Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to Allsec Tech Ltd Q4 FY 2022 earnings conference call, hosted by IIFL Securities Limited. 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 conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star and then zero on your touchtone telephone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Vidit Shah from IIFL Securities. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Inba. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning, and thank you for joining us on the 4Q FY 2022 earnings conference call of Allsec Tech Ltd Q4 FY22 Tech. It's my pleasure to introduce the company's senior management team who are here with us today to discuss the results. We have with us Mr. Ashish Johri, the CEO, and Mr. Raghunath Parthasarathy, the CFO. We'll begin the call with opening remarks by the management team. Thereafter, we'll open the call for a Q&A session. I would now like to hand over the call to the management to take proceedings forward. Thank you and over to you, sir.
Thank you. Good morning to everyone. This is Ashish Johri. Thank you for joining the earnings call today. The results and presentations have already been uploaded on our website. Anything we say which refers to our outlook for the future is a forward-looking statement and must be read in conjunction with the risks that the company faces. These uncertainties and risks are included, but not limited to what we have already mentioned in the annual report. I will start with a brief overview of the financial performance and follow that with key updates on the business, post which we will be happy to take questions from you. We'll keep our remarks brief, spending more time on the Q&A.
Coming to the financial performance, we have achieved a revenue of INR 85.4 crores during the quarter, which is a growth of 3% over Q3 and a robust 16% growth over Q4 FY 2021. Our EBITDA was INR 23.6 crores, which is a growth of 7% quarter-over-quarter and 13% over Q4 FY 2021. Our net profit stood at INR 17.5 crores, which is 33% growth over the previous quarter and 27% growth over Q4 FY 2021. For the year, we achieved a revenue of INR 317.2 crores, which is 15% higher than FY 2021.
It is important to note that since H1, which is when we had our previous call, we have added INR 168.6 crores of revenue, which is a 13% growth between H1 and H2, reflecting a very strong growth momentum. Our EBITDA for FY 2022 stood at INR 80.2 crores against INR 65.9 crores in FY 2021, which is a 22% growth year on year. With the headwinds of COVID behind us, we see increased opportunities across both our businesses, and FY 2023 promises to be a stellar year. Let me kick things off on the strategic themes and the business updates from here on. About a year ago, we set up a few strategic themes. Let me update on all of those. I'm glad to say that we have seen tremendous progress on each of these themes.
Let me detail these out to you. The first one was a focus on improving top-line growth. As mentioned earlier, our revenues have grown 15% year-on-year. This is in spite of Q1 FY 2022 being impacted by the COVID wave two, and our volumes in domestic business dropped. The sales pipeline in both domestic and the international business slowed down in that quarter. In spite of those, that impact, we've had a good year. A key element of the growth is from the DBS International, which has been a success story in the current year. We've added eight logos with an ACV of almost INR 28 crores, largely driven by North America.
The domestic business added six logos with an ACV of INR 13 crore, while our HRO business added INR 13.5 crore in ACV. Our investments in sales in both North America and the HRO business are yielding good results. We not only have a strong sales team now in both businesses in place, but we've also in the last one year matured our sales processes and pipeline significantly. We have a very strong pipeline in both businesses headed into the current financial year. HRO also had a good year, with revenues growing 17% year-on-year. This is in spite of a significant impact in Q1 last year because of COVID. When growth became muted, lot of the decision-making at customer end was delayed in that year.
Q1 wins got delayed by a few quarters, as many preferred to wait out the pandemic situation that was unfolding at that point. In spite of all of that, we have finished the year with a quarter-on-quarter growth of 11% and a very strong pipeline headed into FY 2023. Our cross-sell initiatives continue to bear fruit with, along with Quess sales groups. Through the year, we've been able to reach out to more than 50 qualified leads and have had a strong conversion ratio on Quess's customers. This will continue to be a focus area for us for the coming year. Our cash position and collections continue to be strong. Our OCF for the full year stood at INR 64 crores, representing a conversion of 80% of EBITDA.
On the HRO platform enhancements and product development, all those initiatives continue to be on track. Our payroll platform modernization is progressing at a very rapid pace. We have faced issues due to attrition in IT, and that is norm for the industry. All of that is behind us and we continue to be on track for a Q2 onboarding of new customers on our payroll platform. The HRMS platform will take a little more time to become a competitive product, and that will probably towards early Q4 is when that will be market ready, Q4 financial year. Moving on to the detailed business segment performance. Let me start with the HRO business.
