Tag: guidance

Cognizant CEO Exclusive: Speculation around lay-offs is noise, will hire in India

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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“Growth will end a lot of evils in any company”. These words by Cognizant’s Global CEO Brian Humphries summarize Cognizant’s journey since he took over the IT giant in April this year.

With two cuts in guidance for CY19, Cognizant which was once the poster boy of the IT services industry has had a tough year, to say the least. However, Humphries is unfazed and yet very aware of the tall task ahead of him.

Speaking to CNBC-TV18 in his first interview after taking over in April this year, Humphries admitted that the company has not been performing to its potential but he expressed confidence in the vision that he has set for the company since he came on board. He seeks to invest in the company’s brand, skills, technology and clients to fuel growth.

On the company’s growth outlook Humphries said, “I think the fundamentals of the business remain very strong. It is clear that we haven’t been performing to our potential so that has really been my focus since I have joined. I spend all my time internally with our associates, all our time with customers and really trying to drive our strong values. So I am confident that the market is strong and we will be able to accelerate growth into the future.”

Humphries believes that as the company taps into demand potential as it grows its capabilities in newer technologies and skillsets. This he believes will help the company regain lost ground and bounce backfiring on all its growth cylinders.

The Cognizant CEO also abolished the big concern around Cognizant’s restructuring. Reports have suggested that Cognizant may undergo wide-scale lay-offs across its offices. Humphries said, that a lot of the reports are noise and clarified that with the company growing and investing in technology, they will continue to hire more people.

He said, “I think a lot of this is noise that you see popping up in the media in the absence of other headlines… As we accelerate our growth we will actually hire more people, so, on the contrary, I am expecting to increase headcounts in India and indeed internationally.”

However, Humphries clarified that the headcount will now be reshaped, which means the skills that are needed for the new jobs will be focused on newer technology like artificial intelligence, machine learning, internet of things, etc. In the comprehensive interview, Humphries clarified on many areas including the SEC probe and the outlook on regulatory & macro-economic issues.

The Cognizant CEO also opened up about slowdown fears in the US economy. He said that the North American market contributed to three-fourth of Cognizant’s revenue and it was looking in robust shape. He added, “I think the shift to digital will drive further growth opportunities. At this moment we are actually investing in sales headcount, both in North America as well as internationally. So we have approved up to 500 headcount additions with a view to getting that market opportunity and indeed with a view to accelerating our growth rate.”

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

KEC expects slowdown in order inflows over next 2 months due to elections

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Vimal Kejriwal, MD and CEO of KEC International, said the company had a good year on infra side on ordering, basically in transmission and distribution (T&D), railways and civil areas.

“Of late with the election mood coming in, we are now seeing a slowdown where tenders are not coming in or we do not expect decisions in the next 2 months, so there would be a slowdown in India piece going forward,” he said.

The slowdown due to general elections will not impact the company’s overall order inflow, added Kejriwal. “In fact for next year we have been talking about 15-20 percent growth as against 12-12.5 to 15 percent for this year because we already have large orderbook.”

Nirmal Bang Institutional Equities has come out with a report with its top picks from the engineering and construction space. KEC International is one of those companies. Kejriwal gives growth outlook of the company:

-Expect revenue growth from international orders to shoot up in FY20.
– Had revised FY19 revenue guidance lower due to issues in international orders
– Have received some payments from the Saudi order
– Working capital days will improve in Q4
– Expect interest costs to go down in Q4 QoQ
– Borrowings to decline to Rs 2,500 crore by March 2019
– Net working capital days to be around 125-130 days by end of year
– Expect railway revenue to be Rs 1,800-1,900 crore in FY19
– Expect 20% growth in railways revenue in FY20

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Escorts will see 10% volume growth in Q4, says CFO Madan

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Farm equipment and engineering major Escorts reported a 52.34 percent increase in standalone net profit at Rs 140.11 crore for the third quarter ended December 2018.

Bharat Madan, group CFO of Escorts, spoke to CNBC-TV18 about the company’s financial performance and growth outlook.

“We had given a guidance for the full year earlier at 12-14 percent range. If you look at our performance last quarter, it was pretty good, we have grown 34 percent and we are expecting the industry to grow in that range 25-30 percent which didn’t happen in the last quarter, which actually led to some correction happening now in the full year guidance. However, we can assure you from Escorts side, we are still going to do better than the industry numbers. We expect we should be able to deliver better growth in Q4,” Madan said on Tuesday.

Talking about the company’s outlook, Madan said, “Looking at the first nine months, we had done almost double of what the industry has done. So if the industry has grown to about 13 percent, we have growth 25 percent. We expect fairly the same momentum will continue in this quarter as well,” he added.

“Last year we had seen the Q4 numbers had grown by 49 percent, which is a very huge growth we saw last year. So base is already very high and partly also because some of the festive season used to fall normally in March but this time it should shift to April first week. So that is why we expect that the next six months should be good for the industry. We don’t think there is any reason for worry as such specially in strong market,” said Madan.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Reports on Mindtree acquisition are purely speculative, says L&T CEO

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Larsen and Toubro (L&T) reported a 37 percent rise in consolidated net profit at Rs 2,042 crore in the December quarter. SN Subrahmanyan, MD and CEO of the company, spoke to CNBC-TV18 about the earnings and reports regarding acquisition of Mindtree.

“In our opinion, it has been decent quarter considering the economic situation. Order inflow is Rs 42,000 crore for the quarter i.e. USD 6 billion. For the quarter, maybe we have fallen short but as we keep pointing out to the media and analysts time and again for an infrastructure kind of business to evaluate the performance in order inflow quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) is difficult because sometimes we get a lump in order previous quarter last year and sometimes the same thing does not come through this quarter. However, Rs 42,000 crore was a decent achievement. If you take it on a nine-month basis, we are 16 percent ahead and we have maintained our guidance of 10-12 percent order growth and we believe that we may be able to be more positive on that,” Subrahmanyan said on Monday.

With regards to the full year guidance of 12-15 percent, Subrahmanyan said, “At the moment, we would like to maintain our guidance. It is an election season right now. There could be disbursements and such other matters that is coming up, so one needs to be a bit cautious about it but we are sticking to a guidance and we are quite sure we will achieve that.”

In terms of order inflows, Subrahmanyan said, “I cannot be specific on that but it is good to say that though Q4 predominantly has always been good to us – in the last few years – this year the only shadow if at all is the election dates and the period where the government orders do not move forward because of the restrictions imposed by the election commission and the mandate there on. However, the public sectors will continue to order, the private sector in India will continue to order. We do have prospects in middle-east and Africa, which will continue to come in. So overall, I think there are good prospects in view. We are already L1 in quite a few tenders – L1 is being lower from that point of view of going forward with these orders. So some of these are already leading to that and we still have another two months – some of the jobs have been bid, some of the jobs are under bidding stage, some of the jobs are under final negotiations so we are reasonably confident about it.”

Regarding the Mindtree acquisition reports, he said, “Media seems to be more interested in us buying Mindtree than what we perceive and think. As such, these are all speculative and it is not in the realm right now and I think let us keep it that way right now.”

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow