Q1-FY24 · Manoj Raghavan
The deal pipeline is still pretty strong. There are large opportunities that we are chasing, and we are really hopeful that we will have those closures in Q2 and the subsequent quarters.
TATAINVEST / language trends
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Tata Investment Corporation · tone and specificity signals across the available quarters.
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Q1-FY24 · Manoj Raghavan
We have held our ground, even though we have not grown significantly, but I think we have done a very good creditable effort to maintain our business. Especially if you look at our top 5, top 10 customers, I think we've actually won deals and improved our market share as compared to our competition.
Q1-FY24 · Manoj Raghavan
The resource situation definitely has become a lot more easier. We are able to hire resources on need basis. But we are reducing the dependency on third-party contractors and filling positions using our own internal resources for better margins.
Q1-FY25 · Manoj Raghavan
We definitely want to exit this financial year with a better growth rate as compared to last financial year.
Q1-FY25 · Manoj Raghavan
The company made a contribution to the Progressive Electoral Trust of INR 19.78 crores for the quarter ended June 30, 2024. If not for this one-time expense, our EBITDA margin would have been 29.4%.
Q1-FY25 · Manoj Raghavan
Utilization has not peaked at all. We have a long way to go, and that is where we are confident that we have enough levers to manage the margins.
Q1-FY26 · Manoj Raghavan
The confidence is because we had certain ramp-ups to happen in Q1. I'm happy to tell you that the Q1 ramp-up has happened as per expectation. We don't see any pullback. We don't see any slowdown that is happening from the ramp-up perspective.
Q1-FY26 · Manoj Raghavan
Unlike IT or a BPO or some other industries, the impact of AI is still not going to be very dramatic as we speak... You cannot assume that because AI and GenAI is now available, you will be able to deploy lesser manpower. For certain tasks, it is possible. For certain types of projects, it is possible. It is not a generic solution for all projects.
Q1-FY26 · Manoj Raghavan
We have reached the bottom from Tata Elxsi's perspective... Hopefully, from the coming quarter, we should be able to report better results in this particular vertical.
Q2-FY24 · Manoj Raghavan
This was a pretty significant win for us. It's a new customer that we have been pursuing for I think 18-24 months. It's been a long pursuit, and very happy to inform that we've been able to close the deal in our favor. And it's a multi-year deal and a multi-million-dollar large deal in our perspective.
Q2-FY24 · Manoj Raghavan
Our focus would be to look at growing the top 10 and the top 20 customers... as we grow, definitely the top 5 and top 10 percentages will come down relatively.
Q2-FY24 · Nitin Pai
We're in for a cycle where there are going to be 3-4 pivots of the architectures for cars as you talk of SDV. There is no one single ideal architecture, and the question only is about how fast do you get there.
Q2-FY25 · Manoj Raghavan
The media communications is a bloodbath. You know, you look at any company in this area, you look at any competition, you look at overseas companies, everybody is. I mean, all of us have seen this tightening of budgets and huge amount of consolidations happening in this industry.
Q2-FY25 · Manoj Raghavan
Our target is definitely to go after that double-digit growth, and we'll put in all our best to see whether we can reach that. I know it is asking too much and it is tough, but why I'm a little confident is the sort of deals that we are pursuing.
Q2-FY25 · Manoj Raghavan
All we need is one or two large deals every quarter. And I think we are there. We are seeing some of those deals. And even if the industry is going through a lot of turmoil, all we need is those one or two deals that will really help us and keep us afloat.
Q2-FY26 · Manoj Raghavan
If you look at our deals that we're chasing, if you look at the funnel, if you look at the pipeline, and also if you look at some of the deals that we have closed and the ramp ups that are happening, I feel that H2 will be definitely much better than H1. I'm very positive on that.
Q2-FY26 · Gaurav Bajaj
We got a 90 basis point gain from the favorable currency movement, which is net of the cross currency impact on the cost side. Also, due to the higher salary cost converted into the actual INR reported, the 90 basis point of exchange gain got compensated, offset by the 40 basis point of the higher people cost.
Q2-FY26 · Manoj Raghavan
We are one of the, if you look at from a percentage of revenues that comes from offshoring and so on as compared to all the other competitors, our ratios are far, far higher than anybody else. It goes without doubt that any trend in offshoring, looking at best cost countries and so on, Tata Elxsi is a preferred vendor because of the capability, the experience, the process, know-how, and 30+ years of experience of doing this.
