Outlook: Currently, there is no clarity whether there will be a slowdown although there is a lot of talk and hearsay. We have not lowered our forecast. The first two quarters were on target. We should be able to take a call toward the end of 2011. In the IT industry, there have been no issues in terms of numbers in this half; the impact may show in H12012. I hope there is no slowdown now, especially when things are improving.

Opportunities: Customers are executing their projects. Nobody has backtracked and neither have we changed our outlook. We are doing the infrastructure projects that we signed on.

Customer strategy: Although there is no impact of the slowdown presently, customers are now cautious. They are negotiating harder as they feel they will get better prices. There are also possibilities that partners may not bag many big-ticket projects.

Operational efficiency: We have not reduced any head count. We are however building up on whatever we planned. For instance, the quality of manpower. There was some attrition during the downturn. We too realized that productivity could increase with less manpower. We have internally aligned a lot of things, and one of the most important rules is to get the job done at the first attempt.

HR and finance: Besides our focus on higher productivity with the same number of people, we want to keep the ratio between credit and collectible days equitable. We are proactively engaging customers to ensure that receivables are on time. During internal sales training, it is ingrained into executives that collection should be a key point during negotiations. We have implemented this principle for a year now, and have succeeded to an extent.

Key message: Use the financing options being offered by vendors. The RBI has changed the interest rates 5-6 times in the last one year. There are principals such as HP and IBM whose financing arms offer loans at better rates. Speak to your vendors and ask them to help you to get loans from their financing arms.