Faced with uncertain and challenging business prospects, India?s largest IT and software company, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), is pursuing an aggressive cost-cutting agenda and has taken an initial step by hiring mostly trainees in the first quarter of the current fiscal, compared with the previous fiscal.
Marking a change from tradition, 61% of its new employees are trainees. That constitutes 4,495 of the 7,400 employees hired by the company in the first quarter. In the same quarter last fiscal, trainees constituted only 38% of new hires.
However, TCS would not resort to lower wage hikes or employee cuts as a cost-saving measure. Ajoy Mukherjee, VP & head, global HR, TCS, said, ?We will continue to hire in the same pattern for the coming quarters. This is largely driven to get optimum utilisation of the talent we have and manage our costs.?
He also added that the company is looking to reduce benching and use 77-79% of its entire workforce. This quarter, the company?s cost-to-employee is about 55% of its Rs 6,411-crore revenue, including wage hikes and visa costs. The company is also looking at non-linear growth options and will continue to focus on manufacturing, retail and utilities. The company is targeting about three deals in platform-based BPOs.
N Chandrasekaran, executive director & COO, TCS, said, ?When it comes to non-linear growth, we are looking a growth prospect and we might sign about two or three deals in the platform-based BPO space.?
