Cyber Security, AI.Cloud, TCS Interactive Led Q2 Growth

Tata Consultancy Services' biggest vertical BFSI showed signs of recovery

K Krithivasan, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, TCS

FinTech BizNews Service

MUMBAI, October 11, 2024: While discretionary spends were impacted Q2 FY25, Tata Consultancy Services' clients continued to invest and see improved outcomes using AI/GenAI. TCS is setting up interdisciplinary AI offices/CoEs to strategize, prioritize and implement AI at scale.

Tata Consultancy Services (BSE: 532540, NSE: TCS) has reported its consolidated financial results according to Ind AS and IFRS, for the quarter ending September 30, 2024.

Highlights

• Growth led by Energy, Resources and Utilities (+7.0%), Manufacturing (+5.3%)
• All the Growth Markets march above company average: India (+95.2%), Middle East & Africa (+7.9%), Asia Pacific (+7.5%), Latin America (+6.8%)
• Operating Margin at 24.1%; Net Margin at 18.5%
• H1’FY25 Net Headcount Addition of more than 11,000 employees

Highlights of the Quarter Ended September 30, 2024

• Revenue at US$7.67 billion, +6.4% YoY, +5.5% YoY in Constant Currency
• Operating Margin at 24.1%; a decline of 0.2% YoY
• Net Income at US$1.42 billion, +3.8% YoY | Net Margin at 18.5%
• Net Cash from Operations at US$1.4 billion i.e 100.2% of Net Income
• Workforce strength: 612,724 | Net Headcount addition of 5,726
• Diverse and inclusive workplace: Women in the workforce: 35.5% |150 Nationalities
• LTM IT Services attrition rate at 12.3%
• Dividend per share: ` 10.00 | Record date 18/10/2024 | Payment date 05/11/2024

K Krithivasan, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, said: “We saw the cautious trends of the last few quarters continue to play out in this quarter as well. Amidst an uncertain geopolitical situation, our biggest vertical, BFSI showed signs of recovery. We also saw a strong performance in our Growth Markets. We stay focused on sharpening our value proposition to our clients, employees and other stakeholders”.

Samir Seksaria, Chief Financial Officer, said: “We made strategic investments this quarter in talent and infrastructure to ensure sustainable growth. Our disciplined execution resulted in superior cash conversion. Our longer-term cost structures remain unchanged, and we remain confident in our ability to continue delivering industry leading profitable growth”.

Milind Lakkad, Chief HR Officer, said: “We welcomed 11,000 associates in the first half of the year, and we remain on track for trainee onboarding as planned. We have also commenced the campus hiring process for FY26. Our strong talent base and increased learning intensity prepares us well for the complex technology transformations that customers entrust us with”.

Q2 FY25 Segment Highlights

Growth by Domain

Growth by Markets

Services: Clients prioritized initiatives that accelerate customer acquisition, modernizing digital core including ERP platforms and improve enterprise observability, regulatory compliance and security posture.

While discretionary spends were impacted, clients continued to invest and see improved outcomes using AI/GenAI. We are setting up interdisciplinary AI offices/CoEs to strategize, prioritize and implement AI at scale.

Cyber Security, AI.Cloud and TCS Interactive led the growth this quarter.

Win themes across key deals involved vendor consolidation, managed services, UX transformation, technology simplification, legacy modernization, enterprise network transformation, automation and GenAI initiatives.

AI.Cloud: We are seeing continued momentum in AI/GenAI adoption, with the underlying technology gaining maturity at a very rapid pace. There are now over 600 AI/GenAI engagements deployed successfully in production or in various phases of development. Our customers are increasingly concentrating on integrating AI throughout their entire enterprise value chain, rather than working on isolated use cases. We are also enabling AI/GenAI capabilities across our suite of product and solutions. We are continuing to deepen our skillsets across our workforce through platforms like AI Experience Zone and TCS WisdomNextTM. On Cloud front, we continue to see good growth in Legacy Modernization, Data Platform Modernization and Technology Landscape Simplification.

Cyber Security: Clients continue to up their spend on improving their security posture. Our offerings aimed at security guardrails for AI/GenAI adoption are seeing good traction. Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Vulnerability Management, Identity and Access Management and Cloud Security were top areas of growth. We are also seeing traction for Security Operations transformation, Ransomware resiliency and Secure GenAI.

TCS Interactive: The interactive services saw continued growth for this quarter. Marketers are focusing on customer acquisition, retention and product differentiation. This presents us opportunities in areas such as harnessing data to uncover valuable consumer segments, improving CX, creating personalized content, and ensuring adtech/martech are providing the best ROI for the business. Among many of our clients, the remit of CMOs is expanding to include digital transformation. Spending has improved slightly over the quarter, and marketers are looking for better ROI for their investment using technology, data and AI.

