Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the NIIT Limited Q1 FY24 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the call, please signal an operator by pressing star 0 on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Vijay K. Thadani, Managing Director and Vice Chairman of NIIT Limited. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much for joining the call for briefing on Q1 , as well as the status of the demerger. I do know it's a very busy time for you, and thank you for you to spare this time for interaction with us. We truly appreciate and looking forward to an exciting discussion. I'll just give a quick update on demerger, as well as I will say a little bit to give a quick brief on the quarterly results. It have been available on the website. I will go through a quick brief, and then I think we'll spend most of the time in answering questions that you may have.
First of all, this is the Q1 after NIIT demerged from NLSL, and therefore, it is only NIIT Limited business that I, I'm sharing with this call. I have with me, Sapnesh Lalla, who was the CEO till 24th of May 2023, after which he's the CEO of NIIT Learning Systems and continues to remain a very strong advisor and a member of NIIT Limited board. I will thank on his commentary in between whenever we... I also have Mr. P. Rajendran, one of the co-founders and the Managing Director of NIIT Limited. Joining us in a minute is Mr. Rajendra Singh Pawar, who is now the Executive Chairman of NIIT Limited.
NIIT Limited, on 28th of January 2022, approved the demerger of NIIT's two distinctive business lines, the Corporate Learning Group and the Skills and Careers business, into two independent companies. I will not go through the rationale, which we have discussed on a number of occasions, but I will just take you through to a bunch of dates, which will be very necessary for those of you who are getting into NIIT Limited for first time or want a reminder of some of these dates. The plan was approved and announced on January 28th, 2022, and the idea was in 18 months' time, we should be able to list the company.
The plan was that at the end of this demerger, every shareholder of NIIT will get 1 share of NLSL for every 1 share of NIIT that they hold. The appointed date of splitting the balance sheets was April 1, 2022, and then we went through the process of NCLT and a bunch of permissions from NCLT as well as postal ballot, et cetera, with and making operators and various things. After which the order of NCLT came, and the effective date of the merger was May 24, 2023, on which day the assets of the 2 transferred to balance sheet and people were assigned to the independent companies, and that is what I referred to.
Sapnesh now is the CEO of the combined entity, and became the CEO of NIIT Learning Systems and an Executive Director of NIIT Learning Systems and continues to remain a Non-Executive Director of NIIT Limited. The record date on by which every shareholder of NIIT got an extra share of NLSL was eighth of June, 2023, and the listing of NLSL stock on Bombay and National Stock Exchange, a very interesting and emotional moment for all of us, was on eighth of August, 2023. At the end of which, NIIT Learning Systems Limited, which is in the corporate learning business, which is in Managed Training Services, learning outsourcing in, western market predominantly, is running the business as NLSL.
While the Skills and Careers business, which is focused on India as well as emerging economies around India, is focused on talent transformation, which is the workforce, cope with the rapidly changing environment and enlarge its ambit to a wider range of industry sector. In, in NIIT Limited right now, there is a lot of work happening in setting up innovation in immersive and hybrid models of learning. We did make some additions to our Board of Directors at the end of this reorganization. While some of you are familiar with some of the independent directors we have, I particularly wanted to bring to your notice three important people. One is Avani Davda, who was also the founding CEO of Tata Starbucks and currently a strategic advisor at Bain and Company.
She's been with us as an independent director for 10 years plus. Mr. Ravindra Babu Garikipati, who was the ex-Chief Technology Officer of Flipkart, and now an independent director with 5Paisa Capital, amongst others. He comes with a rich background in using digital technology for conducting e-commerce as well as FinTech businesses. Lately, we had Mr. Srikanth Velamakanni, founder and CEO of Fractal AI, which is the India's first unicorn in AI and a prominent provider of artificial intelligence solutions to Fortune 500 companies, who joined the board during last quarter itself. Excited in the new journey that NIIT Limited has taken on. Undoubtedly, NIIT Limited has, is, shrunk in size.
That is because most of the legacy businesses that NIIT Limited was involved in, have gone down during the COVID period and have, now NIIT Limited is, is rising, with new business models and new, interesting ways of, delivering and, delivering training and getting students to join NIIT courses, and that process has just started. To make sure that this massive transformation exercise is handled appropriately while retaining the values and culture of the organization, while retaining the core competencies that the organization possesses, it was felt that the founders should roll up their sleeves and be back in action.
