Everyone, good day and welcome to Q4 FY 2025 earnings call of eClerx Services Limited. Please note that this webinar will be recorded. To take us through the results today and to answer your questions, we have with us the top management of eClerx, represented by Kapil Jain, Managing Director and Group CEO, and Srinivasan Nadadhur, Chief Financial Officer. We will start the call with brief opening remarks by Kapil, followed by Srinivasan, who will be sharing the financial update, and we will then open the floor for Q&A session. As usual, I would like to remind you that anything mentioned on this call that gives any outlook for the future or which can be pursued as corporate statements must be viewed in conjunction with the risks and uncertainties that we face.
These risks and uncertainties are included but not limited to what we have mentioned in the prospectus filed with the SEBI and subsequent annual reports, which you can find on our website. Having said that, I will now hand over the floor to Kapil. Over to you, Kapil.
Thank you, Asha, and good evening, everyone. I'm pleased to share the highlights of our performance in FY 2025 Q4 and full year. Last year, around the same time, I laid out our three-pronged strategy, which revolved around strengthening sales operations, mining existing clients, winning new logos, and enhancing our market positioning. We have made good progress on all these three fronts. We have also elevated our visibility through analyst recognitions and a new industry service aligned go-to-market approach. Now, coming to numbers, we reported strong revenue growth in Q4. Operating revenue was $104.9 million, up 4.2% sequentially. In INR terms, Q4 operating revenue was INR 8,983 million, up 5.2%. Margins came in stronger as well. EBITDA for Q4 was INR 2,505 million at a margin of 27.3%, up 9.8% sequentially. PAT for the quarter was INR 1,522 million at a margin of 16.6%, up 11% sequentially.
For the full- year revenue was $397.6 million, up 12.3% over FY 2024 in dollar terms. EBITDA was INR 8,946 million, up 6.4%, and the PAT of INR 5,411 million was up 5.8%. Our deal wins for the quarter were $51 million, and for the full year, we did $140 million. Analytics and automation went up by 17% year-on-year. As we mentioned, in the last quarter, we opened a new delivery center in Lima, Peru. We have also opened a delivery center in Cairo, Egypt. Operations in Lima have already commenced. These new centers will allow us to capture a larger share of our existing clients' wallet. I would like to share some commentary and outlook about our three businesses. In BFSI, we see broad opportunities across large and small new clients, particularly in regulatory and compliance and change. Market volatility has increased due to the tariffs and the uncertainty.
Certain transaction volumes in some domains are around our trading operations. Fashion and luxury continue to remain under pressure, with the U.S. market underperforming and inherent weakness in the China market. High-tech manufacturing and distribution remain positive. Clients' budgets are concentrated on digital transformation and customer experience programs. Tariff changes are consuming management bandwidth of our clients in the manufacturing and distribution segment and may lead to some slowdown in decision-making. Momentum around new logo acquisition and cross-sell of customer service continues, and our cross-sell strategy seems to be working well. We have also started delivering our care services from Manila and Lima, and as I mentioned a little while earlier, we will start shortly from Cairo as well. On technology, we see a continued interest in our productized service offerings of Compliance Manager and market intelligence.
Coming over to some of the recognition from our clients, we have been named as Partner of the Year 2024 by a leading Fortune 100 global media and telecom company. Additionally, we won four other awards at the same event. This extraordinary achievement is a testament to our customer focus, innovation, and exceptional service delivery. The strong finish to the year gives us momentum for the next fiscal, and we are cautiously optimistic about our prospects for FY 2026. I also want to share that 2025 marks the 25th year of eClerx. I have completed two years here. As PD Anjan and I reflect on this journey, we feel immense gratitude to all those who have contributed to the firm's success. eClerx is what it is today because of our people, our employees, our clients, our shareholders, and the community partners.
We are thankful to our clients and partners for having placed their trust in us and for giving us the opportunity to be part of their journey and helping them stay relevant. We look forward to their continued support in the future. Thank you, and over to Srini for a more detailed commentary.
Thank you, Kapil, and good evening, everyone. As Kapil mentioned, the performance this quarter has been strong on both the revenue and the margin front. In constant currency terms, operating revenue was up 4.4%, including other income. Total revenue was INR 9,165 million, up 4.7% sequentially. Other income for the quarter was INR 183 million, primarily owing to apprentice benefits from government skill development initiatives. On a QoQ basis, there was margin expansion in both EBITDA and PAT of about 130 and 90 basis points respectively. This was driven by the strong revenue uptick in the quarter and the reduction in G&A because of lower rental and technology costs. There is a one-time reclass of 120 basis points from delivery to S&D, and so the right way to look at the QoQ figure is that S&D costs are flat while delivery is down by about 100 basis points.
