'Infosys bridged the cultural gap'
Testimonial
Axel Baumann
Director of Application Management Services
Air Liquide
As you can imagine, there were a lot of concerns and it was a new experience for us. Of course, the major concern was to lose control of IT services and to be dependent on a vendor, on a supplier which drives its own objectives. I can say that we have found a good way of cooperation, and that this anxiousness that was there does not seem to be very much founded anymore. Of course, our business is very complex and there was a concern if Infosys would understand the nature of our business and how it works. Once again, I think Infosys was the partner to cope with that problem. And as well, which is the basis of your Global Delivery Model. You interact with people in offshore and in India and you have people here in the European continent. But perhaps, the bigger problem was in the beginning - it was a real problem and not a theoretical problem - how to cope with cultural differences since neither our users nor we were used to exchange and interact on a day-to-day basis with Indian or English speaking people. There was a lot of education needed and a lot of, let me say, experience that was needed. We finally found out that we can work like that and it helped us to standardize our processes. Now, for all European subsidiaries and for all European users, English is the working language if they want to communicate with the central IT services.
Philippe Van Der Have
VP Sales Support, Europe
Air Liquide
I have been exposed, in my career, to India and to other communities, and I know that the cultural gap is something which is difficult especially for people who haven't been exposed to it. First, there is English. We have Indian people speaking to French people in this different language which is certainly not something that has been helping, but we have been managing it throughout the deployment of the project. The second thing is the fact that Infosys has provided us with someone onsite. It has progressively helped us to bridge the gap between the two cultures, I would say.
Nitish Bansal
Group Engagement Manager
Infosys Technologies Ltd.
We've worked with Air Liquide since 2005 and one of the first things that we did was a strategic value and cultural match. We realized that Air Liquide's business is built on long standing relationships with their customers, and so is ours. We establish deep and meaningful relationships with our clients and we grow with them. This cultural value match was the first thing that clicked between us and we have leveraged that in our last four years of relationship, which has helped us grow. This is something which has developed trust in the relationship, and has (helped) Air Liquide and us benefit from working together.
Axel: It was, to be very honest, a wonderful experience. I enjoyed it very much - to work this close with people from a different culture. I did not have that possibility before and I experienced that Infosys people are very warm-hearted and very open about their experiences here in Europe and very keen to understand how Europeans live. For me, I had a chance not only to have a business partner but to have a partner to share cultural and personal experiences, and to improve my knowledge about a part of the world I hadn't seen before.
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