While many of us had started moving into non-executive or certain non-executive roles, we are right now, all three of us, back with our sleeves rolled on and into the company to ensure that with this transition and transformation happens appropriately. Over the last 4 years, while NIIT has played a very important role in the technology sector, so we are told, where we have been pivotal in building talent of the IT industry of the nation. Today, with accelerating transformation across industries, of which we noticed a transformation about 10-15 years ago in banking, we have been very prominent and would say perhaps market leaders in BFSI training.
Today, we are going further, marching further on that opportunity to recreate the impact that we created in technology and BFSI and looking at multiple sectors, beyond technology and BFSI industries. With this backdrop, we know that the times have been quite challenged, in, in the country, and more specifically, since a large percentage of our business came from technology training and getting early career seekers onboarded onto IT services companies. We were severely affected in Q4 , since the IT services companies, the global systems integrators, froze their hiring. In fact, it's Q1 in which we have had negative, head count, negative impact on head count across IT services sector, which has happened at this scale after a very, very long time.
So the company went through that during quarter, and coped with it with the agility that is at the moment required by taking some corrective actions which have begun to bear results. Before as we talk about Q1 , some of the effects of what those actions that we took are stated. The numbers, at numbers level, revenue was at 62.5-- INR 625 million, which was up 4% quarter-on-quarter. I'm purposely not doing the year-on-year comparison, because the year-on-year comparison is not very relevant in the current environment, given the fact that we got reset at a, in a different orbit in the Q4 , Q3 and Q4 of last financial year.
We are right now looking at the recovery phase and therefore looking at how the quarter-on-quarter growth is working and how it pans out as we go forward. Just to give you color on the kind of revenue, the revenue from Early Careers segment, and we have been talking about that we service two segments, Early Careers and working professionals. And on the other hand, in terms of sectors, we look at technology and BFSI. BFSI and other. There are some Sales and Service Excellence, which are also very integral. Revenue from Early Careers was INR 330 million, which grew up 8% quarter-on-quarter. Contribution was 50% versus 51% last quarter.
That is an indicator of the fact that what had gone down has perhaps bottomed out, and we are now beginning to see a little bit of hiring taking place in the coming-- In this quarter, we expect it through the end of the quarter and maybe it will increase as we go forward. In the WorkPro segment, while it contributed INR 295 million, which was flat quarter-on-quarter, and I think the mix of what we were doing has changed. The mix has significantly shifted to advanced technology programs, where we made significant investments. That's what allowed it to keep flat, and I think it future we will see the benefit of growth coming out of the investments that we made.
At the product mix, sorry, at the sector mix level, revenue from technology programs grew 6% and contributed 77% of the overall revenue. BFSI and other programs, while they are remaining flat, quarter-on-quarter, what is not visible is the significant movement and mandate that we'll see end of the quarter. It will benefit us in coming quarters, and I'll talk about that as we move forward. Despite this, challenging environment that Q4 and Q3 we had, we think we have arrested the decline in Q1 and arrested the decline that we witnessed in Q4 . Very steep decline, I think we have arrested that, and this quarter-on-quarter growth is a testimony of the fact that we have been able to cope with that downturn, in a fairly fast time.
This was driven by 3 or 4 important actions that we took. One was an increased outreach. Since the large GSIs were not hiring, we decided we will go to tier 2, tier 3 systems, Global Systems Integrators, and increase this outreach, which helped us get new logos. New logos at a lower volume, but a larger number of new logos were added. The second was BFSI trust, which we saw the beginnings of, led us to collecting some very strong mandates, which give us a very strong revenue in the coming 3 quarters. In the 3 to 4 quarters, these mandates will run for 12-15-18 months. The third was we went to our key customers and we said: How can we increase our wallet share?