EBITDA for the full year came in at 26%, which is right in the middle of our stated range. From this quarter onwards, as you would have noticed in the investor presentation, we are reporting revenues in five industry buckets: BFSI, CMT, High-tech, and M&D, which is a B2B facing business; Fashion & Luxury and Retail, which is a B2C facing business; and Emerging. We hope this will give investors a better view of the work we do. Please also note that the Analytics and Automation figures have been restated by removing revenue, which we felt did not belong in this bucket. Coming to other metrics, DSO is in the same range as the preceding two quarters. Staff utilization is the same as the last quarter. Client concentration has gone up to about 64% of top 10 clients.
Seating capacity has gone up somewhat with the new client facilities in Lima and Cairo. Exit headcount has increased by 4% to 19,400, and attrition is at 24%, which is par for the course. Thank you, everyone. With this, we conclude our prepared remarks. We can now move over to the Q&A. Over to you, Asha. Thank you.
Thank you, Srinivasan. Thank you, Kapil. We will open the floor for Q&A session now. Request participants to click on the raise hand button to ask questions. I think we have the first question from the line of Mihir Manohar from Carnelian. Mihir, please go ahead.
Yeah, am I audible?
Yes.
Yeah, sure. Thanks for giving the opportunity. Congratulations on a great set of numbers. Kapil, I actually wanted to understand on the deal win side. I mean, $50 million of deal win for the quarter. You know, what part of the deal, I mean, is it more granular, or is it, let's say, coming from concentration of concentrated accounts? How to understand that? Which area is driving this deal win? I mean, is it customer support? Is it capital markets? Is it regulatory? How to understand that?
Mihir, I think for the quarter, the deal win, like I said, is $51 million, and for the year, it is about $140 million. The wins are around our key focus areas, which is reg and compliance, customer operations, because here we see larger opportunities both onsite and offshore. In terms of FY 2026, we definitely expect year-on-year to do better. I think we do not look at quarter-on-quarter numbers. We are looking at medium to long term. The directionality, like I said, the strategy which we laid out is working well both on cross-sell, upsell, and mining our existing accounts.
Sure, sure. Is there, I mean, more concentration on these deals, or is it spread out?
There may be some with a few clients, but I think overall, if you look at, like we have said in the past, do not look at quarterly numbers to see a trend. If you look at it on a yearly basis, it is fairly well spread out.
Sure, understood. Fair point. Just on customer ops side, I mean, would the margins be similar to the company levels, or should we see some, given the fact that this is, I mean, largely a commodity part of the piece? How to understand margins for customer ops versus the rest of the business?
Yeah, so Mihir, we don't disclose margin at an individual vertical level. Like I had said, our margin will continue to maintain in the zone 24%-28%. I know you guys had requested us to narrow the range. We revisited it, but we'll continue to guide between 24%-28% for FY 2026. At a portfolio level, we will manage that margin and also show our sequential growth on EBITDA and PAT.
Sure, fair point. Just one last question on this. Is this coming from existing clients, or is this from new clients?
It's coming from both, existing and new, which is what I said in the beginning, that the strategy that we had laid out to mine existing clients, cross-sell services, as well as open new logos, is working well.
Understood, sure. Just on the Trump administration side, last time during Trump 1.0, we had seen, I mean, a couple of accounts resorting to insourcing. Do we see that challenge during the Trump 2.0 administration? Any clarification around that? Any client interaction, customer interaction around that would be helpful.
Sorry, can you elaborate on the question? I'm not sure if I...
Sure. I mean, during the first term of Trump administration, we had one or two accounts which resorted to insourcing. I mean, now with Trump administration 2.0, do we see that challenge for us?
So far, we haven't seen anything, Mihir.
Sure, yeah. That's it from my side. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mihir. We have the next question from the line of Manik Taneja. He is from Axis Capital. Manik, please go ahead.
Hi, thank you for the opportunity and congratulations on the steady performance. My question was on two things. If you could talk about the very solid growth that we've seen in our top five client base over the course of FY 2025, and how should we be thinking about our emerging client growth? Because that continues to remain very subdued, as well as the fact that there is very little movement when I look at your client metrics across different buckets. That is question number one. The second question is that typically our hiring tends to give us a good perspective of near-term growth. If I look at the hiring for the quarter, it is possibly the highest in almost five six quarters. Should that be an indicator of how we are expecting our near-term sequential growth to trade?
Manik, thanks. If you look at our top five and top ten clients, they are Fortune 100 companies. I think if you look at our productized services, many of them are relevant for our existing clients. The way we have organized ourselves now around industry and services and capabilities is resonating well with the clients. As far as your question, how is the client mix changing in the three buckets? There is a very concerted focus effort to grow accounts outside of top ten. Obviously, because the base is smaller, we are looking at absolute growth, and we are measuring and monitoring that. With the cross-sell initiatives and with some of the changes, greater focus, we do expect that that will yield positive results.
