Mumbai: Shares of Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS), India’s largest IT firm by market value, underperformed benchmark Nifty50 index for the fourth consecutive year in 2017. So far this year, TCS has gained 12.49% compared to a 26.1% rise of the 50-share index, according to data from Bloomberg.

Despite the underperformance, TCS shares are still the most expensive in the IT space.

Infosys share buyback is all set to open on Thursday, 30 November 2017, after India’s second largest IT company Infosys announced 1 November as the record date for the repurchase of shares. In the Infosys buyback offer, all the investors who held Infosys shares as on 1 November 2017 are eligible to participate in Infosys buyback process. The record date for Infosys buyback was announced on 10 October 2017. The second largest IT company — Infosys — is coming up with the second largest share buyback in the history of Indian stock markets. Earlier in May 2017, India’s largest share buyback to date was offered by the country’s largest IT company — Tata Consultancy Services.

Bengaluru: Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS) will build both technologies and talent rather than buy it from outside. TCS, India’s largest software services firm, maintains that it is the company’s DNA to build technologies and groom leaders to take up senior roles, even if implementing this strategy means the company has to sacrifice some growth in the short term.

“I don’t know if insular would be the right word but definitely, we believe in building talent and technologies in house,” chief executive officer Rajesh Gopinathan said in an interview on Wednesday.

India’s information technology (IT) industry could significantly fall short of its targeted generation of 130,000-150,000 new jobs this year as large companies such as Cognizant, Infosys, and Tech Mahindra (TechM) shed people to embrace automation and focus on productivity of the workforce.

The National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom), the software industry lobby, had estimated that 130,000-150,000 jobs would be created even as it forecast a lower growth of 7-8 per cent this year.

The $150-billion-plus Indian IT industry witnessed the performance of the top tier multi-billion dollar companies—Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, Wipro and HCL Technologies for the second quarter of FY18. The writing on the wall is very clear: the industry will walk the path of a single digit growth with a strong focus on the operational parameters to ensure higher profitability.

Tata Consultancy Services, the country’s largest software exporter, says its investment in upgrading the skills of employees in digital and emerging technologies is showing returns. With it, the firm says, they’re being able to harness the talent to bag newer contracts from clients.

“We have a very strong in-house talent development programme and prefer to train an employee on new skills before looking at options. We started training our employees on digital skills a couple of years ago and this focus has contributed greatly to our growth,” says Ajoyendra Mukherjee, executive vice-president and global head of human resources (HR).

Global research and brokerage firms CLSA and Deutsche Bank are bullish on the shares of Tata Consultancy Services, after India’s IT bellwether posted its second quarter (July-September) earnings yesterday, which beat analysts’ expectations as consolidated profit rose, backed by robust volume growth and operational performance. CLSA has retained a buy call on the stock, increasing the target price to Rs 2,970, from the previous target of Rs 2,880. TCS shares continued to rise on Friday morning, and were trading at Rs 2,580.75 on NSE, up by more than 1.2% since the previous close.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) was trading 2% higher at Rs 2,510 on the BSE in an otherwise subdued market ahead of July-September quarter (Q2FY18) results on Thursday, October 12, 2017.

Since July 13, 2017, post April-June (Q1FY18) results, the stock was marginally up by 0.63% against 0.35% decline in the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex till Tuesday.

As Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is squeezed by the Donald Trump administration to reduce the use of overseas workers for US jobs, TCS is also fighting claims in court that its hiring practices are anti-American.

TCS, Asia’s largest software maker, and Infosys are both embroiled in civil rights lawsuits accusing them of discriminating against white IT workers that predate Donald Trump’s election last year.

BENGALURU | MUMBAI: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is creating a product brand for its artificial intelligence (AI) product Ignio and has hired from US companies to drive sales of the standalone product, a move that analysts say is akin to building a software company with a different model to its traditional services.

The company is working to ensure the Ignio brand is a standalone — with a separate website that has minimal TCS branding. Digitate, the unit that houses Ignio, is only once referred to as a TCS venture.

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