Indian IT services major Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), which closed the FY22 with a new record, hiring over 1 lakh employees on a net basis, has plans to touch the $50 billion mark in sales by the end of this decade.
It may be noted that the number of hirings by TCS is the highest ever by any software services firm in the country in one year. In the first three quarters of the year, the company recruited about 68,000 freshers, over and above the company’s target of hiring 55,000 freshers. In Q4, TCS onboarded another 35,209 employees.
India’s largest IT player is hopeful of making its way through any disruptions that it might come across ay and further tap into long-term demand for its services. CEO Rajesh Gopinathan, in an interview with Bloomberg News, said that the long-term demand environment is very strong and they are betting on growth.
His statement comes at a time when the world is going through a host of disturbances in the supply chains owing to factors like Covid outbreaks in China and the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Discussing their future work strategies and organisation, Gopinathan shared that the company is adopting hybrid work models, with employees working both from home and the office. Citing TCS’ agility in the way they organise, the CEO said, “We are more micro-focused on the customer sets that we have and the opportunities we have.”
TCS employs nearly 600,000 people and aims to hire more than 40,000 graduates in the fiscal year through March 2023. Gopinathan calls the current scramble for employees “transitory” and argues that, ultimately, nobody will be able to pay more for talent than TCS because it enjoys the highest structural margins.
“If you look at this industry, we enjoy the benefit of occupying the high point on the profitability side; everybody else is benchmarked below us,” he said. “So, no, I don’t see a threat to our position.”
Gopinathan, chief financial officer before his promotion, said he does get questions about why TCS is determined to hire and expand, given the apparent challenges in the global economy.
“I’m getting a lot of debate that everybody else is saying the outlook is bad –how come you are positive? We are reacting to what’s there” he said.
“That is not to say that we are living in a bubble,” he added. “We are betting on that growth knowing that even if we turn out to be wrong, we will then step back and reset.”