The HRO business continues to perform well to end the quarter at revenues of INR 31 crores, which is a growth of 11% over previous quarter. We've added 43 new customers during the quarter. Our EBIT in this segment also grew by 24% over Q3 and 32% year-on-year. This was driven largely by the year-end tax-related work and one-time implementation revenues from customers that are going live in April in Q1 of this current financial year. We continue to invest significantly in the digital innovation in this business. Like I mentioned earlier, we are investing significantly in both in our payroll transforming our payroll platform and our HRMS offerings, and both of those initiatives continue to be on track. The business also has a very strong pipeline. It is a historical high pipeline that we are seeing at this point.
Our closure rates and win rates have also improved significantly in the last 1 year. We remain very optimistic about this business. We also hit a very significant milestone in this business where we started processing 1 million payslips per month, and that has been the trend for the last six months. Our infrastructure has proven itself capable of scaling up and meeting our clients' growth requirements. I move on to the DBS business. The DBS business, which was most affected by COVID in FY 2021, a year and a half or two years ago, also had a moderate impact in the first quarter of FY 2022 because of the lockdown.
The domestic business was most impacted, but since then, in the last nine months to 12 months, it has bounced back to close the year at a growth of 8% over FY 2021. From here on, now that the COVID impacts are behind us, we expect the business to grow faster in this current financial year, given the current pipeline and the volume outlook from our existing customers. On the international side, DBS International business continues to have a great year. They had a great second half of the year as well, with addition of more than INR 30 crores in ACV. The business grew 16% year-on-year. The current pipeline in this business remains at record levels and with a very strong and stable sales team in the business now.
We believe that we will continue to convert as we have in the last one year. We also expect to increase our wallet share with existing customers in the current year. I would like to close my comments with focus areas for the upcoming year. We are outlining three priorities. Priority one is accelerating top-line growth in the North America DBS business. We are, like I mentioned, we have a strong pipeline to support that ambition. We have a very stable sales team that we are expanding. The second priority that we are outlining is increase the international footprint for the HRO business. While India, Manila continue to be the dominant geographies for this business, we will invest more in other regions from a sales effort perspective.
The third priority is, speed up and monetize our investments in the HRO platforms, both the payroll and HRMS. With this, I conclude my updates and thank all of you for your support and also for being here today. We are happy to take questions at this point. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their 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 a question. Anyone who has a question may enter star and one. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Our first question is from the line of Jatin Kumar from Alpha Capital. Please go ahead.
Hello, sir.
Sorry for the delay and thank you for taking my question. My first question would be, we have seen a very good growth in this Q4 quarter, but as I see, Q4 is generally a better good quarter for us because there is a seasonality out here, right, in HRO business. Would you agree with that?
Yes. That's correct. There is a seasonal growth in Q4 in the HRO business that we see, and we saw it this year as well.
Would you like to comment how much of that is kind of just seasonality? How much of revenue is just this extra part?
This is Raghu here. If you look at it, purely for the HRO business, you look at Q4 FY 2021 versus Q4 FY 2022, then you'll see the real growth that's happened in the business. That will be your best way of looking at what is the real growth in the business. Typically, in Q4, we probably have around 4%-5% of revenues that comes from the year-end tax-related work. This year, that's also increased because we've had a lot of customers' implementation costs that's come in. The recurring revenue of those will kickstart in Q1 FY 2023. Your best sense of how the business has grown, you'll be able to figure out from Q4 FY 2021 versus Q4 FY 2022 HRO growth.
Sure, sir. My next question would be, as a lot of IT companies are seeing attrition and pay hikes because their margins are getting hit for them, but our margins are kind of stable. What is our attrition level, and are we seeing a similar kind of pay hikes? What is your guidance on margins, sir?
We are roughly at a ballpark around 4,500 FTE company at this point. The number has been stable for about a quarter or so. Out of that, this number is dominated by the BPO division. The IT and HRO division contributes to no more than 500, up to 550 people out of that in entirety. It's significantly the IT teams and the HRO teams are a significantly smaller component of our headcount. Now, those two teams, HRO and IT, have seen attrition in line with industry. We have seen wages go up. We've done market corrections to counter attrition, et cetera. At a macro level, the impact is low simply because that headcount is low.