We had great success success in a few cases and made significant breakthrough there. Lastly, the strong traction that we saw in advanced technology programs in areas such as artificial intelligence, AI, Generative AI, the Digital Architect Program, where we have kind of created a thought leadership position, engineering R&D, which is an emerging field and fast-growing field in the country, and cybersecurity, among others, which have been very interesting programs for working professionals. During this quarter, RPS also went through a similar journey and has been on a steady state, and we got, in addition to everything else, got a strong recognition from three of our major OEM partners, Microsoft, where we have been stated as among the top two partners in the world.
AWS, again, for our customer obsession initiative, and Red Hat, where we are one amongst the three premium partners in the country. We also implemented some very strong cost control measures, which resulted in bringing down our negative EBITDA from INR 95 million to INR 64 million. What is not stated is that this is undergoing transformation and is in an investment cycle. In the investment cycle, for us to have managed our cost structure, yet got the growth and has put ourselves on a trajectory of a profitable growth as we go forward, will be a useful thing to have. In this, we, through these initiatives, we expect a strong ramp-up in Q2.
We expect margins to get back to even in Q2 , near break even in Q2 , and from then onwards, we will be in positive margin stage, as we, as we ramp up. Just to complete the PNL. I talked about revenue, I talked about EBITDA. Our net other income was INR 138 million, which includes contract of a robust treasury income, of INR 133 million. And that another benefit that strong cash reserves the company has, comes useful. Overall, our profit after tax was INR 22 million, as compared to a loss of INR 65 million in Q1 last year and a loss of INR 24 million in last quarter.
During the quarter, NIIT also completed the purchase of the balance 10% of equity in RPS, which was in a phased buyout phase, and now therefore, RPS is a 100% wholly owned subsidiary of NIIT Limited. Shareholders of RPS do have a balance period, which has been discussed before. Our Capex for the quarter was INR 68 billion, and this is for the strong investment that we are making: A, on our platform, B, on our content in AI, in digital architect and the new programs that I talked to you about, as well as many other programs which are in the making and on the delivery infrastructure that we are using.
We see a very great potential in using AI for training as well as training in AI. Therefore, we are investing-- continuing to invest in products to equip people with AI skills. We feel that the whole landscape of education will stand very radically transformed when AI is used in a mature manner in organization. That experience will continue. Our balance sheet metrics remain strong. Our cash from operations was in positive territory. Though, after paying for the investment, our cash balance from, INR 70, from, INR 71-
7056.
No, no. It is at 7056.
From seven-
Yeah, from INR 7,157 crore last quarter, our balance is now at INR 7,056 crore. This, at first look, appears to be INR 100 crore usage of cash. If we take that INR 150 crore were actually used to pay out for the purchase of RPS Consulting, from operations, we actually had a INR 50 crore positive inflow of cash. That I covered the balance sheet. I think looking beyond right now, as I mentioned, we are looking at positive uptake in the first next three quarters. On the back of strong mandate that we have received, the new advanced technology programs that we have created, the BFSI tailwind that we are noticing, and the return of onboarding and advanced technology programs in our GCCs and GSI customer segments.
With this, we do see that we have a pretty robust quarter-on-quarter growth for the balance part of the year, so that we remain in a positive growth trajectory. After two setbacks in the last two quarters, we will be in a positive growth trajectory of 8-10, and also we'll have positive EBITDA margin at the end of the year. I'll stop here right now and open it for Q&A, and I'm sure we will discover more areas that we need to discuss at a later place. I'll stop here. Operator, please open it for Q&A.
Sure. Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask questions may press star and one on your touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking questions. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the questions are assembled. To ask questions, please press star and one. The first question is from the line of Caleb from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Hi. Yeah, thank you for letting me ask my question. Could I please ask first about the backlog or, you know, the orders that you've announced that you've received? How does that compare to the same sales last quarter or a year ago? That, that was my first question, please.
Yeah. I, I think your question is, how is our backlog of orders compared to the same time last year? Last year, we had a very strict... Sorry, did I miss out something? Okay. Last year, at this, in this quarter, this was one of our peak quarters of performance last year. Given that we had a full order book available from the orders that we had received in the previous two quarters, and that is the time when everybody had sexualized on their internal training and onboarding activity. I think it was one of the best quarters that we had last year.