Even if you look at year-on-year this year versus last year, our $0.5 million and above clients outside of top ten, average revenue per client has increased. It has increased marginally, so nothing to write home about anything. There is a very concerted focus on growing that bucket. It is not to say that we will not grow in top ten because these are all Fortune 100 companies, and these are large clients with very strong credit history, and there are a lot of our service offerings that are relevant in those clients.
Sure. The second question was for Srini.
Yeah, go on.
Srini, basically, if I look at your, I think you mentioned in your opening remarks that there is some amount of reclass from cost of revenues to S&M expenses, and that's the reason why S&M seems to have jumped up. If you could talk about some of the sales and marketing investments that you're doing, because if I look at the headcount metrics that you disclosed, that number after increasing in between is once again back to where we were last year. If you could talk about how are we thinking about some of these investments on this side?
I guess some of the headcount changes are purely because of performance reasons and realignment between what Kapil's focus areas are. That number, we do expect that as we try to double down on growth, that number should go back up again. I think you were also asked about hiring for the quarter. Directionally, you were right. In the last few quarters, generally, our headcount and revenue growth are broadly in line.
That natural trend for the whole growth through FY 2026 as well. That's the thing that you're giving us.
Yeah, hopefully, yes.
Sure. Thank you and all the best for the future.
Thank you.
Thank you, Manik. We have the next question from the line of Dipesh Mehta. He's from Emkay Security. Dipesh, please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity and congrats for a steady quarter and strong execution. First question is about, I think, in your one of the question answer, you said you expect FY 2026 to be better than 2025. I just want to confirm whether we make that statement in terms of full-year growth. Second question is about the roll-up trends. Are we witnessing any change in the roll-up trends compared to, let's say, when we started FY 2025? Third question is about sales effectiveness. If I look at our business development team, it remains fairly stable, while our deal intake has materially increased in this year, almost over 50% growth.
If you can help us understand what is driving it and whether it is because of a couple of chunky deals which explain it and that performance is likely to reverse when you do not have those chunky deals or there are some structural changes which are happening. Thank you.
Dipesh, the first question you wanted to understand, what I said was ACV of the deals for the full year, we delivered $140 million. We expect to show an increase in the ACV of the deals for the full year for FY 2026. That's point number one. The second question was on the roll-up trends. On the roll-up trends, we are not seeing any adverse. I think it's around the same number. Neither we are seeing a higher or a lower trend on the roll-ups. That, I think, is your second question. Sales effectiveness, I think what's driving it is, like I said, in terms of the cross-sell opportunities that we had identified, the one eClerx theme that we are driving is resonating well with the clients on the back of our strong delivery.
If in a particular service kit, our delivery is strong and we're trying to take or talk to the client for another product-type services, that's resonating well with our clients. Hence, more rigor on sales reviews, planning is what is helping us bring in higher momentum in the sales organization.
Just on, so 2026 and 2025 comparison which you gave, it is for deal intake, not for revenue growth?
No, for ACV of the deals.
Understand. In a way, it partly reflects your pipeline likely to be similar or better than, let's say, when we started FY 2025. That is the right way to understand it?
Yes, pipeline, we are continuing to build the pipeline. FY 2026 pipeline is better than when we started in FY 2025.
Understand. Last question, can you help us understand how many new logos which we might have added in FY 2025 and similar number, let's say, if you can provide for FY 2024? Thanks.
We do not report that number. I think we are looking at the client buckets which we have laid out in three segments: top ten, greater than $500,000, and the rest. There, like I said to the previous question, when Manik was asking, there is a concerted focus to grow outside of top ten. We do not see from a client concentration 64% 65%. We will continue to grow in our top ten as well because I think there is still a lot of opportunity that exists in our top ten clients with the service offerings that we have and the relevance that we have for these clients. Did I answer your question, Dipesh?
Yes, it does. Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you, Dipesh. We have the next question from the line of Sandeep Shah from Equirus Securities. Sandeep, do you have?
Yes, thanks.
Thanks for the opportunity. Congratulations on a very strong execution on most of the aspects. Just wanted to understand, looking at the TCV wins which are showing a solid trend and the growth on an organic basis, is it fair to assume that is it more coming through wallet share increase within our clients, or do you believe the outsourcing demand is increasing in an uncertain macro?
I think I would put it as a former. I think it's in, as you know, when there is uncertainty, clients like people shy away in making decisions. Any amount, any volatility on either side. I think it's more driven from our existing clients and capturing a larger wallet share.
Okay, okay. And just a continuation of Dipesh's question, your outlook for FY 2026 better than FY 2025 is more on ACV of new deals, correct?
Yes, that's correct.
Sir, you also made a comment that there is no major significant change in the roll offs. In that scenario, with a higher order book in FY 2025, that can even translate into better growth than what we reported in FY 2025. In FY 2026, I am asking.
Sandeep, I'll lay out the assumption that if the time series of the deals that we closed in FY 2025 stays exactly the same in FY 2026, then the answer is yes. It may not happen from the momentum that we had in FY 2025 versus FY 2026 when you closed it in Q1 versus Q4. That is actually, I think, what will also determine the Y o Y growth. I think in terms of FY2026, like I have said in the beginning, I want to reiterate the same thing on margins. We are giving a band of 24%-28%. I know you guys have requested us to narrow the band. There is a reason why we have chosen to stay in the band because we are looking at growth opportunities. We are opening up new centers that we have opened up in Lima and Cairo.
Initially, when you open a center, there will be some headwinds on the margins. Second is we would show sequential growth on EBITDA and PAT. Third is we will be in the top quartile of the industry growth. These are the three things I have said, and we continue to maintain, which also gives us the confidence that the strategy that we laid out at the beginning of last year is working well. We are not making any changes, minor tweaks here and there, but we are not changing the overall direction in which we are heading.
Thanks for the detailed answer. Just a few questions. Any status update in terms of how are we progressing in Gen AI and Agentic AI, both on a reacting and proactive basis? What I mean by reactive is this client asking for a proactivity gain, or you still believe we are in the phase where investment leads to additional demand related to adoption of Gen AI, Agentic AI, or you believe that we have to keep passing on some productivity gains back to the clients?
Sandeep, I think we have never shied away in passing any productivity gains to the clients because I think we have never shied away from cannibalizing our revenue if technology, as I have said in the previous calls, is our biggest differentiator. There are services that we deliver on the back of our IP, where we have our services we are delivering on the where we are leveraging our own IP, which we are enabling with Gen AI and making it more and more relevant. That is the one bucket. Second is on the pure tech analytics data revenue that we are seeing greater traction. On the third bucket, where we are working on client systems, we are looking at Agentic AI and also looking at change opportunities.
Whenever we are able to give client productivity, it's not like we are seeing a massive ask because we are not selling tech and ops or services separately. A large portion of our book is around our productized services where we are using our IP and working on the client systems where we are using Agentic AI and trying to stay ahead of the curve.
Sir, nonlinear productized service revenue would be how much percentage of total?
I think BPaaS is about 19% or 20% that you will see on the metric slide. That is one of the metrics that I also mentioned earlier that we may reconsider and decide to revise how we are showing it. We are looking at seeing how we can show this productized services metric, which we believe is a better indicator of the impact that our own technology has on our book. That metric may get replaced with something more relevant for our business.
Okay. Last couple of questions on the margin. This year, you said FY 2025 would be between 24%-28%, and we actually ended up at the midpoint. This strategy bearing fruits, is it fair to assume there would be more operating leverage opportunities in FY 2026 versus FY 2025, and we could be slightly better, if not lower, in terms of the margin?
Sandeep, like I said, there will be tailwinds and headwinds. The tailwinds would be, like you said, we may get some benefit of the operating leverage. I have always said that we are a growing business, and we are focusing on driving profitable growth. The headwinds would be the new centers that we have opened. As you know, any new center that we have opened will take time to deliver profitable growth. Despite that, we are saying we will maintain the same band as we had laid out last year.
Okay, okay. Just a last question, Srini, the nature of these losses in the investment at a fair value basis, INR 13 14 crore, what is the nature of this investment? What are the underlying assets where we had such a considerable loss in the one quarter?
Actually, this pertains to a long-term loss that was eligible for in 2016, 2017, that was eligible for carry forward and set off, as the IT laws allow for about eight assessment years. That was going to expire on 31st of March. We had made long-term investments with the perspective to offset against those capital losses. When we actualized, the gain is recorded in other income, but the accrued fair value of this investment in the stat or guidelines is reversed in the other income. In the investor PPT, we have netted these gains because that is the right way of looking at it. That accounts for the difference between what is reported on the control P&L, which is what we show on the PPT.
Okay, okay. This nature of investment, are mutual fund FMP or liquid fund?
That's correct. Yes.
Okay, okay. Thank you. I will come in the follow-up if I need. Thanks and all the best.
Thank you, Sandeep. We have the next question from the line of Baidik Sarkar, he is from Unifi Capital. Baidik, please first. Baidik, you are on mute.
Okay. Hi, gentlemen . Good morning. Kapil and Srini, congrats on a great set of numbers. At a very broad level, and actually, this is a continuation of Sandeep's question, we know for a fact that there is a bit of cost deflation on delivery models given the progression of Agentic AI, right? Especially in our areas of transaction processing and service delivery. I was just trying to understand, given the absolute growth of ACVs we've had in Q4, could you perhaps help us understand what the new business really entails in terms of does it have a higher element of volume which is offset by an even higher element of AI, or are these traditional projects which are automation and people-led? I'm just trying to understand the composition of the new wins that you might have had earlier.
Good morning, Baidik. I think it's not volume growth which could, like you said, on the Agentic AI side, it's related to change, it's related to migration projects. I think, and it's across a broad spectrum of our services and across clients.
Right, right. So I would be right in assuming that the mix of projects that you might be winning is not very different in terms of the traditional people-led and automation-led delivery models, right? I mean, there is no change in that underlying.
Yes, no change, no significant change to see a trend, Baidik.
Right, right. In terms of your comment on the pipeline for 2026 being better than 2025, what's the genre of these? Are these better consolidation-led transactions that the industry is seeing around cost optimization, or perhaps would there be new areas of outsourcing that clients are opening up to in terms of process automation and in terms of efficiency? I'm just trying to understand the nature of pipeline that's building up, which kind of gives you this kind of optimism.
Baidik, I think it's a combination of all the two things that you said, both in terms of clients looking at more efficiency, a stronger delivery partner, as well as new areas.
All right. Thank you, gentlemen. All the best.
Thank you. Thanks.
Thank you, Baidik. We have the next question from the line of Girish Pai. He's from BOB Capital Markets. Girish, please go ahead. Girish, please unmute yourself. Girish, we are not able to hear you. You are on mute. We'll go for the next question, which is from the line of Dipesh Mehta. Dipesh, please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity again. Couple, I think last time also I asked you this question on the first year of fighting your operational management kind of thing. You said four-year strategy, revenue growth, top quartile, and EBITDA margin higher. I asked about EBITDA absolute growth. Can you help us understand, let's say, are we confident about top quartile revenue and absolute EBITDA growth in this four-year journey of ours?
Sorry, what was the last? Can you repeat the last point in the four-year journey?
Revenue and absolute EBITDA growth. EBITDA margin, I think we already have a healthy margin compared to peers. I am referring to, let's say, this year we did 15% kind of revenue growth, 6% EBITDA growth. I am referring to the four-year journey when we complete. Are we confident it would be top quartile EBITDA growth also?
I think, like I said, we are comparing ourselves because in terms of our margin range will be 24%-28%. And revenue percentage, we will be in the top quartile growth. In absolute revenue terms, we will show our growth. I cannot comment whether we will be in absolute EBITDA growth in the top quartile or not. I think you have to look at three metrics and then make a decision on that basis.
Okay. Second question is on the deal ACV side. As far as I remember, our definition is it includes net new. It doesn't include renewal.
That's right.
That is the right definition?
Yes.
Okay. Can you provide some color around the vertical kind of thing? Let's say this quarter, it is a fairly strong deal intake. How it is, whether it is broad-based across vertical or there is a skewness to some extent. Last question is about Europe. I think Europe remained fairly weak this quarter, but some of that weakness is not visible in, let's say, Fashion & Luxury. If you can provide, let's say, what led to sizable weakness in Europe, thanks.
I think if you look at the bulk of our growth, it has come from financial BFSI and CMT segment and our CO customer care business. We are beginning to see growth in High-tech and M&D as well. That is the commentary on the overall growth. The Europe and the CLX business we spoke about on high-end fashion and luxury, that continues because the clients there also are struggling in delivering their top-line growth because of the U.S. and China overall macroeconomic environment.
Okay. Is it possible to, let's say, reconcile the vertical mix which you provided versus the three other buckets earlier which you used to report: financial market, digital, and customer operation from the five verticals you provided? If you can provide some sense. I understand about, let's say, digital might be into multiple buckets. So if you can provide some sense, how one should understand those things?
Yeah, sure. Yeah, please go ahead, Srinivasan, if you please go ahead. So broadly, the services that we do for investment banks, which is client lifecycle and trade lifecycle, which we used to call as the financial markets, that will be broadly speaking in BFSI. Again, broadly, the customer operations, the CX business services that we used to deliver, that has the majority overlap in CMT. That may not remain for a long time because we are also now selling CX services outside of CMT. Historically, that would be the mapping. The rest of the digital business, you can think about as a combination of High-tech, M&D, Fashion & L uxury, Retail, Emerging, and so on. Technology is across all five of this. I hope that gives you a good.
Again, digital also actually, I should correct myself, digital, what we used to call digital is also present. Those services have also been provided to BFSI and to CMT vertical.
Understand. Digital is across. Another thing, I think you provided something. Thanks.
