Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., India’s largest software services exporter by revenue, plans to hire 30,000 employees in the next fiscal year that begins April 1 to prepare for a likely increase in outsourcing contracts as the global economy recovers, its chief executive said Wednesday.
Several Indian software services companies have said in recent months that the industry is recovering from the impact of the global economic slowdown, which prompted customers in the U.S. and Europe to scrap or delay projects and seek lower rates for products and services.
As a result, software exporters are expecting a surge in the number of outsourcing orders and the Indian companies are accordingly beefing up staff numbers to service such orders.
“More deals from clients who have never outsourced before are (also) coming,” N. Chandrasekaran, who is also the company’s managing director, told reporters on the sidelines of an industry event.
He said 70% of the staff to be hired next fiscal year will be fresh graduates and more than 2,000 will be recruited from outside India.
The Tata Group company’s upbeat staff addition forecast comes after it added just 5,893 employees in the nine months to Dec. 31–the first four to five months of which saw the company, and the industry, facing the brunt of the slowdown.
The company expects to add about 11,500 employees in the current January-March quarter, which would see its headcount go up by about 17,500 in the full fiscal ending March 31.
TCS had recruited 32,354 staff in the last fiscal year ended March 31, 2009, which included about 13,000 from its buy of Citigroup’s captive business process outsourcing. It had added 22,116 people in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2008.
The recovery is, however, marked by cautiousness on the part of clients still reeling from the effects of the slowdown, said Mr. Chandrasekaran.
There will be a lot more “scrutiny” on discretionary spends–non-essential projects that companies adopt to improve operational efficiencies–and the budgets are likely to be split into multiple contracts, he said.
On Europe, which is still lagging the U.S. in the recovery, Mr. Chandrasekaran said: “National banks (in countries like Germany and France) are still not outsourcing, although the global ones have tried the outsourcing model.”
National banks refer to those that don’t have international operations.
The company is looking at markets including Japan, China and France to boost growth going forward, he added.
Source:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704140104575056871506732434.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines
