For IT companies, wage hikes are a must to retain existing talent. When Rohitash Gupta, CFO, eClerx Services was asked if this trend would continue, he said it was true. “Attrition from here on is likely to pick up and probably go back to its normal level, given the entire IT and BPO sector are doing pretty well, including ourselves,” he explained.

EClerx Services has reported a 1.4 percent improvement in its dollar revenues. The street, however, is excited about the buyback that the firm announced at a price of Rs 3200 crore, which means more than a 40 percent upside from where the stock currently is.

Rohitash Gupta, CFO, eClerx Services spoke with CNBC-TV18 in detail about the company’s outlook, skill talent shortage, deals, and acquisitions among other things.

Gupta claimed that the shortage of skilled talent is probably in very niche pockets and it doesn't affect the broad base of activities that a BPO company like EClerx does. He said that for areas like data management processes, financial processes like KYC, etc, relatively normal talent can be hired and trained over time. “So, we don't see that digital talent crunch to effect, a vast majority of our business,” he asserted.

Talking about the profile of work for the company and the scope of deals, Gupta said, the company is witnessing more demand for financial services and that the deals are typically larger. “The same is the case with customer operations segment, where we do customer care services, there too the deal sizes have gone up, an opportunity space has also gone,” he added.

However, in digital, he said it is a mixed bag because there are a few transformation projects where the firm tends to participate but the opportunities for it are relatively low ticket size compared to the overall transformation spend off that company.

When asked if the company saw any revenue gains and cross-selling opportunities from the Personiv acquisition, he said “When we acquired in 2020, that trajectory was between $28 to $29 billion annualised at that point of time and since then it has grown. In Q4 itself, the annualised trajectory moved up ahead of $30 million and since then, in Q1, it has further grown.”

Gupta said the company is satisfied with Personiv’s performance to date in the last two-three quarters.

"We have worked on three large opportunities and are happy to say that two of them have already fructified and one is yet to be ramped up. We are very satisfied because, in large deals, there are capabilities, which are, much more diversified and bring a more optimal price point and makes us more competitive,” he added.

For the full interview, watch the accompanying video

(Edited by : Kanishka Sarkar)

First Published:Aug 16, 2021 3:16 PM IST