00:00i just want to start with your key takeaways from uh that earnings uh results seven percent net
00:06profit decline that was worse than expected but how much of that was due to one-off
00:11restructuring costs also charges linked to the new labor laws yeah if you look at it
00:18we took a charge of about uh you know 302 crores rupees in our pnl as a one-off provision
00:26uh whatever we have to take has been taken there is absolutely no impact on an ongoing basis
00:35um and adjusted for this our net profits actually grew sequentially over three point um around four
00:44percent and it was flat year on year so yeah that was a significant charge that we had to take
00:51apart from that they also took a charge towards restructuring of few of our associates in uh
00:57largely the european geographies and uh uh that was also about 35 million dollars or so so uh you
01:05know these both are non-recurring in nature and when you adjust for that our net profits actually grew
01:11quite well um on the back of our operating margins actually our operating margins have shown consistent
01:17improvement and uh came in significantly higher about 17.6 percent most of this is operational no
01:25one-offs and uh we are hoping to sustain this in a narrow band going forward yeah tell us a bit
01:34more about your operating margins you know they did jump despite some pretty soft growth so
01:39did you feel like that's the new normal or or is this margin protection in a soft market
01:44you know um we've had we've been on this journey for the last eight quarters paul we've been improving
01:51our operating margins consistently over the last eight quarters and all through in the backdrop of
01:56a very weak uh revenue environment uh goes back to just operational rigor uh and resilience we are very
02:04very focused on making sure we are deploying ai in all our fixed price programs so fixed price productivity
02:12maintaining an optimal level of utilization and optimizing your overheads including sgna so i guess
02:20all of that has played out um execution rigor throughout and that's something um we are very happy with the
02:27band we are at 17 to 17 and a half percent was the band we had called today we are perhaps at 17.6 which is
02:35a recent high in last several years so we're quite happy with the margin performance um i think
02:41that leaves us some room for investments we have acquired um a harmon dts uh which has one month uh was
02:50consolidated in q3 and we're expecting two months of uh incremental revenues to flow in in q4
02:58and uh so we are continuing to invest for uh our growth
03:04talk to us a little bit about it services revenue as well it grew
03:08just 1.4 percent sequentially in constant currency basis um do you see the strengthening or where is
03:16it still weak if you look at it you know our 1.4 percent sequential growth um in constant currency
03:250.6 percent of that was organic in a very seasonally weak water q3 typically have many of our clients have
03:33furloughs so uh i think 0.6 percent sequential growth is fairly strong and uh you know the growth was very
03:40secular if you look at it three out of our four market units grew sequentially and um similarly you
03:48know four of our five uh industry verticals group so it was a fairly secular growth organic and uh you know
03:57uh you know i do think that we are building back strength relative to where we started about a few
04:04quarters ago so we've been progressing we're having more and more market units which are showing
04:09sequential growth and you're on your growth and uh you're making progress yeah your fourth quarter
04:16guidance for uh it services is also quite weak zero to two percent um variety services business that does
04:24seem a bit conservative uh why is that what's the logic i think we always guide based on the visibility
04:32we have at the start of the quarter uh there are two factors playing into it one is uh certainly you
04:38know the furloughs typically come back in q4 adding a nice bounce to the revenues but this time the number
04:44of working days is a is fewer so that's almost offsetting the furlough uh furloughs that typically come
04:52back in q4 so lower working days is one and uh some of the large deals that we had won earlier this
04:59year are taking a little longer to ramp up those are the two reasons why our guidance for q4 appears
05:06softer uh as those deals ramp up um total bookings are also a bit weak 5.7 percent uh on year large deals
05:18are also under a billion dollars uh can you talk to us about what's happening here is this a pipeline
05:25issue yeah or investors sort of slow walking signing to completion no i actually neither if you look at
05:33it uh typically large yields are binary in nature and they do take a little longer to close and some of
05:40them just tend to lump up uh so if you look at our bookings performance outside of the large yields it's
05:46fairly good it just appears like because we had two very good quarters of large deal bookings with
05:52like four mega deal wins in the first half so when you look at the performance sequence year or year
05:57on year you may it may appear softer because of the lower large deals but uh we've if you look at it
06:03just year to date and that's what counts and that's what will drive the performance in the next few
06:08quarters our bookings have uh grown year on year quite well our large deals booking have grown over
06:1470 percent uh year to date and overall bookings is also uh growing or not of 20 percent 20 25 percent
06:23year on year so that's that's a that's a healthy growth we need to talk about the ai story as well
06:30that's central to your pitch uh do you feel to what degree is this driving new spending or are you
06:36moving around existing budgets actually ai is leading to newer spends and if you look at it
06:44our clients are very very focused on spending on ai it is certainly uh right up there on the mandate
06:52it's a board mandate a lot of business and ceos have their attention on this uh typically the way
06:59we've seen this player is two ways one clients continue to focus on cost optimization and creating
07:08stations to invest behind so it's a true pronged uh approach so drive efficiency in your core
07:16create that headspace and put that investment back into new ai spends we see both trends play out quite
07:22well uh if we've always said for the last three or four quarters that the pipeline is dominated by
07:28deals where clients are looking at the consolidation cost takeout efficiency and a lot of all the
07:35dollars that get saved gets put back into ai and those spends are happening as well uh so we've got
07:44opportunities on both end uh you know when it comes to cost takeout and optimization and efficiency
07:50it's a huge opportunity for us and similarly on the new new ai spends uh you don't disclose ai specific
08:00revenues though which does beg the question uh why not uh are the numbers not exciting enough to talk
08:06about yet you know i it's not about like you know we're quite fairly regulated and we want to be
08:13very careful about what we call as ai there is no one industry definition the way we look at it is ai is
08:19fairly pervasive like every deal um i spoke about how cost takeout and efficiency you know we we do
08:27bring in newer ways of delivery we've got two delivery platforms wings and vega under the you know the
08:33entire wipro intelligence uh umbrella which basically includes all our ai initiatives with it has delivery
08:40platforms called wings and vega which are embedded into every deal that we are contesting in the
08:46in the pipeline whether it's a renewal or whether it's a net new right because if it is about support
08:51maintenance managed services we've got wings it's about development transformation uh the software
08:59development life cycle we've got vega so uh it is embedded in every uh opportunity that we are
09:06chasing today so it's very difficult to differentiate that this is pure ai and this is infused ai and then you
09:13you know lack of a standardized industry definition just keeps us out but we do track those numbers
09:20very carefully we look at the work orders that have ai infused in it we look at people training as to
09:27how many of our associates are you know it all started off with the basic ai training then the advanced
09:33and now how many of them are completed masters and we are making sure that most of our delivery people
09:39are completing so there are various ways to measure this and it's very pervasive that's why we're not
09:44calling out one number okay apana before we let you go we've got about a minute left i'm just wondering
09:50if you can tell us about the impact on costs from u.s visa restrictions because fees for h1b visas are
09:57higher have you had employment disruptions can you tell us about what's going on there
10:01uh so far so good um as far as our own operations are concerned we've been fairly localized and our h1b
10:10dependence has been uh coming down year on year for the last 10 years so we were pretty well prepared
10:16even as there was a change in the uh law and uh we're not really seeing a big disruption uh there is
10:24something you know increased scrutiny but that's right now manageable and uh we're not seeing any big
10:31big impact neither operationally nor on our financials
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