What is Tech Mahindra’s hiring outlook for the current quarter (Q4) and beyond? (10,000) Freshers

Low margins, low utilisation in Q3 were part of a deliberate strategy for better future quarters: Tech Mahindra’s Gurnani

We are investing in new talent and ramping up our presence in tier-II towns to hedge attrition’

Tech Mahindra, a digital transformation, consulting and business re-engineering services and solutions provider, this year will hire 10,000 freshers. The idea is to increase recruitment substantially in the next year, said the company’s MD & CEO, C.P Gurnani in an interview. exclusive conversation with The Hindu. Edited excerpts:

What is Tech Mahindra’s hiring outlook for the current quarter (Q4) and beyond?

We have got a robust engine for talent management, which hires from the market and also looks at internal fulfillment in a big way. This year, we will add about 10,000 freshers at the bottom of the pyramid and the idea is to really increase it substantially as we go forward in the next year.

Attrition remains a tough nut to crack for all tech players. What would be a comfortable rate of attrition for Tech Mahindra?

To address this issue, we have planned for reskilling and upskilling a little ahead of time, thereby investing heavily in building new skills. In addition to reskilling the workforce, hiring more people, and training them in future skills, we are also investing in new talent and ramping up our presence in tier-II towns to hedge attrition. At Tech Mahindra, we have seen a decline in the attrition rate by 3.3% in Q3. So, overall, we feel confident in addressing the supply-side challenges.

Customer wallet share is on the rise, deal sizes are getting bigger and the pipelines are becoming stronger. Are these leading to a secular trend?

With increased digital transformation across industries, even traditional sectors and businesses are willing to invest more in digitalisation. Therefore, the technology industry has been witnessing large deals recently from across industries. Sectors such as communication, healthcare, BFSI, enterprises are witnessing a strong deal momentum. For instance; in Q3FY22, Tech Mahindra reported deal wins of $704 million, which are broad-based across CME (communications, media and entertainment) and Enterprise verticals. This is the fourth consecutive quarter with such deal wins for us. This makes us committed to delivering more with a strong focus on disruptive technologies like metaverse, web3.0, 5G, blockchain, quantum computing, among others.

The pandemic has created an increasingly connected world. What are the newer challenges and opportunities before technology providers?

To start with, we know multiple industries, especially those involving discretionary spending, were hit hard. The overwhelming impact on the global healthcare system and the subsequent lockdowns and restrictions on activities resulted in huge disruptions globally. The IT industry, too, faced some challenges as remote working and security concerns of customers led to some delays and opportunity losses. However, the industry has been performing well, given an increase in the demand for software, social media platforms, smart solutions and emerging technologies in the new normal.

Tech Mahindra opened calendar 2022 with an acquisition. Tell us more about your M&A strategy?

The acquisitions are in line with our strategy to strengthen digital capabilities and facilitate comprehensive transformation services to our customers globally. Our acquisition of Com Tec Co IT Ltd. (CTC) in January this year will allow us to expand our offerings to high-end digital engineering services for some of the largest insurance, reinsurance and financial services clients in the world. (CTC is an IT services provider focused on BFSI sectors with development centres in Latvia and Belarus). This acquisition will give us renewed focus for growth globally. We see a lot of potential in the insurance segment.

What has been the response to your UaaS (upskilling-as-a-service) platform, especially when there is a huge shortage of digital talent in the market?

At Tech Mahindra, we are reskilling our associates in next-generation technologies to make them future-ready. We are also strengthening our learning ecosystem and programmes through new collaborations to fill the white spaces and provide a seamless new-age learning experience to our associates. UaaS platform was launched to accelerate the new-age skill development of over 60,000 employees globally so that they became a `fit-for-future’ workforce. The rise of emerging technologies necessitates professionals to upskill and adapt themselves to be productive, efficient, and relevant in the dynamic workplace. With this, organisations will also need to ensure future readiness of workforce by upskilling and reskilling them as well as attracting a more diverse and inclusive workforce with a flexible work structure.

You recently reported a dip in margins. How are you planning to improve your margins, and cut costs in the coming quarters?

Our Q3 margins were impacted by supply-side challenges and lower utilisation, which were part of a deliberate strategy we followed to augment the people supply, especially at the lower end of the pyramid so that we can bring down our cost of operation in the coming quarters. The headwinds were partially offset by operating leverage and some tailwind in SG&A (Selling, General and Administrative Expenses).

What exactly have you done towards restructuring your people pyramid by changing the mix?

We have a strong focus on upskilling and widening our talent pool as we continue to become more diverse and inclusive. For this, we have already increased our hiring from tier-2 and tier-3 towns like Trivandrum, Vizag, Nagpur, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Calcutta, Indore, Vijayawada, and Coimbatore, among others. We have hired almost more than 8,000 people from these centers in the last couple of quarters. Further, we now have access to talent from various nearshore centres like Mexico, Canada, Latvia, Romania, Costa Rica, and Belarus, among others. Our strategy of investing in internal talent training and hiring from tier-two towns will clearly make a difference.

Is the global tech industry likely to see any dramatic change in the market environment once the pandemic is over?

The pandemic has caused massive disruptions and has changed the way we work, consume and communicate. Over the last two years, we have seen accelerated digitalisation across industries, pushing every enterprise to transform itself into a technology-based organisation. The disruptions in the digital and IT world will propel advances in new-age technologies such as quantum computing, cloud computing, the internet of things, artificial intelligence and machine learning.

source from the Hindu https://www.thehindu.com/