Outsourcing: César Gon, Founder And CEO, CI&T (Part 5)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Aditya Modi

Sramana Mitra: What are the strategies you use? How do you improve English-speaking skills?

César Gon: We have an official annual evaluation for each employee of the company. We have a lot of full-time English teachers inside the company, providing specific training for different people, and we have a lot of incentives for people to improve their English skills. We have done a lot during the hiring process to see if the candidate has good English skills.

Sramana: Is there a trend now that the Brazilian workforce needs to be more proficient in English in general?

César: Yes, if you look in new directions that are just getting out in now, they are much more proficient in English than they used to. So, it is part of the improvement of the Brazilian people, it is more about engaging internationally in general, not only in IT. English now is becoming more frequently used by the new generations.

Sramana: My body of questions concerns what is happening in the M&A world. I know it is a trend right now that a lot of larger IT companies are trying to pick up regional expertise by acquiring companies. Do you see this? Are you getting acquisition offers from large outsourcing companies that want to develop in Brazil?

César: Yes, sure! CI&T has been growing at an average of 40% a year over the past 10 years, and as we are one of the most successful Brazilian companies in this IT world and Brazil has become target of a lot of players, it is very normal …

Sramana: What is your revenue?

César: It’s about $80 million. That mean 130 million reais.

Sramana: What do you want to do? You are getting these acquisition offers, you already have $80 million in revenue, you are growing nicely. What do you want to do with the company? Would you be interested in selling at some point? Or is it something that you can build to a much larger company taking advantage of your core competence in Brazil?

César: Yes, we are not aware about this. We are very strong. We have very bright and young people helping us to build a different company. So, I am sure they are interested in the kind of culture that is unique. Often these large companies can have a very different approach to  people management and culture. We want to make them think they are different and they are unique in the industry. So, of course we understand the market and the consolidation strategy, but I think we have a solid foundation. We are not considering this kind of engagement right now.

Sramana: Okay, very good! Is there anything else you would like to share? That is unique to your business or to doing business in Brazil? I would be interested in learning more about the cultural nuances of how you are managing this. Outsourcing is happening in many more destinations than the ones that had become the early success story like India. So, it is interesting for us to understand what you are doing that is different and will be able to share that with our readers.

César: I think this growth in outsourcing is because, it is not just more mass consumption, it is about engagement. Different locations can take part in this process, not only the places where you could find really large numbers of people, so that is a new trend based more on value and maybe less on scale.

Sramana: Yes, and I think the real operating word is specialization. If you want to do photography and you specialize in very high-value skills where you can do something unique that is not completely dependent on body shopping, of course that is to your advantage.

César: That is true, I agree. And that is creating a new shape in the industry and we will likely see new players, more specialized, more focused players than before.

Sramana: Great! Excellent. Thank you for sharing the story.

César: Thank you so much.

This segment is part 5 in the series : Outsourcing: César Gon, Founder And CEO, CI&T
1 2 3 4 5