The HRO business, you've got to remember that the HRO business is a platform business. It's not as much of an FTE driven business. Hence, for every incremental revenue that we bring into that business, we see a larger impact in our EBITDA growth, right? That trend will continue for some time, where EBITDA in the HRO business will continue to grow in spite of wage pressures in that division and in the IT business, in the IT division. Yeah. Yes, the impact is there. In a nutshell, the impact is there, but it is not significant, given the nature of the business overall.
sir, we made 25% EBITDA margins for the full year. Will we expect similar trend to continue?
See, I think the FY 2022 has been a pretty good year. 25% margin is definitely an aspirational one. Depending on, as you mentioned, there are multiple forces, especially on the employee costs. You will see our EBITDA normally between 22%-25%. It also depends on the mix that we end up for the year between the HRO and DBS business. The more DBS business comes in, you will see the margins you know, slightly at the lower end of the 22%-25% spectrum that I spoke about.
Sure. My third question would be on dividend. As in last year, we did a very good dividend, and despite paying that, we have good enough cash, and we made good cash flows in this year also. Can we expect similar kind of dividend to continue in the coming year?
Yeah. Last year was a unique year because we'd accumulated cash for a period of time, and therefore, you know, the reason why we accumulated cash was in the hope of going for some inorganic growth. We waited on it for a couple of years, but we were not able to firm up an acquisition, and therefore we decided that the board decided that it would be in the best interest of the shareholders to declare the dividend. The board continuously monitors this particular position, and we will look at what needs to be done from the best utilization of cash that is available with the company.
The dividend of last year definitely was a one-off in terms of the quantum, but the company will continue to give dividends, every year.
Sure, sir. My last question would be in terms of growth. As in you said, pipeline is quite good. We expect 15%-20% growth to continue like we had in this year?
In both businesses, HRO and DBS, the pipeline and growths look good. We expect, while we don't issue any guidances on this, we expect to maintain our momentum going forward.
Sure, sir. Thank you and all the best. I'll join you.
Thank you, Jatin Kumar.
Thank you. Before we take our next question, we would like to remind participants to ask a question, you may enter star and one. Our next question is from the line of Sugandhi from InCred Asset Management. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi. Thank you for taking my question. I just wanted to understand, you know, the ACV wins that we had, last year of INR 40 crore. If I'm just doing the simplistic calculation on the incremental revenues, how do we read into the renewal rates for your existing business as compared to the new deals won through the years? Around INR 16 crore of revenue added into international, the DBS international business and, you know, around INR 9 crore added in the domestic as against that ACV number. Or is it just a matter of timing? You know, there has been some delay in implementation of some of those revenues. That's my first question.
The second question, could you give us a color on the other operating expenses and what are the different moving parts, there? Because your gross margin seems to have improved, but, you know, some of the other OpEx seems to have gone up and what's a more, realistic number to expect going forward?
Sure. Sugandhi, this is Ashish. I'll take the first half or the first question. See the nature of both our DBS business and our HRO businesses that our contracts, bulk of our contracts tend to be multi-year. There are very, very few contracts we have which are in year or perhaps lower, right? And our renewal rate is very, very good. The difference between ACV and revenue that you see is purely because of timing. It is not because of customer attrition.
Sure. What is the typical, you know, tenure of these contracts, you know, out of the ACV that we garnered last year? Could you give us a median range?
Right. Typically it is two-three year period is what we do. There will be some delta, just to add on to what Ashish mentioned. There'll be some delta in terms of existing customers based on the customers' volumes as well. You will see quarter-on-quarter movement, especially in the BFSI segment and even in the FMCG segment where Q3 DBS tends to be higher in terms of volume when you have the festive season in both India and North America. That also has a view. That's why we never, you know, it's not easy to just add the ACV to the revenue because of the movements in the existing customers' volumes. To answer your next question, which is on other expense.
Typically, the other expense that we have will be the facility maintenance expense, professional fees and stuff like that. You would see a movement from FY 2021 to FY 20 22 with more and more of people coming back to office and working from office. You'll see the kicks in the facility maintenance expense and stuff like that. Our growth rate in the other expense will always be below the growth rate of our employee cost, and that will continue to happen, which is what will lead to a higher EBITDA. If you see Allsec historically, our EBITDA will grow faster than our revenue because of our handle on the other expenses per se. Employee costs tend to be at around 85%-90% of revenue growth.
