OREANDA-NEWS. October 29, 2012. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the leading IT services, consulting and business solutions firm, reported its consolidated financial results according to IFRS for the quarter ended September 30, 2012.

Highlights for quarter ended September 30, 2012

Operating income at Rs4,179 crore; growth of 32.5 percent Y-o-Y and 2.2 percent Q-o-Q

Operating margin at 26.8 percent

Dividend per share of Rs3

Earnings per share at Rs17.95

Gross addition of 18,654 employees (net addition of 10,531)

Lowest attrition rate in last 10 quarters at 11.4 percent (IT + BPO)

Utilisation rates at 81.6 percent (excluding trainees)

41 new clients added

Commenting on the Q2 performance, N Chandrasekaran, chief executive officer and managing director, said, “We have delivered a strong performance with well-rounded growth across industries and geographies. Our execution excellence is winning recognition and our service offerings remain relevant for customers. As the global operating environment continues to evolve, there is little doubt that technology is playing a more pivotal role to shape the future of every industry than ever before. Our investments and capabilities make TCS extremely relevant to participate in imagining and co-creating this future with our customers.”

S Mahalingam, chief financial officer and executive director, said, “In the current operating context, it is important for us to remain efficient, keep a healthy grip on expenses, conserve cash and at the same time invest for the future. In this quarter, TCS has posted a credible margin performance at the operating level and we have also expanded our net margins by managing the ongoing currency volatility. We will continue to focus on maintaining our strategy of profitable growth to maintain margins to ensure we can invest on an ongoing basis as technology adoption cycles continue to get shorter.”

New CFO to take over in February 2013

TCS announced that Rajesh Gopinathan, vice president, business finance, will take over as the next chief financial officer of the company when Mr Mahalingam retires on February 9, 2013. He has been appointed deputy CFO effective today. Mr Gopinathan has been with TCS since 2001, when he joined from the Tata Strategic Management Group. He currently heads the business finance function responsible for financial management of the company’s operating units. He has held several positions in finance, strategy and sales during his career with the company and worked in multiple geographies. He is an MBA from IIM, Ahmedabad and an engineer from REC (Trichy).

Operational performance

Growth in Q2 was very broad-based and seen across all industry segments led by manufacturing, retail, telecom and BFSI. There was balanced growth across all service lines, with new services like infrastructure growing in double digits. All markets grew; major markets were led by the UK and Europe while growth markets like India, APAC, Latin America and Middle East performed well.

Key wins

Won a managed services contract with the largest US-based electronic retailer for total infrastructure services across the US, Canada and Mexico

Selected by a leading European retailer to manage their application portfolio across the UK and continental Europe

Selected by a UK telecom service provider for providing managed services support across infrastructure, application systems and business processes in a multi-year deal

Awarded a multi-year, multi-million dollar contract with a European government department

Selected for a multi-year, multi-million dollar transformation deal for a large American insurance and financial services firm to provide consulting and system integration services for policy administration system implementation

Selected as a strategic partner by a large American multinational financial services corporation to provide financial services expertise and global IT delivery capability

Chosen as the strategic partner by an Australian bank, to transform their core systems, enhance customer engagement and go-to-market capabilities

Awarded by a global leader in gas exploration a multi-year, multi-million deal to provide consulting, application management and service integration for their core business processes

Chosen by a telecom operator from the ASEAN region as its transformation partner for BSS implementation and integration services

Sample of engagements won in new services

Products and platforms

TCS BaNCS Custody chosen for deployment by a major Middle Eastern bank

TCS BaNCS Corporate Actions being deployed by a leading global US-based bank

TCS BaNCS Wealth Management chosen by one of the world's largest US-based investment management companies

TCS HR and payroll platform chosen by a leading UK operator of restaurants

Mobility

Partnered with major North American retailer to co-create consumer mobility solutions and bring interactivity to the shopping experience

Selected by a large North American retailer to improve store efficiencies by mobile enabling store operations

Selected by a leading European bank as mobility partner to develop strategic mobile retail applications to provide rich customer experience

Consulting to develop holistic mWallet strategy for a leading regional US bank including defining the ecosystem required to drive mWallet offering

Developing mobility solution for private banking customers for a leading US-based global bank entailing conceptualisation and design to enable deeper customer experience and engagement

Developing retail and wealth management mobile applications for a leading Canadian bank by working closely with the bank and its supplier ecosystem

Big data

Used big data technologies to convert legacy linear analytical engines to distributed computing models for a global market research firm which enabled the customer to leverage the entire population data instead of sample data analysis and drive a 10x improvement in execution time

Chosen by a global food and beverage firm as big data solution development partner to generate granular insights and forecasts using advanced analytical models with scalable computation

Transformation

Signed an agreement with a leading beverage company to deliver their European supply chain master planning solution and help the customer obtain a regional supply network optimisation capability

Engaged by a leading American manufacturer for an enterprise level SAP deployment roadmap and assessment

Selected by a large UK retail bank as a strategic partner to transform the account opening process of their corporate banking business

Selected as a strategic partner for the digital transformation programme for a US-based payment company

Innovation and intellectual property

As of September 30, 2012, the company has applied for 1,017 patents, including 103 applied for during the quarter. Till date, the company has been granted 74 patents.

Human resources

With fresh graduates continuing to join the company, there was a total gross addition of 18,654 people (net addition of 10,531) during Q2. The total employee strength at the end of Q2 was 254,076 on a consolidated basis. Of the total gross additions, fresh graduates accounted for 69 percent in India. The utilisation rate (excluding trainees) was at 81.6 percent and including trainees at 72.8 percent. The attrition rate (LTM) fell further to 11.4 percent overall, including IT and BPO.

“We are delighted to have increased our retention rate further to 88.6 percent. We have also been able to increase our utilisation rate (including trainees) despite adding over 10,000 fresh graduates during the quarter,” said Ajoy Mukherjee, executive vice president and global head, human resources.

Awards and recognition

TCS was featured again in 2012 Forbes Asia’s Fab 50. It was recognised as one of the 50 Most Engaged Workplaces™ in the US. It received the Oracle on Oracle Specialised Partner of the Year award. TCS won three recognitions in the Business in the Community Awards for Excellence 2012. TCS BPO won eight awards at Asia’s Best Employer Brand Awards. It was ranked as one of South Africa's top employers. It won three awards at the Best CIO Awards 2012. The company won Supply Chain Project of the Year Award at Hermes Retail Weekly Awards 2012. TCS won accolades at the Singapore Human Capital Summit. It was awarded for Excellence in HR Analytics by Society for Human Resource Management, India. Mr Chandrasekaran was judged Best CEO of the Year at Forbes India Leadership Awards.