clients.

Quick Facts www.infogain.com

US based, Privately Owned
1000+ Employees in US, UK & India
Worldwide Presence and Delivery Capability
Sales Offices in Los Gatos (HQ), Irvine, Austin,
Dallas, London
Development Centers in India (New Delhi and
Pune)
Fortune 1000 Customers
Kapil Nanda
Extended Enterprise Services
Product Engineering Services
Application Management Services
Partnerships with Technology Vendors
Referenced client Base
Industry focus on: Enterprise, Retai,l
Software services, Claims Management
State-of-the-Art Facilities & Infrastructure
CMM L5 Quality Certification
Ranked Top 15 Exciting Emerging Companies
to Work for
 Instead, he attributes Infogains success to the relation-
ship his company shares with the clients. Over the past 18
People: The Super Achievers
years, Infogain has acquired customers through its perfect
understanding of the business elements of its customers People, processes, and technology make a product, but the most
important part of the equation is people. Eddie Chandhok, Presi-
products and their business landscape. Today, says Nanda, dent of Infogains Global Delivery, says that being self-driven and
Infogain is what can be termed a development-to- smart with the right attitude are the ideal traits in a prospective
deployment company. employee.
One of our biggest accomplishments over the past couple of
Companies tend to outsource if it helps them years has been upgrading our training programs. We now hold
training assessment fairs focusing on a given technology. In the fair
improve the time to market, not just because a technical leader gives each employee a personal evaluation of any
someone offers to do the same thing at a gaps between his or her skills and what the market is demanding
today and what is needed to progress the employees career. The
lesser cost employee then signs up for training to put him or her on the cut-
ting edge of technology, which is good for both the employee and
Infogain.
When we work with a client servicing a specific part We would love to pack the entire team with super achiev-
of its business process, we try to understand the impact the ers, Chandhok says, but that is never possible. We take people
with the right intrinsic characteristics, and with the right training
process will have on the rest of the business. Based on that, make them super achievers and thereby build high performance
we develop tools, deploy them, and integrate them with the teams.
other business systems in the company, says Nanda, ex- At Infogain, employees become part of our global family. They have
plaining how his company is different from the services be- access to global career opportunities with Infogain's presence in
the U.S., U.K., the Middle East, and India, and onsite opportunities
hemoths that restrict their presence to the specific projects to work with our clients across the globe.
they handle. The 1,000-strong company has day care centers for its employees
We are a long-term partner, and our clients look at us children, and has a pro-active career development and mentoring
that way, he says, describing the company he started in the system. These training programs differ from the ones that are of-
fered by their competitors. While some competition may keep em-
early 90s.Infogain has built deep domain knowledge over ployees in a given role for years on end to avoid rocking the boat, just last year. It also has global footprints in the U.K. and
the years in four specific verticals: retail, Infogain actually works together with its clients and jointly plans
the claims processing area of the career progression for Infogain team members.
insurance industry, enter-
prise, and independent
software vendors But we were dedicated to engineering. We
(ISV) and software understood that companies tend to outsource
as a service if it helps them increase their speed to mar-
(SaaS) compa- ket, not just because someone offers to do
nies. And un- the same thing at a lesser cost. We
derlining all wanted to win the trust of our clients
its relation- and build long-term rela-
ships has tionships, says Nanda.
been flexi- Database companies
bility, com- like Informix, Sybase, Uni-
mitment, fied, and Oracle were
and mutual among Infogains early
understand- clients, and were followed
ing. by the CRM companies like
Siebel, Clarify, and People-
Two Way Soft.
Communication Working with these compa-
Getting started in engi- nies helped us understand the
neering outsourcing was chal- inner working of their products,
lenging, says Nanda. He started his thereby deepening our knowledge. We
company in the 90s, when competitors like also worked on implementations at end-
TCS, Infosys, and Wipro were courting big companies users of the products, and that broadened our
in the U.S. with a value proposition based on economy. picture, says the CEO.
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The companys mission statement, which says, Our
goal is to understand your business, share a common busi-
ness goal with you, and help you reach your objectives. We
value the long-term relationship we create with our cus-
tomers and ultimately become an extension of your busi-
ness, bears witness to Nandas opinion.
When we work with a client, servicing a specific
part of its business process, we try to under
stand the impact the process has on the rest of
the business. Based on that, we develop tools,
deploy them and integrate them with the other
business systems in the company"
As a result of such extensions of businesses, Infogain
acquired expertise in providing outsourced application man-
agement; product development, application software im-
plementation, and building integration solutions at client
companies. As their business widened and the India story
started gaining ground around ten years ago, the company
opened its first delivery center in Noida in 1996. This was
followed by another development center in Pune, acquired
the Middle East.
Over the years, presence in multiple locations has be-
come one of the key assets of the company. Unlike com-
petitors in the services space, which have 99 percent of their
resources offshore in, say India, and one percent of the re-
sources onsite in the U.S., Infogains presence is spread
more equally. Prospective clients, therefore, are far less wary
about outsourcing critical components of their business to
Infogain. They dont have to worry about which number
to call, and what time zone to adhere to. We are always
within their reach, reasons out Nanda.
Focus on Retail
Infogain started focusing on retail as an area of ex-
pertise about five years ago. What helped the
company garner clients instantly was the pres-
ence of industry veterans in its team. The story
about how they joined Infogain is fascinat-
ing.
Infogains Vice President and General
Manager, Retail Business Practice, Ray
Allen, began his association with In-
fogain as a satisfied customer with
360Commerce. Ray, who was a