Other expense typically grows at 65%-70%.
Sure. The exit rate for the year, is that a realistic number to expect going forward, or it could be slightly higher than that?
No, it will be more or less there. Obviously, you know, there are costs that go up. For example, transportation cost is an area that's gone up over the last couple of months. You've not probably seen the full impact of that in Q4, but we've seen that going up. As I mentioned, the incremental costs on those will be much lesser than the growth that we are expecting in our revenue. Effectively, it will lead to a positive offset.
Sure. Thank you. Could you also explain what is that movement in DSOs, and, you know, give us more, a little more clarity on the nature of these, aging of these receivables? Because, you know, the situation is incrementally improving?
Right. As Ashish mentioned, I think most of the COVID-related issues are behind us. To be honest, Allsec has actually done well when it came to DSO during the difficult periods of COVID. Our, you know, DSO at the year-end was higher more by virtue of some large payments from couple of our debtors got skipped to the first week of April. In fact, one large payment came 15 minutes after midnight. That is the only reason we do not have any accumulation in aged receivables, and we've not taken any unusual hit to our receivables in terms of provisioning as well.
Our current DSO is back to normal, by the way.
Sure. Sure. Excellent. Thank you so much. Congratulations on a great quarter. That's it from my side.
Thank you, Sugandhi.
Thank you.
Thank you. Before we take our next question, we would like to remind participants to ask a question, you may enter star and one. Our next question is from the line of Vidit Shah from IIFL Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi. Just, sir, you alluded on the three pillars of growth across North America, HRO, segments, going forward. Is that like, can you know, shed some light on what rate the industry is growing at and how you're capturing market share across, you know, these businesses? Because North America, as I understand, is not a very, you know, high growth market.
See in the North America business, let's talk DBS first. The DBS North America business last year, we clocked about 16% CAGR in terms of growth.
When the first quarter of the year was impacted, and we were coming out of a year prior to that, where the North American market was shut for sales pretty much. Right. In spite of those two things, we ended up achieving around 16% growth in revenues year-on-year. I expect going forward those growth numbers to sustain themselves, and perhaps improve from there on. Industry-wise, we see similar growth numbers coming out of the IT/ITES industry, and we expect to maintain a momentum at industry levels. On the HRO side, we ended up around 17% year-on-year growth in terms of revenue.
The HRO business was impacted more because of the COVID wave two in India, and Manila for that matter. This business was more impacted than DBS in the last one year. Now those pressures are also behind us, so I expect the growth numbers to also improve and sustain, you know, over and above the 17% that we achieved last year.
Okay. On the HRO side, what would be the market growth, then?
There isn't much great data on this because very few of our competition is public. Anecdotally, we hear that the industry grows to the extent of 7%-8%. Yeah. Our growth in this business is over and above what the industry achieves.
Got it. Just in terms of the cash balance that is there on the books as of March 2022, how much of that is in Manila and how much in India?
Because we declared dividend from Manila during the year, the cash balance in Manila has now come down. As we speak, we probably out of this INR 128-130 crore that are there, around INR 35 crore is in Manila and U.S. The balance is now all in India.
Okay. Fine. That's it from me.
Thanks. Thanks, Mr. Vidit Shah.
Thank you. Anyone who has a question may enter star and one. We have a question from the line of Swapnil Kamat from NSFO. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. I'm new to this company. I just wanted to ask you that, is this HRO business entirely platform business or how is it, the composition?
Yeah. It's entirely platform business.
Okay. When you say that, COVID impacted the revenues here, so, was it because of the exposure to the retail industry or I mean, what was the impact, I mean, when you are talking about the impact?
The impact was from a sales perspective, where sales decisions got delayed.
Okay. Got it. Okay. In adding new logos and new contracts, et cetera.
That got pushed out by a couple of quarters.
Okay. There's no impact on your existing.
No, there isn't. There is no revenue impact from COVID or any customer churn as a result of COVID.
Okay. In terms of your DBS business, does it also have some platform or any? I mean, how, what kind of? I mean, how is it, how is the nature of this business or is it completely time and material?
This business is like any standard BPO, which largely means it is time and material. That said, we also bring technology and point solutions to our customers. We also have alliances with standard market platforms, CRMs, et cetera, et c, and we bring those to our customers as and when needed. By and large, this business is working on customer systems.
