No one can be stopped from leaving for better incentives: TCS boss Krithivasan

livemint.com:

Mint, the soft-spoken Krithivasan came across as guarded. Under his watch, TCS has done better than smaller rival Infosys Ltd for two straight quarters, with the boss sharing that the company is now focusing more on growth and expects the next financial year to be better than the current one. Edited excerpts: I can talk only about TCS and not about other companies.

Investors wanted to know if we are more optimistic about FY25 than FY24. The answer to that was yes, we are more optimistic about FY25 than FY24. I think that is what is reflected in the market.

We are not saying that Q4FY24 or Q1FY25 will be strong. We are saying that we believe, based on what we see in the environment right now, that FY25 will be better than FY24. We said that the demand environment in Q3 has not deteriorated further compared to Q2.

We have close to $40 billion of order book as of Q3. We are continuing to execute as per plan. Some of the work that we started in the past is not coming in or getting deferred (as much as before).

This brings us to the classic leaking bucket theory—are we losing more business now than we are winning? The answer to that is no. We are continuing to add more business because of our strong TCV (total contract value) and that is why there is reason to be optimistic about FY25. I don’t want to look at my watch and compare it to any of my predecessors.

This is because TCS is a continuum at play. Our strategy continues. We have not gone for drastic changes.

We’ve been trying to push the sales teams to win more because eventually, in a tight market, you must gain market share. If you don’t gain market share, you cannot sustain growth. And hence, we have increased the focus on market share.