Thank you, Dipesh. Hope all your questions answered. We have the next question from the line of Sandeep Shah. Sandeep, please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity again. Sir, in terms of your commentary on TCV entering FY 2026, about pipeline better versus what we had at the start of the year last year, is it fair to assume then TCV growth can be similar versus what we have seen in FY 2025? Fortunately, TCV can have a run rate of $50 million plus or minus. Is it not because $50 million is much higher than the earlier quarter, so one should not extrapolate?
Sandeep, like I said, we are looking at building a franchise which will deliver value to our clients, shareholders, and all stakeholders in medium to long-term basis. In for full year, we delivered ACV of $140 million. I said we are optimistic to deliver a higher number on the ACV for the full year. Quarter- on- quarter, there can be aberrations. That is really the comment I made, and I am repeating the same thing in terms of how we view our business and franchise.
Fair enough. Just a question in terms of short term. Most of your peers have spoken that the macro-led uncertainty impacted demand starting from March. Is it fair to assume 1 Q we can have some headwind on the growth despite better pipeline? Generally, if I'm not wrong, correct me if I'm wrong, 1 Q is seasonally a soft quarter for us, which can have an impact even this time because of the macro issue. Is it fair to assume that way, or do you believe because of the order book, 1 Q will also have a growth momentum similar to last few quarters?
I think we are cautiously optimistic for Q1. Q1 does see some headwinds because of the wage hikes and other things on the margin front. I think that's the visibility we have because of the overall, like you said, overall macroeconomic environment and the volatility that we are seeing.
Okay. Thank you. All the best.
Thank you.
Thank you, Sandeep. Reminder to all participants to click on the raise hand button before we take the next question. We have the next question from the line of Girish Pai from BOB Capital. Girish, please go ahead.
Okay. Am I audible?
Yes.
Yes, yes, Girish.
Okay. I just want to ask, did 4Q play out the way you anticipated, or was it stronger or weaker, or how did it play out before the beginning of the quarter? You must have had certain expectations.
I think it was in line with our expectations Q4, so in terms of how it played out.
Okay.
The only thing I would say is the dollar- rupee volatility was not something that was, as you know, from INR 87-INR 88, it went down to INR 84-INR 85. That was the only element that sort of came as a surprise, but otherwise, things were as what we had expected.
Okay. My second question is regarding seasonality or 1H versus 2H or the four quarters. Will there be the growth is going to be smooth across the various quarters or the two halves, or could there be some seasonality in this?
Girish, with the overall volatility in the market, the overall macroeconomic factors, the geopolitical uncertainty, there could be quarter-on-quarter aberrations that are hard to predict and give a view on. I think full year, we are confident on ACV, and like I said, our pipeline at the start of this year is higher than what it was at the start of last year.
Okay. The salary increase this year, will the quantum and the spread in terms of the number of people who kind of get the salary increase, is that going to be the same like what we had in FY 2025?
It's around the same, but Srini, you want to comment on that?
The increase is about the same, but the number of people is obviously more.
Okay. My last question is around GCCs. I mean, everybody seems to have a GCC strategy. Anything that you would want to kind of spell out from your side?
Yeah. Girish, as you would know, we have clients who have GCCs, and it's not either/or. We exist along with GCCs, and they see us as a strong partner. We are also looking at growing our GCC footprint, and we are also looking to invest in that area by bringing in people in India who can solely focus on the GCCs.
Would your GCC revenue be in the high single digit to low teens kind of number or a higher number?
Girish, we report client revenues, not GCC. Depending upon the vertical that we laid out, the five verticals Srinivasan Nadkarni spoke about, depending on which vertical the client falls in, it will fall in there.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, Girish. We have a follow-up question from line of Mihir Manohar. He is from Carnelian. Mihir, please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for giving the follow-up. Just on the deal win side, I mean, broadly wanted to get an understanding. This financial year, there has been a very good growth in deal wins. I mean, how has productized services helping us on the deal win side? Some use cases, I mean, two or three problem solutions around that. I mean, some key solutions that we are delivering using the productized services, that would be helpful.
Like I said, Compliance Manager, market intelligence, ROI for CMO. There are different set of use cases we can highlight and which are helping our clients to stay relevant. I had mentioned this in the initial few calls that we operate on both sides of the equation, helping clients on the revenue side in terms of how you are spending your marketing dollars, how you are running your campaigns, how you are enhancing your customer experience, removing friction points, as well as on the traditional outsourcing, which is on the cost side of the equation. On both the sides, we have our IP that we use to deliver our services. I hope that answers your question, Mihir, in terms of the sort of deals that we are seeing. Our strong delivery is also giving us the momentum in terms of our existing clients.
