Newly-merged IT firm LTIMindtree is confident of recording double-digit growth in FY24 and returning back to the profitability level of the erstwhile entities.
The company, amidst global slowdown, is seeing weakness in some verticals but is confident about its deal pipeline, according to Debashis Chatterjee, CEO and MD of LTIMindtree.
As the macroeconomic scenario worsens, the company expects the next quarter to be soft. Chatterjee said that some clients in the BFSI sector have put a freeze in Q1 in terms of additional work.
Decision-making timelines in the high-tech vertical have extended, and the retail vertical has also been a little slow due to high-interest rates and sticky inflation, he added. However, Chatterjee is confident of maintaining the growth momentum.
“Despite headwinds, our focus is on the portfolio of clients that we have in the industries we support. We still have significant deal activity, and have a good pipeline,” he told businessline.
Shift in focus
Chatterjee further noted that clients have shifted their focus from transformation deals to cost takeout as they prioritise efficiency. The majority of deals the company has signed have been cost-takeout deals.
On the margins front, the company aims for a 17-18 per cent range for FY24, and in the longer run — in 4-5 years — the company plans to expand the margin by 200 basis points. Chatterjee said that the company has recovered from headwinds such as furloughs, lesser working days, and integration costs, that it faced last quarter.
Addressing the delay in the onboarding of freshers issue, Chatterjee said that the company had consciously slowed down in Q3 and Q4 as it was going through an integration process, post-merger as fresher intake or onboarding will start again from Q1.
Going forward it plans to have a good balance of fresher and lateral hiring. However, it also aspires to leverage the bench capacity and utilise it effectively.
New tech leverage
On leveraging newer technologies like generative AI, the CEO said that it is still a nascent space and it is to be watched out for how it translates into business use cases.
LTIMindtree has launched a new platform that helps clients accelerate their value journey. The focus of the platform is on the ethical use of AI, sustainability, and data privacy.
Six clients have been onboarded on the platform already and four clients are piloting their use cases, Chatterjee added.
