Tata Consultancy Services? September quarter numbers disappointed the Street, but N Chandrasekaran, CEO and MD, TCS, tells FE?s Shruti Ambavat and Shobhana Subramanian that the environment seems fine.

How are you reading the environment overseas?

Things seem to be under control, primarily, because companies are not seeing any new data point and it?s a fact that the global economy is going to take time to recover. The recovery may take awhile so we have to work in this environment by taking costs out and attracting new customer segments.

What is the visibility on IT spends?

Customers are finalising their budgets and the basic checks indicate that either the current rate of spending will continue or there will be a marginal increase in many companies. For our client?le, spends will either be flat or marginally up. But, we need to be prepared to see where they are spending money. If we keep on looking at the big picture, we will lose it.

So what do you need to do to tweak your business model

We need to develop the right offerings and pick the right areas where we have to make investments. We have to built capability. Digital consumer and data analytics are big areas so we need to prepare for these. We will accelerate investments and focus on how we approach the customer, study them. I call it ?stay close and stay alert.? That is my message to my team.

How do you grow and win the new customers in this kind of market?

There?s no need for a knee-jerk reaction and we will acquire a company only if we find the right fit. As for new wins, you have to understand what the customer is going through and then service him. There is no magic mantra today like offshoring or anything else.

Is the market moving towards a few large vendors?

To some extent, that has been happening for some time. It?s not a consolidation scenario but definitely customers are building strategic partnerships with a few vendors.

Is there an advantage for a player like you or is the competition at the top also tough?

I think we are doing well. The participation has increased with the number of deals also on the rise.

How is the pricing environment because volumes seem to be coming through…

We are not losing price, but we are not gaining either and that is largely because of the negative sentiment. Even those who are telling us that their spending is on track, they are also worried about the economy. We cannot see how the world will be like if a country goes down. The customers are uncertain of the interplay when a country goes down.

What is the big picture looking like for TCS?

We are fairly confident, we will clearly sustain growth because there will always be demand. But we need to keep our ear to the ground. We keep looking for signals or a pattern, whether a plant shut-down or a budget cut but we haven?t picked up anything yet. We need to grow in new markets and to ensure that we are not dependent on only the major markets. Our presence in Asia, Latin America and India is small. We need to ramp up our scale in all markets and to build capacity.