MC EXCLUSIVE Today AI is a mandatory skill to have, says Tech Mahindra’s Sahil Dhawan

Sahil Dhawan

Even as tech companies globally and in India continue to grapple with disruptions caused by Artificial Intelligence, the country’s sixth largest technology company Tech Mahindra, which is headquartered in Pune, is reskilling its workforce to make them AI ready.

According to Layoffs.fyi—a crowdsourced website that tracks global real-time job cuts in the technology industry—over 109,000 employees have lost their jobs across 223 tech companies so far around the world in 2025.

"The nature of the skills has always been evolving. This is not the first time, a new tech stack has come in. What got shifted earlier, was the skill adoption. Today AI is a mandatory skill to have. You’re expected to know AI stack in some form," Sahil Dhawan, President & Head, India, Middle East & Africa (IMEA) Business told Moneycontrol in an interview.

On the likelihood of layoffs at Tech Mahindra, Dhawan denied any direct comment, but said the company is committed ensuring their employees are equipped with the necessary skills for future challenges.

Significantly, India’s largest IT company, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), slashed around 20,000 jobs in the July–September 2025 quarter. Accenture too has sharply cut down its workforce size, even though the exact figure of layoffs is not known.

Going forward, Dhawan expects demand for Tech Mahindra’s tech services, which are linked with AI, improving in the following sectors: telecom, manufacturing, health care and life sciences, BFSI, retail consumer goods, and oil & gas.

On telecom companies, the company’s IMEA head said that telecom players in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are focused on expansion and coverage. “In that region, telecom (players) are adopting a lot of tech stack to provide better services, which are different than some of the global telecom players, including in India,” he said.

Telecom vertical is historically and currently the largest revenue-contributing segment for the IT company, and it consistently contributes over one-third of the company's total revenue.

The services that Tech Mahindra provides to telecom players include 5G network deployment; helping carriers migrate from legacy hardware to Cloud-Native Networks, Virtualization (NFV/SDN), and Open RAN (O-RAN) architectures; and modernising Business Support Systems (BSS) like billing and order management.

A. The demand is big and we see increased momentum in the felid of AI, Data, Cloud & 5G. As a company, we’re highly focused on few sectors – Telecom, Manufacturing, healthcare and life sciences (HLS), BFSI, RCTL(retail consumer goods and transportation logistics) and oil & gas. We see a lot of tech maturity coming in. The Middle East is a lot focused on AI. One more key focus area are government services across the GCC countries, which are highly digitalized. They are going to next level of adoption from cloud to data to AI.

A. Telecom landscape is slightly different in Middle East. Every country typically has its own telecom monopoly. So, the telecos in Middle East are more consumer and experience centric than cost centric. I think, serving the base with better services takes us a step ahead, than only looking at the costs. Teleco players in GCC are focused on expansion and coverage. In that region, telecos are adopting a lot of tech stack to provide better services, which are different than some of the global telecom players, including in India.

A. AI is more helpful for productivity. We’ve launched our own 'TechM Orion' platform, which helps any individual to deploy an AI-agent in an autonomous fashion. We feel AI will unlock potential in business use cases. That’s where our close collaboration with Mahindra Group, whether it’s in automotive, farm equipment, financial services, or resorts, will help us evolve our tools. AI will change the way we consumer services as well.

When industrial revolution came, it changed the world. Dot com did the same. The AI stack, there will be changes about how we consume services at a broader scale.

A. The nature of the skills has always been evolving. This is not the first time, a new tech stack has come in. What got shifted earlier, was the skill adoption. Today AI is a mandatory skill to have. You’re expected to know AI stack in some form. We’re re-skilling and re-training our workforce and currently have more than 70,000 people trained on AI technologies.

A. I can’t comment on this. At Tech Mahindra, our primary focus is on re-skilling and upskilling our workforce to adapt to the evolving market demands. We are committed to nurturing talent and ensuring our employees are equipped with the necessary skills for future challenges.

A. Bahrain is a place, where you can easily hire a talent. We’re exploring at some options to deliver global capabilities from here, but we’ll keep evaluating this. We don’t have any firm plans to set up an off-shore centre at Bahrain, but we’re exploring. There are universities in Bahrain, and we can explore collaboration with them.

A. African countries still run on 4G, 3G network. In developed markets, it is more about expanding 5G to B2B. There’s more need to do the B2B hyper-connectivity at the low latency from the 5G perspective. Those use cases coupled with AI will have more meaningful adoption as we go forward.