Okay. Okay. Thanks a lot, sir.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Raghuram N.S. from Your India Funds Management. Please go ahead.
Am I audible?
Yes, Raghu. Go on, please.
Okay. I had couple of questions. One was to Raghu on the right-of-use asset. There has been a very significant increase in the quantum that has been shown in the latest balance sheet on the right-of-use asset. Any particular reason for that?
Yeah. Basically, it is a renewal of our premise in Chennai. It is our largest center. The renewal happened in Q4, and obviously, you know, the way right of use asset works is that over the term of the agreement, the right of use asset comes down. Whenever we either get into a new building or we renew a new premise center, it again goes up. You'll also see a corresponding increase in the lease liability, current and non-current portion in the liability side.
Yeah, I saw that. That's okay. I think that was the only clarification I needed. On the business side, Ashish, obviously, there has been a slight dip in the domestic business. Is this something in Q4? Is this something that was because of the third wave or something? How is it looking going forward?
No. Raghu, the Q4 domestic business had a blip in terms of volumes, seasonal volumes coming down. Now, as we have exited the Q4, those volumes are coming up and starting to grow. It is standard seasonal ups and downs, nothing much more than that.
Okay. You don't see any big impact of it going forward?
Oh, no. Nothing that will sustain beyond Q4. It's just a standard seasonal ramp down that happens. You remember during the Christmas time and a little before that, the BPO business ramps up in anticipation of the seasonal sales. As the season ramps down, those FTE numbers start coming down temporarily and then again start building up as we exit Q4 for the rest of the year. This is standard seasonal volumes coming down, which will come back.
Okay. On the HRO side, Ashish, obviously one could understand that the impact to a large extent for whatever happened or didn't happen during the last year was maybe because the existing clients and the existing contracts, in the existing contracts, employee numbers didn't grow significantly. How is that looking this year? Obviously, we have, as you said, COVID, the effect of COVID is behind us and hopefully the Indian economy as well. How is the volume growth on existing customers looking?
Raghu, on the HRO side, all existing customers and our customer base skews very heavily towards white collar IT, ITES. This industry we are seeing growth, headcount growth return to our customers. We expect the trend to continue this current year as well. Since second half of the year, headcount has started to grow with our customers, and I expect that trend to continue.
Okay. Out of just a continuation of that question, out of the 17% that you mentioned that HRO grew, is there any way of categorizing it as growth from new customers and growth from existing customers, or is that something that is tough to answer?
Right now tough to answer. We can come back with those numbers.
Okay. My last question is on the overall growth outlook for the year. Obviously, Quess had a big analyst day just about, what, about 20 days back. They gave out their outlooks for each of their divisions, including the Quess GTS division, which Allsec is a part of. They very clearly mentioned that they are specifically looking at about 22%-24% kind of growth from FY 2022 till FY 2025. I think they gave out a kind of, you can call it aspirational, you can call it some kind of guidance or talk. This was something that was made public during the analyst day.
Obviously, Allsec being a part of the Quess GTS portfolio, is that something that is in line with what you guys are looking at in terms of overall growth for the next three years?
Right. Raghu, we historically and even now, we don't issue guidances, forward-looking guidances in terms of growth rates and EPS, et cetera, given our scale. We maintain that stance. That said, we are a relatively small part of overall GTS. That said, I expect our growth from here on to only improve and be at standards that Quess has issued. I don't expect any deviations.
They also mentioned on the EBITDA side also about they were at about 14% overall, and they wanted to grow to about 16%. Obviously, you guys are one of the biggest contributors. You may not be the biggest, very high contributor on the revenue side, but on the EBITDA percentage contribution side, I think, Allsec will come out maybe at the highest end of that, of the Quess GTS portfolio. Is that also an indication that you don't see too much of an impact, like what one of the early questions was from, too much of an impact on EBITDA going forward? You guys have enough levers which will allow you to maintain margins.
Yeah. Raghu, as I think I mentioned earlier, you know, as long as we maintain the current mix in terms of both our business and grow organically in both, we should be able to maintain our EBITDA margins. There will be pressures that will come here and there, and obviously you've seen in the past that some quarters may be better than the others, and that's how it works because we have a smaller base. I wouldn't want to comment on the Quess outlook, but from a Allsec management perspective, we are at a very good space as far as EBITDA is concerned, and I don't see too much room in the EBITDA growing, but we will definitely ensure that we are protected in that band in terms of the EBITDA margin.
