Human resource company TeamLease Services' Q3 net profit rose more than 25 percent on a sequential basis, while other income increased to Rs 7.3 crore against Rs 5.4 crore in the previous quarter. TeamLease CFO N Ravi Vishwanath discussed the company's performance and future plans in an interview with CNBC-TV18.

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“This is largely reflective of what is happening of the economy. Some of the slowness has rubbed off on us in Q3 and some of the large deals that we were pursuing in Q3 is shifted to Q4. So that is what has led to a softness in the revenue growth. We believe that over a long-term we should be able to maintain the 20 percent growth as we have always committed and that is the number that we always are pursuing,” he said.

“I don’t think we should expect 20 percent in the current year. We should probably maintain the same revenue growth in Q4 as well,” he added.

Vishwanath revealed that the company has done "rationalisation of teams" in its specialised staffing business and has exited some low-profit sectors. “It specialised staffing business] will grow at a minimum of 20 percent over the next year that comprises of the IT staffing, the telecom staffing and the newly acquired infra staffing as well.

"All the three businesses have been brought under a single leader, we have done some rationalisation of teams, so they are all rearing to go right now and we should be able to see upwards of 20 percent growth in the specialised staffing and we have exited some of the lower profit mandates especially in the telecom staffing business and that should all lead to better profitability for us from the specialised staffing going into FY21.”

The telecom sector in the country is reeling under debt. While the public sector operators BSNL and MTNL are due to be merged, and thousands of their employees being given voluntary retirement scheme (VRS), the private operators are stressed by the adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues.

On staffing in the telecom sector, Vishwanath said: “As far as we are concerned, the worst is over as far as telecom staffing is concerned.

"FY18-FY19 was when we got into certain telecom infra and radio frequency projects, which resulted in lower profitability for the business that we had acquired. So over the last one year, we have exited some of those mandates, we still have one-two left, which we will exit the moment they are all completed.

"The flip side is that we have now been talking to and almost signed up some other better margin deals in the telecom staffing side to compensate for the business that we have let go off. So the worst for the telecom as far as we are concerned is behind us and it can only get better for us from here.”