Allaying investors and general concern over sharp cut in visa issuance by the US, Tata Consultancy Services on Friday said that this will not have any impact on the company’s performance in the future.
Addressing shareholders for the first time as the Chairman of TCS, N Chandrasekaran said people keep talking about lesser work visa issuance by the US but nothing has changed on the ground but the company has voluntarily reduced the number of visas and made local recruitments and ensured quality service to clients.
“We have emerged as the leading recruiter in each of the country the company operates be in the US, Canada and Australia,” he said at at the company’s 22nd annual general meeting on Friday.
The company added 79,000 employees last fiscal taking the total count to 3.87 lakh. Of the total gross addition in FY'17, 11,500 were outside India. Women workforce at 1.34 lakh account for 35 per cent of the total workforce.
Chandrasekaran said the global business is transforming to a new age where technology is playing a central role in the growth of every industry by delivering customers experience anytime, anywhere.
TCS has made significant investment in driving innovation in digital and building new capabilities in technologies such as cloud, artificial intelligence, automation and and analytics.
The company has trained about 2 lakh people in the emerging digital and technology space last fiscal.
Rajesh Gopinathan, CEO and Managing Director, said of the overall revenue of ₹1.17 lakh crore in FY’17, digital business contributed 16.5 per cent. The company has invested ₹1,278 crore in research and development last fiscal, he said.
Adil Irani, a shareholder, took strong objection to the new Chairman Chandra-sekaran not thanking estranged former Chairman of Tata Sons Cyrus Mistry’s contribution to the company while doing the same for other retiring Board members.
Buyback issueExpressing concern over small shareholders getting a raw deal in the company’s ₹16,000-crore buyback, a shareholder said of the overall buyback about ₹10,000 crore has gone to Tata Sons.
However, Chandrasekaran said the buyback was executed as per the law of the country. The company's buyback was oversubscribed 222 per cent and over one lakh investors participated in it.