Compared to that, in this quarter, when we started, we clearly started with a very, very, very, very low order book, and therefore we had guided also accordingly, that it will take us time, though we were seeing a small pipeline. When we have ended the quarter, I think we have added with a dip, with a decent size. Last year's Q3 , we started with a high order book, ended with a lower order book. This year we started with a very low order book, but we have added, we have, closed on a very high order in the case. In our case, very much like, in the outsourcing space, you have revenue visibility based on performance.
In this case, we work on the basis of mandate, and next quarter onwards, we will start declaring that as an important mandated revenue that we expect from our clients. Right now, to tell you in very simple words, I think we have mandates for training about 27,000. Yeah, 27,000 students. That will result in a revenue of INR 1.1 billion. That's, that's approximately the mandate that we have as we speak. The meaning of the word mandate is that this is what customers have said they would like to train from us in writing at a fee per student, which is listed in that contract. I thought that answers the question. You can go next.
In addition, we have run rate contracts, which continue to progress on a month-on-month and quarter-on-quarter basis. There also, we have seen a small uptick as our knowledge share has gone up. Does that answer your question? Yeah.
Yeah, that's exactly what I was Sorry. That's exactly what I was asking in terms of this 27,000 professionals and INR 1 billion revenue. How good is that in comparison? If you could give any comparison, with respect to the past, or perhaps how much revenue growth that would give you in the future?
Sapna, good question. How does it compare? I think the comparison is rather stark, as Vijay was pointing out. When we entered Q1 last year, we had entered with a strong order book, but we ended with a very, very weak order book. As we entered this quarter, we entered with a very weak order book. It was negligible other than a run rate business that we were doing. With this mandate, we have an order book that is significantly better, and a stark contrast as compared to the order book that we ended with in the same period last year. It is also significantly better than what we ended in the previous quarter.
Okay, thank you very much. Maybe last, my second and last question, if I, if I may ask you to repeat the EBITDA guidance. I understand you're saying you will be positive by the end of the year. Could you say something specifically about next quarter? Thank you.
Okay. Next quarter, we would be at EBITDA breakeven, in by end of the year, on a cumulative basis, between all four quarters put together, we would be in positive EBITDA region.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
A reminder to participants that you may press Star and one to join the question queue. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask questions, please press star and one at this time.
While I think people are thinking through their questions, we are very excited about the way AI is getting used and AI presents opportunities in training workforces. I'll request Sapna to take us through that, because this is an initiative that he launched, and he's also very excited about it. While you guys are thinking of your questions, he can talk through this.
Thanks, Vijay. I truly am really excited about how AI is going to significantly change the way we work, notwithstanding what we do. That includes, it is going to significantly change how training gets delivered. You get, significantly change how software gets developed. It is going to significantly change how customers get customer service. It's going to disrupt or significantly change how people do their jobs.
I think that represents a very significant opportunity for us from two different dimensions. On one side, we can significantly improve how training gets done, and we can become significantly more ambitious in ensuring that we achieve outcomes at a pace that is faster than what we can achieve today, and at an expense that's significantly lower than what we are able to achieve today. From the point of view of efficiency and effectiveness, it is going to impact positively how training gets delivered. It will also impact it positively in terms of how ambitious can you be or how experiential can you be in terms of delivering training. On the other side, if you think of how people would do their jobs, it is going to be remarkably different.
What that is likely to do is, it's likely to require people to be very significantly reskilled and upskilled. It's almost like when horse carts went away and cars came onto the scene. People didn't need horses anymore, people didn't need buggies anymore, but they needed to learn how to drive motor cars to go from point A to point B. If you did not know how to drive a motor car, time getting from point A to point B. That's what's likely to happen over the next few years in pretty much any job. I think that will create an opportunity for most employers who want to reskill and upskill their employees so that they can take advantage of AI and become significantly more productive, and can do the job at a much higher level of quality.
That in turn will create an opportunity for NIIT, as an organization that has spent several, several years, 4 decades, creating and developing talent for large organizations and at large scale, creates a great opportunity for NIIT to be the disruptor or to be the agent that will enable organizations to significantly upskill and reskill their people. We have a number of pilots on at this time. Just to take an example of a few, we ran a seminar in collaboration with Microsoft. There, almost 100 chief learning officers across large enterprises in India attended, and most of them were very interested and keen to figure out how will learning and development change? How will their jobs change? How will their organizations change?
