PremiumNew Delhi: Software major Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS) reported a lower first-quarter profit on Thursday as the pandemic forced its clients to cut spending on IT services but the company's employee commentary looked encouraging.
TCS said net profit for the three months ended 30 June fell 13.8% to ₹7,008 crore. Revenue of the company rose marginally in the first quarter of the current fiscal to ₹38,322 crore. In the year-ago period, the same stood at ₹38,172 crore.
Learning activity surged among the employees, registering a 24% increase over the prior quarter, despite the absence of fresher onboarding in Ql said the company's Global Head, Human Resources.
"Our primary concern has been for our employees' health and wellbeing. We have implemented several initiatives to intensify employee engagement and provide them the support and resources they need to tide over this difficult time. I am very pleased with how TCSers have risen to the challenge and adapted very well to the changed circumstances, leveraging our Secure Borderless WorkspacesT"' model to very effectively collaborate with each other and with customer teams to execute activities that until now, entailed travel, co-location and extensive in-person interactions. Another area of immense satisfaction is how TCSers used the opportunity to upskill themselves. Learning activity surged, registering a 24% increase over the prior quarter, despite the absence of fresher onboarding in Ql. Our sustained focus on organic talent development helped us fulfill over 4,500 open positions this quarter with internal candidates," said Milind Lakkad, Global Head, Human Resources.
He added: "Many of our employees have been waiting eagerly to return to their workplaces, but we have taken a conservative approach and are enabling it in a calibrated way, in line with our Vision 25 x 25, ensuring that all precautions are taken to create a safe workplace. Around 1% of our workforce is currently working from our facilities and we are looking to increase this steadily during this quarter."
Commenting on the Ql performance, N. Ganapathy Subramaniam, Chief Operating Officer & Executive Director, said: "The location-independent way of working is gaining traction. Our customers are quite comfortable integrating the remote workforce, using new collaborative technologies to get work done. Our Secure Borderless WorkspacesTM model has been institutionalized. We have been able to seamlessly adapt and extend it to prospect for new business, sell, contract and execute programs."
He added: "The resilience and adaptability that we have shown in supporting all our customers over the last three months bodes well for our relative competitiveness going forward. Despite the continued uncertainty and weakness in all major economies, we have had very healthy deal closures and a strong pipeline. We will stay focused on helping our customers overcome the current challenges and prepare for the growth ahead.
V Ramakrishnan, Chief Financial Officer, said: "We have taken a supportive approach to employees and vendors, and used other efficiency levers to limit the impact of the sharp revenue decline during the quarter, and still delivered an industry-leading operating margin. Disciplined execution resulted in superior cash conversion and a strong cash balance that positions us very well to weather the downturn."
Consolidated headcount stood at 443,676 as of 30 June, 2020. Women constitute 36.2% of the firm's employee base.
"TCS' continued investments in organic talent development and focus on upskilling have resulted in industry-leading outcomes. TCSers logged in 7.9 million learning hours in Ql, a 28% increase over the prior quarter. Over 353,000 employees have been trained on multiple new technologies, and over 417,000have been trained on Agile methods," the company said in a release.
Rajesh Gopinathan, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, said: "The revenue impact of the pandemic played out broadly along the lines we had anticipated at the start of the quarter. It affected all verticals, with the exception of Life Sciences and Healthcare, with varying levels of impact. We believe it has bottomed out, and we should now start tracing our path to growth."
He added: "After an initial period of disruption, customers have now stabilized their operations and are now embarking on new beginnings to adapt and thrive in a post-pandemic world. We are seeing many customers focus on front-end transformation, resulting in significant traction for our products and services. The other big investment themes are around driving operational resilience, adaptability and optimization. We signed several large core transformation programs encompassing operations, applications, cloud and cybersecurity. Our Machine FirstTM approach, delivered using the Secure Borderless WorkspacesTM model is helping us win such opportunities. Very encouragingly, we saw customers launch new business transformation programs or restart deferred programs during the quarter. This is indicative of business confidence returning in pockets."