Okay. Sure. Understood. So it's not that out of $140 million, some specific deals are coming from productized services. It's the case that across all the conversations, productized services is becoming an integral part of the conversation itself, right?
Yeah, because see, what we are trying to do is we are selling in orthogonal circles around technology, consulting, and ops. And that's the unique combination we bring to our clients. So it's not like you're selling them in a discreet manner.
Understood. Sure. Yeah, that's it from my side. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mihir.
Thank you, Mihir. We have next question from the line of Varun Bang. Varun, please go ahead. Varun? Yeah. Varun, you are on mute.
Can you hear me now?
Yes.
Yes, Varun.
Yeah. This is Varun from Bandhan Life Insurance. So a couple of questions. Firstly, one of the focus areas for us was to make business more predictable. How do you see progress on that front? Additionally, how it is evolving?
Varun, I think are we better off than where we were last time when we had lost the client? The answer is yes. As you know, I think in last year or year when we had one of the clients that rolled off, we were able to rebound back much more quickly than we have done in the past. From that perspective, I think the predictability is increased. As you know, this will take time for me to say that, "Look, are we there where we need to be?" Maybe not, but are we better off? The answer is absolutely yes.
Got it. Got it. On the pricing perspective, incrementally, the pricing, are we still pricing at some discount or lower rate to improve our win rate? Some thoughts on pricing would be helpful.
No, we are not seeing any lower rate. We are competitive depending upon the deal, depending upon the market, depending upon the solution relevance. It is difficult to comment on a deal-by-deal basis, low or higher, but we are competitive in the markets and geographies and the services that we operate in.
Okay. Lastly, on capital allocation, would we continue with the buybacks or will focus on distributing cash to dividend now, given that there's no difference between the two from taxation perspective?
Yeah, we will take a decision on that later in the year. As you correctly know, there is no difference.
Got it. Thanks.
Thank you, Varun. We have next question from the line of Vikas Khemani. He is from Carnelian Asset Management. Vikas, please go ahead.
Hi. Hi, Kapil. Slightly more, I mean, not from quarter perspective, but more directionally. Basically, you consider KPO, but your margins are very much like today's companies like Data Analytics and those kind of companies. So do you find overlap in terms of your business mix somewhere with those companies likes of Latent or Fractal or something? Or do you see any kind of overlap or cost? How do you sort of, I mean, I'm just trying to get direction of the business future . And secondly, how is it sort of use of or role of AI is going to add or create an opportunity or threat to your business? Those two broad questions.
I'll take the first one. Yeah, we do come across pure-play analytics companies once in a while, especially when we are picking our analytics services in the technology and analytics space, also in and around Martech, marketing places . There is some overlap of the services that we provide. In.
Then business would be in that sense currently for us, and how would that growth profile be there in that sense?
About 20% stable. I think 18% or 20% is what we report in analytics and automation, I would say, is broadly overlap.
That's where you will see a lot of.
Is that a fast-growing area for us?
In this year, it has grown. The year before, I think it contracted a little bit.
Because Vikas, I think this is a discretionary spend, but we have a high focus on growing this area, and we have made some investments also at the front end as well as at the back end on this area, data analytics.
If the market continues and there is discretionary spend, I think we are optimistic that we will see growth. The second question that you asked, that GenAI, Agentic AI, do we see this as an opportunity or threat? In the previous calls also, I have said that I see this as an opportunity because of productized services. We are enhancing our product maturity and ingesting GenAI in all our products. We are not shying away from cannibalizing our revenue and passing on the benefits to the client as and when required. I see this as an opportunity and not a threat.
As you see, like you said, that you are passing on benefit to the client. Let's say if a client was using INR 100 of services from you, and that today you are delivering at 80, does that benefit come back to you in form of additional business either on data analytics or some other side? Is that also you are seeing as a trend?
Vikas, that's what I'm saying. We are looking and building a medium to long-term franchise. It may not happen that INR 100 becoming INR 80, and in the same quarter, INR 80 will become INR 110 or INR 90 or INR 100.
Absolutely. Yeah.
Over a medium to long term, absolutely. If either not with that client, but with some other client, because you have a very good use case where you have said that you were delivering it for INR 100, and you passed on the $20 benefit to the client, that is the trust you are building and building a medium to long-term franchise. Absolutely. Like I said, we do not. Wherever required, and it is there, we will not shy away in cannibalizing our revenue and passing on the benefits. There are different models depending upon who is investing in driving that efficiency, driving that productivity between the client and us, and depending upon how you do the game share and so on and so forth.
What explains to some of these leading data analytics companies, "Margins so poor vis-à-vis yours?" Any sort of perspective on that would you have? Because, of course, they have decent revenue, but margins are like pathetic.