And how should they restructure their and reorganize their organization so that they can take advantage of AI. On a slightly different dimension, we ran short programs that were designed to equip key folks in different parts of a GSI and a GCC and help them figure out how they could take advantage of AI in how software gets developed or applications get deployed. And again, on this area, we got many strong participants and a lot of traction. And more and more organizations want to learn how they can embrace AI and how can they take advantage of these technologies and put it in practice.
We expect that we will continue to see significant rise in our activity, around AI in the Q2 , with material contribution from a commercial perspective as we get towards the end of the year.
Thanks, Sapnesh. Are there any questions now, on this or, whatever we discussed so far?
Sure.
Next question is from the line of Sameer Desai from ICICI Prudential. Please go ahead.
Hey, thanks, nice, for giving me the opportunity. Just one thing, you know, can you just, you know, pinpoint it, what level or what proportion of your business will be coming from captives? Because we are seeing, maybe you can just give it in an overall level and or in IT, the IT services, which is 30% of the revenue. Is it, is it fair to assume that captive hiring or the captive training demand is better than what we are seeing in IT, services or the GSIs, in some way? Can you just speak to that? The second question, what cash we would have on the balance sheet as of date after, after the acquisition of, you know, remaining stake in RKE? Thanks.
I can answer, answer the second one first.
I love it.
3 questions. First one, and Sameer, correct me if I'm wrong. First one, you asked us, what proportion of revenue come from GCC?
Yes.
Okay. Have you seen a demand from GCCs, and can you compare that to GSIs? Third one, what is the cash balance after the purchase of stake in RKE?
Correct. Correct.
That was INR 7,056 billion, since we last seen that number a short while ago. That was about INR 100 billion less than the previous quarter. We paid INR 150 billion for the balance part of last year. On an operational basis, we were cash positive last quarter with INR 50 million+.
Understood. Understood. Just then invest rules roughly 10 million cycles. All right, thank you.
Correct. I can attempt to answer 2 questions. Typically, again, I use this word carefully. Typically, in reasonable times when GSIs are hiring and so are GCCs or capsules, as you, as you described them, the split between GSIs and GCCs for us is about 55, 45 in favor of GSIs. The nature of our business with GSIs is highly weighted towards Early Careers, where we do a lot of onboarding or boot camps for folks who are straight out of college, who are joining GSIs, and they want to make sure that they get onboarded and that they can become productive very quickly. That's the nature of what we do with GSIs. With GCC, the nature of work that we do is more geared towards upskilling and reskilling their existing employees.
Predominantly work, working professionals. Again, predominant. Now, as GSIs have significantly lowered their fresher hiring this year, a large part of what we are doing for GSIs is predominantly upskilling and reskilling. The overall business with GSIs has gone down, and consequently, most of what we are doing for them is upskilling and reskilling, and we continue to do upskilling and reskilling for GCCs. Given this phenomena at this point in time, the split across GSIs and GCCs have switched. Instead of 55, 45, it's now closer to 55 for GCCs and 45 for GSIs.
Understood. Yeah, yeah, it does. Is it, is it 55/45?
I've also added a little bit.
Just one thing.
Just to add.
Okay, got it. Got it. Keep telling me. Sorry.
Keep going.
Actually, this 55, 45 is for only tech, like technology or overall level, at a company level, or is it only for tech? Tech as a sector, which is like 27% of the revenue.
No, it's for the tech sector, in terms of what we do, GSIs and GCCs. In total, what we did, GSIs and GCCs, and all that, today, we are doing about 55 GCCs and 45 for GSIs, and the predominant amount of work or type of work we do for GSIs and GCC is tech.
Understood. Understood. Also, one thing, you know, strategy level, are we thinking of replicating or, or diversifying away from tech as a sector? Are we looking to enter newer sectors, in our business or replicating what we have done in NIIT MTS, here in this company as well? If you can shed some light.