IoT & Digital Engineering: IoT & Digital Engineering continues to see demand driven by Factory of the Future (Smart Manufacturing), OT Modernization, Intelligent Product Engineering, Connected Services & Connected Assets, and Sustainability. Key services that saw traction during the quarter included MES and Industry 4.0, IOT Platform Services and Digital Engineering. IoT driven transformation across connected devices and manufacturing is seeing higher adoption, demand is growing for Industrial AI (Digital Twins) combined with GenAI. Among industry groups, TSS and LSHCERU saw greater traction.

Enterprise Solutions: Clients continue to invest in their ERP modernization. They are partnering with TCS in their business and CX transformation journey for solutions in supply chain optimization, claim modernization, sustainability and reimagining sales & service channels. GenAI saw good traction across industries. Our transformation approach, along with our contextual knowledge and industry pre-configured solutions including TCS Crystallus™ are enabling customers to accelerate their growth and transformation journeys. We continue to invest and strengthen our joint go-to market approach with our partners.

Cognitive Business Operations: During this quarter, we saw multiple large wins across IT Infrastructure and business operations with robust TCV closure powered by Cognix™ led operating model transformation. Key trends witnessed were vendor consolidation, employee experience enhancement, workplace transformation, network reimagination and first-time outsourcing. Good traction in business process services, with Banking, Insurance, Cards and Supply Chain operations doing well.

Key Highlights

• Partnered with the Sydney Marathon, Australia’s largest marathon for a five-year partnership, which will see TCS leverage its expertise to enhance the marathon’s use of advanced technologies, sustainability, accessibility, and charitable impact while continuing to support running and wellbeing across Australia.
• Expanded partnership with Rolls-Royce, a British multinational specializing in civil aerospace, defense aerospace, services and power systems, to advance its sustainable initiatives and involves research into hydrogen fuel system technology. TCS will leverage its deep domain knowledge of the aircraft manufacturing industry and will support the engineering activities of Rolls-Royce such as system design, component design, supply chain support and program management.
• ASDA has recently partnered with TCS to enhance its IT operations by streamlining its IT infrastructure service landscape. This collaboration aims to improve ASDA’s customer experience while strengthening its digital operations. The partnership is positioned to elevate overall customer satisfaction and support ASDA’s ambition to become the 2nd largest retailer in the UK.
• Selected by Banco de Crédito del Perú (BCP) to transform their IT technology landscape. As part of the partnership, TCS will bring its digital offerings and industry-leading capabilities from AI.Cloud, Modernization and Banking business units to help BCP meet its strategic vision and deliver 100% digital customer experience. With the expanded partnership, TCS will continue to create value-driven outcomes for BCP, while supporting its strategic growth objective to continue be a transformative and innovative leader in the region.
• Selected by a leading global financial institution headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, for end-to-end application management and support for its Hedge Fund Administrator platform. As part of the engagement, TCS will take complete ownership of incident management, while ensuring proactive monitoring, implementing new alert mechanisms, and enabling seamless collaboration across the multi-vendor environment. The partnership with help the firm foster a culture of accountability and drive operational efficiency with optimal outcomes.
• Selected by Follett Higher Education, North America’s leading college store operator, to strengthen its information technology infrastructure and cybersecurity services. TCS will create an enhanced IT infrastructure that better supports Follett’s innovative academic and retail experiences for colleges and universities across the US and Canada, by deploying trademark platforms and solutions, such as TCS Cognix™ and Cloud Exponence.
• Announced a strategic collaboration with TÜV SÜD Middle East, a leading provider of testing, inspection, certification and training services, to accelerate the carbon management and sustainability journeys of its customers in the Middle East with tailored solutions for ESG, available on the TCS Zero Carbon Platform, which is a proprietary digital solution that helps organizations manage and monitor their carbon footprints and adopt sustainable business practices.
• Launched TCS Pace Studio in Stockholm, Sweden and Manila, Philippines, to offer its customers in the Nordics and APAC region, exclusive access to its innovation ecosystem. The state-of-the-art innovation hub and research centre will enable enterprises to explore the latest advancements in technology and deploy them at scale to accelerate their digital transformation journeys boosting digital innovation.
• Selected by Primark, a leading international fashion retailer across 17 countries in Europe and the US, to transform its technology operations to support the retailer’s ambitious plans for global growth over the next five years. 
• Entered a strategic partnership with Mansfield Building Society in the UK to digitally transform its business. TCS will deploy its state-of-the-art digital banking solution, TCS BaNCSTM for Core Banking, along with its Digital Home Lending Solution, to enhance member and intermediary experiences and support Mansfield’s ambitious growth plans.
• Selected by Qantas, for Managed services of Airline's Technology Domains including Airline Experience, Airline Operations, Commercial Airline Technology, Corporate & Business to Customer, TCS will drive an operating model transformation to transition their operations to a product-centric operating model towards maximizing the benefits from cloud transformation. Leveraging over 18 years of deep contextual knowledge about the client's business landscape, TCS will enhance operational resilience for Next Gen IT Operations and foster a faster rate of innovation. This comprehensive multi-year engagement will enable Qantas to achieve operational excellence. TCS will also leverage the emerging AI technologies to improve automation levels, helping the client achieve significant cost savings and efficiency.
• George Yang-led Golden Arches Development Corporation (GADC), the master franchise holder of McDonald's in the Philippines selected TCS to standardize and digitize the IT operations for its 760+ restaurants. TCS will implement an advanced upgrade to the cloud (SAP S/4HANA on RISE), by harnessing its deep industry expertise and contextual knowledge in SAP-led business systems transformation, TCS will upgrade the IT infrastructure of GADC, resulting in better insights, improved decision-making, and optimized operational performance.
• Launched a new delivery centre in Warsaw, Poland, expanding its operations in the country. With the new delivery centre, TCS expects to double its workforce to 1200-plus in a year to support its further growth in the region and showcase its capabilities across industries and technologies.
• TCS partnered with one of the largest ground handling companies based in Europe, to help them improve their cybersecurity maturity and reduce risk exposure. TCS enabled comprehensive visibility of the enterprise cyber-risk landscape, which enabled the customer to measure the efficacy of their security operations, establish better control and governance on key security programs and track their returns on cybersecurity investments.
• Openreach, UK’s largest telecom infrastructure company has selected TCS as its strategic partner for the business operation transformation of their national roll-out of next-gen fibre networks. This managed services deal solidifies our role as a trusted partner in Openreach’s E2E FTTP network transformation journey, delivering superior services for their flagship broadband business (Ethernet) customers, while optimizing cost of network builds, minimizing truck rolls and shortening of production cycles. TCS will harness its unparalleled contextual expertise and domain knowledge of GenAI and cloud-led innovations to deliver efficient operations, elevate customer experience, drive superior business outcomes and help Openreach connect customers’ faster.