Okay. Understand. Thanks for all the answers, Ashish and Raghu. All the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Dipen Sheth from Buoyant Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, and thanks for the opportunity. I hope I'm audible.
Yes, please go ahead.
Right. One of my questions which are related to the bump up in right of use assets has been partly addressed in the sense that these are lease renewals. Are these in India or the ones outside?
The one that caused the bump, actually with both India and Manila. Manila also was due for renewal in January. That's why you see that, bump.
Right. From a materiality perspective, INR 20 crore going up to-
Yeah, it's a material one. Manila is a 650 seater. India, I think we seat almost 2,500 people.
Right. One of the things when, you know, you're cash rich, and you've distributed dividends after holding back patiently for a while and all of this. You're going through capital allocation cautiously enough, and that is appreciated. Should I assume that leasing makes more sense versus buying out, and that arithmetic or economics has been worked out?
Absolutely. I think, you know, the advantage of lease in a business like ours is proven, where, you know, we are open to vagaries of volumes being up and down. So we have done our max on that, and we continue to believe that leasing gives us the best opportunity to maximize our capital allocation.
It's the flexibility in addition to the cost benefit that you get.
Correct.
Okay. My second question would be on the rise of close to about INR 6 crores in the other intangible assets. Can you share some color around this?
Sure. The other intangible assets is basically the work that we are doing on the HRO modernization program, which Ashish talked about. Both the payroll modernization and the HRMS modernization. Both of them are going at full pace, and we hope to complete them in the upcoming financial year.
Should I treat it like a product development expense or a platform expense?
Correct. It is a product development expense. It will get capitalized once the platform. We don't call it as a product, we call it as a platform.
Okay.
We capitalize it once the platform is ready for commercial consumption.
What is the risk that you are running in terms of this not eventually being ready for commercial consumption or commercial revenue exploitation? You will still have to take a write-off on it irrespective of whether you are able to generate revenues out of it, right?
It will go through an amortization process. This is standard in any product development program. We have looked at, you know, what are the cost benefits for each of these. You know, these go through a test even from an Indian Accounting Standards perspective in terms of what are all the criteria that the product development needs to tick off before it can be taken as a work in progress intangible asset itself. These have come through all that test. Given that, you know, the current proprietary product platform that Allsec is using in its HRO is a similar homegrown product which evolved over multiple years.
Right.
You know, we started way back in 2002, 2003, and it was always with that incremental patches. This is the first time that Alldigi Tech has embarked on a from zero-based product development. It goes through the agile methodology, and it gets tested at each and every stage. We are very confident that, you know, when the final output comes, it will be ready for commercial launch. Given that we are market leaders in the HRO segment, we will definitely be able to market and monetize this particular investment.
Okay. Will you allow me to slip in one more question, sir?
Yeah, yeah. Please go ahead.
All right. I know strictly speaking, you're not like a you know a software company, right? A software services company. But you do have high manpower requirements, and these are adjacent kind of skill sets very often to what we see in the software industry. Are you facing a challenge on hiring and compensations and all of that?
Yeah. I had addressed this question partially a few questions ago.
Okay.
See, our HRO and IT teams are in the order of 500 people-500 people out of the total 4,500+ headcount that we have.
Right.
On this, 500 headcount in these two divisions, the IT and HRO, we are seeing higher attrition and salaries going up. Those pressures are there. They don't show up at the overall company level because it's a much smaller number, right? That's one. Second is in anticipation of continued pressures on hiring, we have done a lot of things to, you know, alleviate any pressures and protect our product engineering and product development initiatives from all of this. We have a rich pipeline of vendors and third-party service providers that we can tap into, both for headcount as well as components of product engineering, right? That ecosystem we have created just to insulate ourselves from some of this, from, for our critical initiatives.
Right. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I now hand the floor back to the management for closing comments. Over to you, sir.
Thank you so much everyone for joining for our annual ritual. This has been a great year. As we end the year and head into FY 2023, I'm heartened by the sales maturity that we have brought in over the last year on the product engineering initiatives that are beginning to approach the closing line. All aspects of the businesses are beginning to fire and beginning to look good. That's where we are at. Thank you so much for your time. I look forward to interacting with all of you offline and a year from now. Thank you so much.
Thank you, members of the management. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of IIFL Securities Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.