Yeah. The India and emerging markets, the typical method which companies adopt to use the services of NIIT are for either training their new workforce, which is joining, which could be experienced or could be fresher, and make sure that they get onboarded appropriately in the company. This is typically in the form of boot camps. The idea is for them to be ready, to be day one, or one ready. In contrast to that, NIIT MTS works predominantly with other organizations who use technology. It can be a technology organization also who uses NIIT for their internal as well as customer training. There the focus is: how does the spend that they make on learning and development, can that be deployed more efficiently, can that be delivered with higher degree of effectiveness?
That is a learning, outsourcing kind of a business model. Whereas in India, with organizations and individuals, it is a project-based model. In the India enterprise segment, which is what, in the limited services, lots work happens in sales enablement and improving customer service performance. This is dependent on the sectors that are growing right now, which are predominantly aligned towards consumer space. Those organizations use us, whether it is in auto or whether it is in e-commerce or it is in telecom. Those are, those are the sectors where we play a stronger role, but there the client will be in form of a project. We have a 5G rollout. Just imagining, we have a 5G rollout coming up, and we have 1 million customers.
We want to make sure that our people are able to service our customers with their calls, as well as support, as well as whatever else, as they implement 5G. Can you enable our 10,000 customer service people appropriately? It's a, it's an enterprise call. From an Indian bank, the call can be: We have a huge wealth management practice opportunity coming up. We want to make sure that we have professionals who are good relationship managers and who can advise our customers, to pick the wealth management solutions which the bank offers. Can you ensure that you take the 10,000 people and get them ready to roll out that so that they have an up-to-date knowledge of product, they, they are able to present it well, they are able to communicate the benefits?
Yeah. Can you hear me?
I can hear you now. Yeah. I'll just, I'll just, summary of what I said. I don't know how much you heard. In, in the NIIT MTS, the business model is learn L&D outsourcing. organization outsource their whole L&D function, and that has program owning and management program tracking. NIIT MTS manages those programs, delivers those programs, administers those programs, ensures that programs deliver the end outcome. In contrast, in India, strict mandate saying you have X, so we trained in a particular skill or a particular competency, over the next 6 months, please exercise and show it to us that overall, their skill inventory has, has improved by X, Y for Z parameters.
Understood. Understood. Is there a room in Indian clients to convert into a managed training or in company? That is one thing. Yeah, that's, that's my last question. Thanks.
Yeah. It is a goal-based, goal-based, skills enhancement, competency enhancement project. In contrast to handing over their whole L&D function to us to manage, because I think in India, given the fact that, many of our customers are outsourcing organizations, they believe that they have the capability to start in-house, and they should only use specialists like us only for the areas where they feel that we can add, tremendous value in terms of efficiency and effectiveness.
Understood. All right. Thank, thank, thanks for the answers.
Sorry for the small disruption which took place. Is there another question? Okay.
Yes. The next question is from the line of Kirill English from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Hello again. Thank you for allowing me to ask a few more. If I may specifically ask about IT hiring at the moment, and what is your optimism for improvement volume in the future based on? More specifically, whether you think Generative AI is overall positive or negative for IT hiring, given that you can replace some of the codes and automate it by the, you know, automated. That was the question.
I'll try to repeat my understanding of your question. Tell me if I got it. I think your first question was, what's our view, point of view on the hiring scenario in India, and how does that affect us. The second question was, point of view, how AI might impact NIIT. Did I, did I get the questions right?
That's correct. Thank you.
Hiring. On hiring, we saw net negative hiring in the previous quarter, across most major GT sides. Our point of view is that, over the period of this, this year, specifically in the 2nd half of the hiring might start, but not, at the same pace or volume as it, happened last year. I don't think that's new news to anyone. We do see, in hiring at this point in time, the BFSI sector, that banks are in a race to, expand their retail banking networks, and we are starting to benefit from that.
In terms of it to us, in, in, in the outlook that we have provided, we have considered hiring to remain robust for banks, and we have significant mandates from them to train people they hire. With respect to GSIs specifically, we have not assumed very significant hiring to resume at GSIs. What we do notice is that tier two GSIs who are who have now become our customers by way of significant outreach in Q1, are hiring in small numbers at this time. Not any close to how the tier one GSIs offer higher, but they are hiring. The second question was on how AI might impact five or, and how it might impact us.
