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TCS, Infosys, Satyam go on a hiring spree amid financial crisis
By siliconindia
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Tuesday, 14 October 2008, 22:07 IST |
1 Comments
Mumbai: India's largest IT company Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and second and fourth largest companies, Infosys and Satyam respectively, are planning to adopt new strategies to beat the ongoing financial crisis and perform better than in the last two quarters. As part of this move, these companies have decided to increase their hiring plans. TCS plans to hire nearly 12,500 employees of Citigroup Global Services (CGS) while Infosys is all set to add about 25,000 people in FY09. Similarly, Satyam will recruit 14,000-15,000 people this year.
Infosys mentioned that they will honor all the commitments made at campuses. The company has added 11,000 employees this year and another 18,700 are expected to join before the fiscal end.
Chief Operating Officer S D Shibulal, Infosys said, "We don't go back on any of our client contracts. We have recruited the best and the brightest from colleges, we will need them when the market recovers. In any case, the training will take four to five months."
However, the company will have to deploy the employees on internal projects when they don't have enough large projects, which would not earn immediate revenue. Due to the decline in big projects Infosys' utilization has fallen to 74 percent from 78 percent a year ago.
While Infosys expects flat sequential growth in revenues and marginally better growth in earnings in Q3 FY09, the company aims at a whopping 18 percent sequential growth in revenues and 14 percent growth in earnings in Q4FY09.
An analyst however said, "The bottom is yet to be reached. This is only the beginning. Infosys can maintain margins even if utilization drops because it is so big. In any case, freshers are not paid much so it won't impact margins significantly."
Ramalingum Raju, Chairman, Satyam Computers said, "We have already given guidance for the year in terms of revenue and recruitment. We will recruit 14,000-15,000 employees this year," However, he added that the company may postpone some of the new recruitments for the next quarter.
On the acquisition of Citigroup Global Services, TCS Chief Operating Officer N Chandrasekaran said, "It's going to take three to four months to complete the acquisition. And to integrate the teams, another six months, which is a good time frame to be ready when the markets recover."
According to another analyst, not only has TCS increased its exposure to financial services, it has also increased its exposure to Citigroup, which was already among its top clients. Like General Electric, Citi is known to drive a hard bargain. So they are going to extract a lot of value for the money they pay.
Source: The Economic Times (Authored by N Shivapriya)
