Blackbox plans to increase India’s contribution to 10% of its business in the coming years. BusinessLine. While stating that a macroeconomic slowdown could affect 20-25% of the business, Verma expressed his trust in India vertical, previously speaking about the increase in employee numbers following the centre in Bengaluru, using recent funds to expand the Indian market.
FY25’s strongest quarterly performance was £1,550 crore in terms of trading victory in the fourth quarter. What was India’s contribution to this number?
India’s contribution exceeds 15%. We want to refocus on India as part of our overall journey to build a $2 billion revenue. We expect India’s contribution to its contribution will increase from the current 6-7% to at least 10% or more. To that extent, we are investing in teams, both in the market and in the abilities teams.
Recently, we added new facilities to Bengaluru to support this expansion plan. We are forecasting India’s hyper-growth worth last year, and although revenues will almost double over the next few years, it remains a small part of our business. Our focus area remains with large corporations, infrastructure, public and private, and selected public sectors, and government initiatives.
How do you plan to integrate Agent AI services?
Each aspect of the infrastructure has an agent or other AI element. Agent AI’s main focus is in workplaces with a large workforce. This will allow you to complement or support your last mile work. Therefore, contact centers, PPOs and GCCS are watching the massive play of Agent AI. We are also considering partnerships and developing some of our own IPs in this area from a service perspective.
He also spoke about increasing the number of employees to 1,000. How did the entry of AI have an impact on these plans?
Black boxes are not directly affected by the exchange of labor for AI. Because it’s not our play. We don’t have a large workforce because we do the physical infrastructure (architectural connectivity, passive infrastructure, networking) that we need to physically do this when building an airport. So we don’t think it’s a challenge and continue to hire them.
Globally, our workforce is 3000 compared to 300,000 for others, so there are no similar challenges. We are a “glocal” company, thinking globally and acting locally. So, we’re thinking about adding 400-500 people, but this isn’t really a problem. We hire when we speak, and we recently featured a new centre of excellence in Bengaluru. The facility will be population for the next 12 months. We are planning to add 10-20% of our workforce and weexpect that growth can absorb it.
Are you increasing your focus in the telecom sector?
join. Whether it’s a carrier or a public sector service, we are well positioned to support these initiatives. Today, our driver licenses are digital and our passports are scheduled mid-2 months. You can see that everything has changed over the last 20 years. The black box is good for supporting many of these.
Has the slowdown in the macroeconomics had any effect on India’s ambitions?
There is a lot of uncertainty across factors such as currency, tariffs, and geopolitics. However, most of our business is mission-critical. This means that you need to run and run your network at an airport or train station or at a workplace. So, while perhaps 20-25% of our business could be affected by delays, we are a bit protected if possible, as most of our business is non-judgmental. Even when faced with turbulence, there are fewer times when things change, not just “IF” issues.
I recently received about 40 crores of funds. Which portion of that fund will be invested in India?
In India, a quarter of the funds are primarily sent to the market, ensuring that the working capital is efficient. Half of the money was sourced by current investors. Investors today are our biggest investors, half from HNI and others. It is primarily to have ammo for growth that is organically helpless, including India.
What are your plans for the future?
Over the next five to ten years, next generation applications will need that, and therefore we need to invest quickly in our infrastructure. This investment is actually in it, building fiber, networks. We haven’t done much for datacenter buildout in India. India has around 800 megawatts. This is the capacity of one data center and is a US hypercenter on one site. Over the next 3-5 years, this will change dramatically. If we are considering moving to more than $250 million over the next three or four years, we need to triple our business.