In terms of its impact to us, I feel that we have a very significant opportunity because most companies will figure out how to embrace AI, and that will force them to very significantly change how they do what they do. That creates a significant opportunity for us, notwithstanding what is high. Did that answer your question?
Yes, thank you. I guess what you're saying, overall, it will be positive for IT jobs. Overall, the second part about AI.
Yeah, it should be positive because, applications end up becoming significantly more ambitious. They will be able to achieve more. In it, I was using an analogy of a horse cart versus cars, and, when cars came in, people got afraid, about what happened to those, what happened to, transportation and so on and so forth. Cars revolutionized how people could go from point A to point B, and very significantly changed what people could achieve. I think AI is going to have a similar impact. People's applications, will be able to do significantly more than what they are able to do today. That will open new avenues for people to become more ambitious, and that will start a new state of hiring.
Sure. Would you say there is some negative impact on the entry-level coding j obs, given that the basic coding capability can be done by AI? Perhaps there is some, you know, some, some difference in terms of how it affects low end versus high end.
I doubt it very much. I think, the job that an entry-level person was doing will not be needed, but they will be able to do jobs that are significantly more ambitious because they'll have tools that are significantly more powerful. I'll give you another example. I don't know if you ever worked at home with a nail gun. Imagine that you, you're used to hammering nails with a hammer good old hammer, and it takes an hour to maybe hammer 12 nails. Now, if somebody gave you a nail gun, it might take five minutes to nail, to nail 12 nails. Now, does that mean we will be need fewer people to nail? My feeling is that more people will do more roofing. More houses will come up because it's become more efficient to build or to construct.
My point is that as the tools improve, the people who use tools become more ambitious in what they can accomplish, and the people who are going to use finished products have a higher expectation of what they want to expect from products. 30 years ago, what you are able to get in applications on your phone, we didn't expect. Now that it's possible, we expect a lot more. That resulted into, you know, entry-level people not being able to create apps? No. They're able to create apps. They're able to do things that are more ambitious than what they would have done 20 years ago or 30 years ago. I'd like to mention is, I think if their skill level remains the same. Yeah, they'll be out of business. They'll be out of business. They won't find a job.
Yeah. It's going to be first thing, first are ready. They need to have much, much more. They need to have much, much more knowledge. They're not based on that, that's an opportunity for an NI to spend something to do and prepare them. Yeah. I mean, if you could drive horse carts and you stayed with that skill, there aren't going to be any horse carts to drive, so you're going to be soon out of business. If you figured out how to drive motor cars and you came to an NI to learn that, there will be a great opportunity for you as well as for NI.
Thank you very much. Very interesting.
Thank you. Thanks for your question. I think, really very good. Are there other questions, operator?
Yes. The next question is from the line of Dinesh Shetty, who's an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity, sir. just 1 question. We are planning to getting into supply chain management and new manufacturing. What is our plan in this regard, whether we are doing it organically or through inorganic acquisition? Any groundwork is being done for this plan being implemented? Can you please throw some light on this, sir?
Yes. This is Dinesh. You have been so close to us that you can read our minds. yes, There is, it work in progress. We are looking at couple of options. We have identified the opportunity in a broad sense, but we have to get down to specific products and specific, outcomes and specific employers and specific segments that we work on. That is work in progress. I think we should be able to tell you more every time we meet. We will have something more to talk about. it will be safe to assume that I think in the next 1 or 2 quarters, we should have, we should have very high degree of clarity, on how we want to proceed.
Okay, sir. Thank you very much. That's all all good.
I should mention that we have a, a war chest available, so it will be a make versus buy decision, and whatever gives us the agility to move faster in the market is what we would like to work with.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is on the line of Shraddha from Amset. Please go ahead.
Hello. 1 question.
Shraddha, we can't hear you. If you on your hands-free, request to use the handset.
Hello. Can you hear me? Yeah. For just 1 question.
Shraddha, we can't hear you very clearly. Your voice is very, very low.
Can you hear me now? Yeah. for 20-
We can't we can, we can understand that you are on the other side, but we can't make out what you are saying. It's very
I don't know. I tried to speak on the phone.
Much better now.