Q3-FY24 · Manoj Raghavan
We continue to invest in our talent and get ready to execute those programs, as seen in the sort of strong hiring that is ongoing. So it's a question of some of these deals, the start of these deals or some of the ramp ups of these deals getting pushed a little bit here and there, again, due to customer-related issues.
Q3-FY24 · Nitin Pai
The consolidation part is where we are saying, look, instead of working with many, many suppliers, which for us the universe is open because of our capabilities, we are taking selective bets on a few. And what we want to do is to make sure that we grow very well and very sustainably with those few.
Q3-FY24 · Manoj Raghavan
We are one of the few companies that are adding headcount at this point in time. So I think we'll be a little cautious this quarter and the next quarter in terms of... we have a healthy bench, so there is no need to keep adding resources. I think we've reached a point where we have planned for all the orders that we have won.
Q3-FY25 · Manoj Raghavan
It's very difficult to give a precise commentary of what's going to happen, but these are all the various moving parts that are there in the market today.
Q3-FY25 · Manoj Raghavan
FY 2025 will definitely be a soft year. We were hoping that these headwinds that we're seeing in the automotive industry, we will still be able to find a way to recover. But with the Q4 performance, I think it'll be very difficult for us to pull so much in Q4 to compensate for the flatness that we're seeing.
Q3-FY25 · Gaurav Bajaj
The priority for us is to improve our billability and utilization, and that will come from improving our top line. So there are enough margin levels available for us to get back to those kinds of margins in the short to mid term.
Q3-FY26 · Manoj Raghavan
We are still not up to the previous run rate. So still, as you rightly said, we have maybe a quarter or so more catch-up to happen, quarter or two, as you rightly said.
Q3-FY26 · Gaurav Bajaj
I think we continue to drive the operating model in terms of how we used to do it in the past. We believe there is still scope and runway to improve our utilization further as we see the demand coming back in the subsequent quarter. Hopefully, I think I cannot comment in the short- to medium-term, but we are very positive that we can go back to the margins that we used to operate at, maybe by the end of the next year.
Q3-FY26 · Nitin Pai
What we've also been seeing is that we have seen a lot more automotive customers come into that band, right? Especially because of some of the large deals that we have won and how we have been accelerating, so yes, I think it's a combination of multiple of these large wins that are really accelerating our top five and top 10 customer base.
Q4-FY24 · Manoj Raghavan
We are definitely looking back to come back to the margins for the full year that we delivered in the last financial year.
Q4-FY24 · Manoj Raghavan
The OEM business grew by about 40% year-on-year. The previous financial year, Tier-1 was more like 60% and OEM was more like 40%. I think we have done exceedingly well to transition this.
Q4-FY24 · Manoj Raghavan
The mandate from our board is very clear, right? So we can't chase growth at the cost of margins. So we definitely need to maintain our margins as well as look at growing at a faster rate, right?
Q4-FY25 · Manoj Raghavan
We have seen a number of projects that we are working, especially with our top customer as well, in terms of project portals. We are hoping that over the next couple of quarters, we will have a lot more clarity on this. At this point in time, it's too early for us to have that clarity.
Q4-FY25 · Nitin Pai
What tariffs have provided is an additional layer of complexity and uncertainty. That is where we have seen even further delays in terms of either decision-making or pauses in terms of ramp-ups that we have seen in deals that we already won. That is the pain.
Q4-FY25 · Gaurav Bajaj
It is only the equation of the revenue and the growth coming back. We tend to believe that we will start to see a margin level start to improve as the growth comes back in the coming quarter.
Q4-FY26 · Manoj Raghavan
We were hoping on a couple of deals because we were very close to signing those deals, and those were large deals that could have really helped us with improving the numbers. Unfortunately, both those deals did not come through in the quarter, and they have been pushed to Q1.
Q4-FY26 · Nitin Pai
ER&D is not very large deals locked in for five years and so on. It is a set of projects that continue to run off. Every quarter, you will lose 10%, 15% revenues. You have to make it up with new deals and new contracts. That is the challenge.
Q4-FY26 · Manoj Raghavan
I think we're not seeing irrationality that you indicated. There are a few cases here and there, but we're not sure whether it is GenAI or some other factor that's applying.