“In an interview with ET’s Jochelle Mendonca and Raghu Krishnan, Humphries outlined his new sales strategy and the digital battlegrounds he intends to win. Edited excerpts:

What are your key focus areas going to be in digital?

There are key digital battlegrounds that we need to win in, that we have the right to win in. We have identified a strategy around protecting and optimizing the existing business and investing in four key digital battlegrounds — cloud, digital engineering, data and Internet of Things (IoT) and I truly believe IOT will be unlocked by the power of 5G.

When you took over on April 1, were there things that surprised you either positively or negatively?

There are some things that exceeded expectations. The client centricity, and the fact that clients love the brand. On my first trip to India, what I found here is much more than delivery, it is about customer co-creation and delivery. Calling it delivery is maybe not even doing it justice. It is a virtuous cycle, as you sell you deliver, but as you deliver you see opportunities to sell more, please the customer more. There is winning spirit, and that isn’t something that happens overnight, that happens after 25 years of success. Those were all wonderful attributes. I would like more of a performance culture, more of a meritocracy, I would like to turn the dial a little more on how we manage talent, how we skill. You will see us spending more money on skilling that we have historically. North America is so strong for us. It is three-quarters of our revenue, but we haven’t invested enough in international markets and that is also what I will do.”

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