Visa rejection issues not new, need to manage it: TCS

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Visa rejection issues not new, need to manage it: TCS

Visa rejections have risen more than ever in the last 12 months for IT giant TCS. Chief financial officer S Mahalingam told CNBC-TV18 that this is a very critical issue, but it is not a new problem.

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Visa rejections have risen more than ever in the last 12 months for IT giant TCS . Chief financial officer S Mahalingam told CNBC-TV18 that this is a very critical issue, but it is not a new problem.

"The greater protectionism has been on for the last couple of years . We will certainly see the impact of it through the rejections in the visa front. This needs to get managed," he said.

It will have to deal with this issue by using a mechanism that doesn't hurt its cost structure. "There is going to be an overall efficiency that we need to keep on bringing about. Certainly visa is a very critical issue at this moment in time," he added.

Below is the edited transcript of the interview. Also watch the accompanying videos.

Q: What are the qualities that make for this top-notch CFO?

A: Build a team around you and if it is top class then you will certainly win and the other one is keep up-to-date. Keep learning. These are essentially two qualities which are required of a good CFO.

Q: How is the industry looking from hereon? The news that comes from Europe is not very cheerful and there are only about ameliorative evolutionary positive news coming in from the US. Is 2012 going to be a tough year for all developers?

A: The economic situation will take some time to improve. I don't think we can expect a quick fix at this time. If we focus on our fundamentals, which is to deliver higher value to the customer for the amount of money that they have spend on us, we should be doing very well in this current environment.

This is because value management, cost management are top priorities for customers. We are seeing this right across, whether it is in the United States or Europe and so on. We are not despondent. We see that our pipeline continues to be fairly strong. We have a reasonably good track record in terms of winning assignments. Therefore we certainly see growth as far as this year is concerned.

Q: You were talking about growth and how you see it, no worries on that front, but NASSCOM the industry body says that going forward it expects the industry as a whole to perhaps growth to slowdown to between 11 and 14%. Is that a view that you also hold for your own company? What kind of figures would you be looking at? Would 11-14% suffice?

A: You have to take one key factor into account when you look at the NASSCOM estimate. It also includes the projections from captives in India, captives of various companies, overseas who maintain it here. The growth there is not expected to be more at all. Therefore all the growth will have to come from other organizations such as us, the larger and smaller. Even to beat this growth it has to be a little higher for these organizations, pure play and software or BPO organizations from India.

Secondly, given the current environment everyone is going to be very cautious as we go along, even the customers. We will find that they are evaluating each what we call the discretionary - spend on new developments, new technologies. While they will spend their budget it might be a little back-ended that is towards the second half of the calendar year and so on. Therefore, one starts with a cautious note and I hope situation will improve as we go along.