Yeah, much better. There, there is perfect. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Sir, just one question. Of the 27,000, you know, employees that you're looking to train, the money will be given out by the corporate, or the employee will be shelving out money from his pocket for this training?
No, these are direct mandates which the corporate have given to us for people that we are hiring, whom they would like us to train, whether internally already hired or the fresh hired that you're able to.
Okay.
This is not a key task model. Yes. No, this is not a key task-based model.
Okay. Okay.
Yeah, please.
Sir, the other question is, would you like to throw some light on where do you see now this, India Business from a 5-year perspective, given that we are now talking of some acceleration in growth rates in the second half? Any, any directional sense from, from a medium-term perspective, what is our stand from this business growth?
I, I missed this part of the question, but I wanted to correct myself. I would say about 80% of what I mentioned, 27,000, we'll just took that as a number again. They are direct corporate mandate. 20% are the best kind of arrangement, where we are also involved in. Your, your next question was on the 5-year perspective then?
Yes, your voice is getting muffled in between. Yeah, so but this could work out great.
I think you have a problem with line. Yeah. Maybe we can talk to you offline, but let, let me give you... I think your answer, your question was a 5-year perspective.
Yes.
We do believe that we have, we have this stuff that we went through that we have to recover from. If this recovery has to take and we have to get back on the same path, once, and if the recovery happens at the rate at which we are expecting, we will still be on time for what we wanted to achieve in FY27. On a more realistic basis, because of where that, that's a, that's a long shot. It's FY27, FY28 time frame, we were aiming to reach INR 1,200 crore of revenue if we had stuck this path line. If we had not gone through this stuff, actually, we were in a good shape.
Okay, got it.
Right.
Yeah. Thank you. Yes, sir.
Thank you. Operator, I think we have a problem with the audio quality today, and we are also out of time.
Yes. Actually, that was the last question. Thank you.
Okay.
I'm sorry, one just came up. It's from Akshay Jogani from Xponent Tribe.
Hi, am i audible ?
Yeah.
Excellent. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. Can you help us understand steady-state economics of the business? How should they look like over time as the business scales to a more universal size?
Business economics over time, if that is your question, we do want to take it a 15%-20% margin. We are used to a better margin, but since we are on an upward climb, we do believe that the practice where it will stabilize, when we reach at a level that I just talked about. In order for us to do that, we need a CAGR of about 30%+ every year. I think the business economics part, at this point of time, we do have a fixed cost structure, which we need to bring down, and which, which will come down, sorry, which will come down as a percentage as we grow quicker. As I just mentioned to Shraddha, we are well on that track, barring the stuff that we have gone through.
Recovering from this is a two, three-quarter issue, and after that, we will be back on stream.
Sure. Sure. As, as a follow-up, just if you could break it down, because from the outside, it seems like more of a product offering, to customer and the delivery is digital. I would have imagined that we'd have very high gross margins, and the large part of cost structure would be in sales and marketing. Is that, a correct understanding? And maybe if you could sort of double-click on how the 15%-20% EBITDA margin kind of comes through.
Well, we will be happy to explain that, but maybe we will, we'll have to choose another time for that. Next week we are in Mumbai for some conferences. I'm not sure about my program, but my colleagues are, and I think they can help us walk you through. Kapil, or Kapil, you want to just set up a meeting and explain, and once we have discussed that, we can then bring it to everybody as well.
Certainly. Yeah, I reach out to the, the investor relations and, sort of set up a call with you.
Right. Right. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. That was the last question in queue. I would now like to hand the conference back to the management team for closing comments.
Okay. Thank you very much everyone for joining us. I apologize for the quality of audio today. That was definitely a big distraction, and we did have difficulty hearing you, and I'm sure the same happened from your side. We'll definitely make sure we have a better quality call next time. We normally don't have these issues, but I look forward to further interactions with you because the questions were becoming interesting. We did start sluggish in a specific manner, but over a period of time, I think it is very interesting discussion. This is the time in the transformation phase where every idea has a very strong value, so we truly appreciate your contributing today to IdeaBank, through your questions. We look forward to our further conversation with you.
With that, I would like to bring this call to a close, and thank you.
Thank you very much. On behalf of NIIT Limited, that concludes the conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect the lines.