India’s largest information technology services provider, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), beat market expectations with its third quarter (October-December 2009) results. The growth drivers were North America and BFSI (banking financial services and insurance), signalling a recovery in the sector. N Chandrasekaran, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, believes growth will get better, but one should not expect a similar volume growth (especially in BFSI) in January-March 2010 (fourth quarter). In a chat with Shivani Shinde, he spoke on clients, growth prospects and the company’s hiring plans. Edited excerpts:
 
What do you attribute your good numbers to?
We did not score merely on the selling general and administrative (SG&A) front by cutting costs. Our gross margins have been improving, too, and they have now become a benchmark. This means we have delivered to customers in all our markets. Our utilisation, too, improved 81.1 per cent (excluding trainees) and including trainees, it was 77.2 per cent. On the net profit side, we did not have much hedging losses. We will incur hedging losses in Q4 due to currency fluctuations but I am hoping the situation will improve thereafter. (more…)