Vice President with Oracle after
it acquired 360Commerce, was
impressed by Infogains ability
The Dualshore Model
Infogain's dual-shore delivery
model, says Eddie Chandhok, Pres-
ident of Infogains Global Delivery,
ensures more returns over the
long term.
During discussions with cus-
tomers, our thrust is not on cost,
but on value, says Chandhok. The
company places senior people,
generally domain experts, on site;
these experts interact with cus-
tomers to understand their pain
points on a regular basis.
The forked approach has a
multiplier effect, says Chandhok.
And while it is easy to discount this as mere talk, he says that the
company has data to prove the efficiency of the model.
In fact, measuring the RoI for customers is one of the key de-
liverables of Infogain. This is done in two ways: measuring efficiency
in terms of mapping the time, money, and manpower devoted to a
project while the project is with Infogain and also while it is not. In-
fogains RoI measurement also considers effectiveness, by mapping
the level of customer satisfaction.
Its India delivery center has solid experience with significant en-
gineering programs, a seasoned engineering staff, and established
processes, says Chandhok. Current productivity levels are deter-
mined at the outset of each program, and they target achievement
of higher levels within a six months period. Infogain's guarantee is a
30 percent increase in productivity with equal or better product
quality.
to add value to the clients business. Since coming on board
Infogain, he has taken that philosophy forward. When we
talk to clients, we talk not only about the project on the table,
but also other areas of the business and the challenges they
face, says Allen.
He says that their retail knowledge and experience with
Oracle Retail products help win trust and business from cus-
tomers. We have a unique capability to consult on retail
best practices as well as ability to leverage our advanced
engineering skills when we work with clients. That puts
us in a unique position.
Nanda says that clients who are with Infogain
would probably need more than two vendors to
manage their business if they were not with Info-
gain.
For instance, large retail companies have
legacy solutions, and they try to extract max-
imum value out of them. Making legacy
solutions work seamlessly with new sys-
tems involves heavy integration work
and could be very difficult if one has
no background knowledge, quips
Nanda. His company has, on sev-
eral occasions, developed appli-
cations for legacy integration.
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April 2009
The company has a framework that allows adding modern
store system functionalities such as e-receipt to existing
legacy systems. Infogain counts several large retailers
among its clients. Nanda says the list includes a $10 billion
retailer with multiple brands and a large electronics goods
chain.
But so do players like Infosys and Wipro, wheres the
difference between them and Infogain, one might ask?
Nanda is quick to answer. They surely can, and do
come in, as approved outsourcers of projects. But when
clients want specific point solutions, they look to commu-
nicate with experts. Not only do we have experts who have
considerable experience of working in the retail space on
board, an added advantage with us is that clients do not
have to deal with a huge bureaucracy. CIOs are at ease
when working with us, he claims.
Also, says Allen, Infogain helps clients deploy best
practices from across the
world. For instance, when
a retailer wanted to adopt
a new payment solution,
Allens team first gave
them a lowdown of the
different payment options
from across the globe: en-
cryption system like the
ones used by European
companies, debit facility
tomer transaction side, which are typically large projects
and also highly prone to risks. Our track record and the
spectrum of work we have done in the space helps take the
risk out, he says.
Insurance, Incidentally
Glenn Gramling, Senior Vice President of Sales and Mar-
keting, Infogain, says that the company entered the in-
surance vertical incidentally through a client.
A large insurance company brought us in to provide
Our clients have also rolled back portions of such cap-
tured information to their clients, which in turn has made
the insurance companys client relationships more robust,
opines Gramling.
Tech Competencies
Most of Infogains early customers were in the database
and CRM space, and a vast majority of them have since
been acquired by Oracle. The company therefore, by de-
fault, is strongly aligned with Oracles tool set. This means
that it is conversant with many of Oracles products, rang-
ing from database to middleware to applications including
EBS, Peoplesoft, Siebel, and Oracle Retail.
The long association with Oracle has put Infogain in a
unique position; this assumes more importance given Or-
acles recent emphasis on Fusion middleware transition.
We are among the very few partners who transitioned
from BEA to Oracle, says Nanda.
Infogain is, as a result of its expertise in Oracle tech
stack, involved in identity management and master data
management along with BI for many of its clients. Info-
gain has experience in Oracles BI product, OBIEE, and
recently hosted a BI forum to discuss and evaluate the
product.
Over the years, Infogain has also built skill sets with
Siebel, OnPremise, and SaaS versions. It has created serv-
ices for the customer support area and, as Nanda says, is
also uniquely positioned to provide long-term application
At the Helm of Affairs: Kapil Nanda
Kapil Nanda moved to the U.S. in 1968 after his undergraduate
studies. He earned an MS at the University of Kansas, and then
his MBA at the University of Southern California.
After graduating, he joined the Burroughs Corporation.
Nanda joined Intel in 1974, when it was still a semicon-
ductor company. Through Nandas years in the company, the
shift within Intel from a semiconductor company to a micro-
processor firm happened. This gave Nanda exposure to the sys-
tem side of the business, while architecting and programming
microprocessors.
Seven years into Nandas stint with
Intel, another wave hit the industry; mi-
croprocessor-based multi-user systems
came into being, and Nanda played a hands-
on role in the transition.
This gave him an idea about how sys-
tems are constructed. Working with dy-
namic people like Microsofts Bill Gates
helped, says Nanda. Intel was one of the earli-
est customers of Microsoft Corporation.
In the 90s, Nanda was called
upon by his friends to start a new
business. His interactions with VCs
while at Intel, and also his serving in
a number of VCs as a limited part-
ner, helped him figure out the avail-
ability of funds. He gained an
understanding of the market require-
ments and plunged into starting Info-
gain. In less than two decades, Infogain
has become one of the most admired
companies in the IT services world.

from Canada, chip system
from the U.K., et al. Allen
says that his team has
often enabled solutions
Glenn Gramling that were not otherwise
present in the U.S. mar-
ket.
We have an unique capa-
In addition, the com-
bility to consult on best
practices as well has ability pany also has deep ex-
to leverage our advanced pertise in Oracle stores
space, merchandising,
engineering skills when we
work with clients. That puts and integration of all this
with middleware compo-
nents. Some of its recent
us in a unique position.
them with integration capability. In turn, we ended up ex-
panding; leveraging our skill set in QA and testing. We
subsequently extended our involvement to development
and application management as well.
The breadth of experience of that encounter gave In-
fogain in-depth knowledge about the insurance vertical.
It has since built its strength in the claims processing
area, both in claims management product development
and in providing services to claims management compa-
nies.
Claims processing might seem like a small and sim-
ple thing, but it isnt, Nanda says. It involves payments
to multiple claimants; also, fraud is a major concern. In-
fogains past experience in other industries enables the
management for the solutions.
We provide performance management and long-term
application support, along with deployment services, he
stresses. Our flexi-model approach enables the customer
to dynamically adjust his portfolio of app management
skills as his needs change.
Weathering Rough winds
The honchos at Infogain say that the company is relatively
doing well in the face of the global economic downturn.
This is more so because Infogain has kept up its strategy of
clients transitioning to Web 2.0, characterized by rich In-
customer engagement, providing executive level attention
and responsiveness to changing customer needs even mid-
stream in the service delivery process. The company has
What has helped Infogain through the years, and in-
creasingly now, is its forked presence, in the U.S. and
India. Presence in the U.S. has helped mitigate a large part
of the clients fears and win their trust, while the India con-
nection has helped rope in a 1,000-strong talent pool while
keeping the cost manageable.
Going ahead, Infogain seeks to align itself to changes
in the technology cycle. It seeks to enhance its integration
technologies and evolve with Oracles technology direc-
tion. Nanda also sees the company playing a big role at
ternet apps and user experience.
Clients have also started looking at the pay-as-you-go

projects in retail include
full implementations of Oracle Retail Suite, including
ORPOS (Oracle Retail Point-of-Sale) and ORMS (Oracle
Retail Merchandising System). It has also recently imple-
mented Retek in the front end and Oracle Financials in the
back end, handling tricky integration issues and impress-
ing observers in the industry.
Nanda offers a simple reasoning as to why retail has be-
come one of the key growth areas for the company in recent
times. Most of the challenge for retailers is on the cus-
company to provide data pattern recognition and fraud
detection systems yielding an immediate RoI to claims
processors.
Infogain also offers other business intelligence solu-
tions for claims processors. Many companies in this
space are trying to understand what is happening, says
Gramling. Insurance companies need business intelli-
gence to understand their claims exposure and the pro-
cessing time for claims. Such information help insurance
companies understand their business better.
won over tier1 competitors by combining this responsive-
ness with its technical expertise, be it in technology area,
business processes, or deployment, as the need may be.
In cases where the company approaches small to
medium sized firms, it brings the big-picture consultative
approach on stream. In such arrangements Infogain fo-
cuses on evaluating and providing a vision for the clients
evolving IT landscape, and Nanda says that Infogain beats
competition in such cases on the basis of its long-term
argument.
model, and Nanda is mulling starting that service to boost
customer numbers and trust. He also sees a lot of potential
spending in the healthcare segment, in terms of hospital
records and electronic data integration.
The economic downturn too has led to a new business
prospect, in a way, for Infogain. Clients are now looking
at SaaS, in effect migrating to new business models to
suit the economic condition. Nanda has his eyes set on
these waves; always a skillful player, he has his sail set
for a long haul. si

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