Infosys looks to boost healthcare segment revenues

Infosys Technologies has established a separate subsidiary in the US for serving government and healthcare customers locally. This will help it cope with American laws that prohibit off-shoring of sensitive citizen data, a top company official told financial analysts last month.
 
This follows hard on the heels of the purchase by Infosys BPO, the business process outsourcing arm of Infosys Technologies, of the outstanding interests of Atlanta-based McCamish Systems LLC, a business process solutions provider to the US insurance and financial services sector. (See: Infosys BPO to acquire outstanding interests of McCarmish Systems)

With America poised to spend over $100 billion on modernisation of the country's healthcare and other government systems, tech firms, including TCS, Infosys and Wipro, are attempting to expand their local operations for addressing this lucrative opportunity.

''We have set up a subsidiary. We have looked at a CEO who will be joining the subsidiary anytime now, may be in the next couple of days,'' S D Shibulal, one of the Infosys founders and company's chief operating officer, said last month. ''Through that (subsidiary) we will be addressing the healthcare spend in the US,'' he added.

Indian tech firms plan to challenge global rivals IBM, EDS and Accenture in their home markets by establishing stronger presence in the US and hiring more local consultants. Many governments insist on delivery of projects locally in order to avoid a mass public backlash and also ensure that the sensitive citizen data remain in their countries.

When contacted by Economic Times on Thursday, an Infosys spokeswoman confirmed the development.

Both Infosys and Wipro have started hiring consultants and experts from government organisations apart from investing more in marketing efforts in order to chase government outsourcing opportunities better. According to a recent Nasscom research, governments of developed countries spent nearly $160 billion on technology services last year - behind only financial services and manufacturing customers.