Customer Speak

“To help support our ambitious growth plans we’re expanding our partnership with TCS to build a robust, resilient, and reliable IT operating environment to become a more efficient, technology-led global organization with the agility to quickly adapt to changing demands and requirements in a fast-paced industry. Working with TCS will provide us with the ongoing operational stability and accountability needed to support our business to scale. This will allow us to respond to market trends and customer preferences in a timely manner, ensuring that we continue to deliver quality products at the best value for our customers.”

Andrew Brothers, Chief Information Officer, Primark

“We welcome TCS to our hydrogen research programme and their engineering skills will play a valuable role in addressing our technology goals. We’ve already made great progress and having TCS with us gives us additional capability as we move forward on our journey to enable the energy transition for the aviation sector.”

Alan Newby, Director, Research and Technology, Rolls-Royce

"Building on our extensive experience in global climate change initiatives, we are pleased to collaborate with TCS to assist organizations across the Middle East in their sustainability efforts. Leveraging our expertise and TCS Zero Carbon Platform, we aim to help businesses effectively manage carbon emissions and make informed, sustainable decisions."

Mostafa Jassim, Deputy CEO, TÜV SÜD Middle East

“We pride ourselves on our excellent service and personal approach and, therefore, finding a partner that can support our physical branch operation and provide a state-of-the-art digital experience is critical in ensuring that we meet the needs of all our members now, and in future. After a strenuous selection process, it was clear that there was only one solution which met all our requirements, especially when you consider TCS’ experience of delivering successful transformation programs, their ethical approach to business, and their relationship with existing clients which dovetails well with our mutual ethos and core values.”

Iain Lister, IT Executive, at The Mansfield

“This partnership with TCS is another step in our continuous digital transformation. The implementation of SAP S/4HANA on RISE will provide us greater agility through data-driven insights, enabling us to continuously improve our customer and employee experience.”

Margot Torres, Managing Director at GADC

“Croma’s vision is to be number one in customer experience and satisfaction. Many of today’s shoppers want to learn and shortlist products online—so when they arrive at the store, they can select the right items, check out, and be on their way out. Crafting a seamless, delightful omnichannel journey is, therefore, an imperative for us, and OmniStore is key to enabling it. We have enjoyed our unique and truly integrated partnership with TCS to co-develop and co-innovate multiple aspects of the customer experience, and that’s exactly what we needed to succeed in an ambitious initiative like this.”

Shibashish Roy, Deputy CEO, Croma
 

“At Follett, we believe every interaction a student has with us contributes to their potential for success. That’s why our partnership with TCS is crucial, along with a well-structured governance and accountability matrix. Working as a united team, we are eager to build a best-in-class technology backbone so we can make every touchpoint with our customer seamless, scalable, and fit for purpose, well into the future.”

Prasad Keshava, Vice President of Enterprise Infrastructure for Follett Higher Education
 

Research and Innovation

As on 30th September 2024, the company had applied for 8,354 patents, including 160 applied during the quarter and been granted 4,369 patents including 223 granted during the quarter.
 

Human Resources

TCS’ workforce stood at 612,724 as on September 30th. The employee base is very diverse, with 35.5% women and with 150 nationalities.

TCSers have clocked 26.1 million learning hours and acquired 2.6 million competencies YTD. IT services’ attrition was at 12.3% for the last twelve months.