Delisting won’t change the way Hexaware does business: CEO

NEW DELHI: IT company Hexaware Technologies Limited clocked revenue growth of 2.9% quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) in July-September, as it focuses on cloud and automation to grow post-covid.

In dollar terms, profit was down 15.9% at $21.9 million, while revenue rose 1.7% to $214.1 million. The company follows January-December as its fiscal year.

This is the last result of the company as a publicly listed firm as promoter Baring Asia PE had announced its intent to delist in early June. Hexaware's shares will be delisted from the BSE and the National Stock Exchange (NSE) effective November 9. However, the delisting will not have any effect on the way the company does business.

"Nothing changes after delisting, we will operate in the same way as we have been operating, our vision, mission, our investment into employees and customers, nothing will change. People will keep an eye on us, we will continue to grow and be a significant player,” said R. Srikrishna, CEO and executive director, Hexaware Technologies.

He said the demand environment is very strong. However, the macroeconomic dynamics are varied and spending across industries will vary. "The recovery cycle for some of the troubled verticals that require footfall, like travel and transportation, could be well into 2022," he added.

Hexaware also reported new deals worth $154 million in the third quarter. The value of new customer wins in the September quarter is higher than those in FY19, and the icing on the cake, added Srikrishna. “We are winning deals at an accelerated clip, this is going to set us up for a nice period of accelerated growth,” he added.

Srikrishna said the company is winning deals because of its ability to get customers to cloud with its Amaze platform and focus on automation – the two things driving demand currently.

“Automation has been the backbone of our growth for the last five years and has come to the fore now,” he said.

He said the company has hired 600 employees in the third quarter. “So we will keep becoming not only a substantial size from a revenue perspective, but also a substantial employer for the industry so going private doesn't mean anything for how we do business," said Srikrishna.

The company has also launched its performance bonus this quarter that will be payable at a future date. Promotions are happening as per the regular cycle and about 1200 promotions were given in Q3, said Srikrishna.

The company remains confident of its growth momentum as it bets on getting customers to cloud, focus on touchless customer experiences and automation that will help reduce cost.

In terms of challenges, Srikrishna says that recovery from covid is not over and the fact that IT industry is doing well should not lead to zero complacency, because the macros are not in good shape. Businesses are doing better than normal because of the amount of money that has been injected by the governments and central banks. The first round of stimulus funding in US is close to dried up and the second round is much anticipated and if it does not happen, there will be a bit of a challenge, he added.