I think, Vikas, I can't comment. You should ask.
No, no. Would you have some perspective on that? I'm not asking on it. I mean, I don't know. I'm just trying to give you also a building that business, and you are damn profitable, right? You deliver the margins which are exceptionally good, better than IT companies.
Thank you, Vikas. Which is what I am saying, that everything we do, we try and leverage technology to amplify human potential. They are not discreet. Our ability to blend it and deliver services to the client is where we differentiate ourselves.
You referred to products in your business. Is there a high operating level kind of products you have which you use for delivering to a client? I mean, could you give some ideas around that, some thoughts around that?
We are not a product company. It is not that we are selling our products as SaaS. I think our ability, like Compliance Manager in the area of regulatory and compliance, market 360 for competitive intelligence, these are some of the products that help us differentiate and provide a compelling value proposition to our clients. That is really what we are doing in terms of taking our value proposition use cases to our clients. That is really what is making us stay relevant.
Sure. When you have those kind of platforms or whatever, as you call, you replicate to other clients, but that would give you a bit of an advantage in getting a customer. Would that also better margin profile? I mean, does that give any operating lever in some sense?
Absolutely. See, like I said, on the pricing side, we are competitive in the industry we operate in. The operating leverage comes in from our ability to bring technology in everything and whatever we are doing.
Got it. Thanks. Thanks.
Thanks, Vikas.
Thank you, Vikas. We have next question from the line of Sandeep Shah. Sandeep, please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity again. Just a strategic question. What percentage of our revenue would be voice-centric? What percentage within voice-centric business have we migrated from a traditional way of delivering voice-related delivery versus a new way of delivering the same through automation? Do you expect this contribution to go up or go down in the next two to three years?
I think as we will grow in terms of percentage, it's like in terms of it's difficult to predict where it will go. We see relevance in our existing clients, both on voice and chat, and also clients experimenting with us on technology or the new way voice is getting delivered. We are part and parcel of where clients are doing some of these experiments because of the trust that we have built on the back of our strong delivery. As I said in the opening remarks, with one of the large CMT clients, we won Trusted Partner of the Year, and we won four other awards. That is really what is helping us on our care programs, on the voice, chat, and our ability to give insights from voice, chat, and the data that we have access to.
Okay. Okay. So Srini, in the earlier quarters, you have described voice centric being 6%-7% of the top line. Do you believe that concentration is more or less there only, or it has come down or gone up?
It's above that. It should be part of the CMT business. So yeah, I think that's about fair.
6%, 7% of the total business?
Yeah.
Okay. Okay. Last related question, Kapil sir, with that 6%-7%, do you see a risk of cannibalization more in that piece of business versus the 90% 95% of the business which is not voice?
Certainly, I don't see cannibalization. Like I said, if the clients are leveraging technology, we are in the mix of what clients are doing. I don't anticipate with one client, there may be some shrinkage because of technology or because of new way of doing. Overall, at a portfolio level, I don't see it getting cannibalized because the market, I think, on the voice as well as on chat is big enough.
Thanks, Kapil.
Thanks, Sandeep.
Thank you, Sandeep. We have a follow-up question from the line of Girish. Girish, please go ahead.
Yeah. Am I audible?
Yes.
Yes. Okay. Just wanted to understand, how much is the discretionary versus non-discretionary part of your business?
70% is non-discretionary. 30% is discretionary.
Okay. I'm also curious about your setting up delivery centers in Lima and in Cairo. What drove this decision to you to set it up in a Latin American country and in Africa? Was it decided by demand? How will margins pan out when we deliver from these particular centers?
Girish, it was a combination of client demand as well as overall attractiveness of the location, right, in terms of it's not like we have set up a greenfield facility and then waiting for the client to come. It was on the back of client, and then we assess overall supply-demand situation, overall attractiveness of the location, and based on that, we make a decision. Like I said in the beginning, yes, in short term, there would be margin pressures as we have opened up new centers. Any new center will take time to deliver profitable growth, which is why the range that we have given is what we have given. We are not narrowing the band between 24%-28%.
No, but at a mature stage, would the margins on these delivery centers be lower than that from India?
Yeah, it may be lower, but at a portfolio level, we'll be able to balance the portfolio mix.
Okay. Just from the onsite- offshore mix perspective, I think we had shifted more towards onsite over a period of time. Is that trend going to continue?
I think that's going to.
Yeah, sure.
I think if you're talking about from a longer-term perspective, let's say last 7-8 years, 8-10 years, I think it has moved from 10%- 20%. In the more shorter term, it is sort of between 19% and 21%, and we don't expect any significant movement from this figure of around 20%.
Okay. Fine. Thank you.
Thank you, Girish. As a closing question, I will hand over the floor to management for closing remarks.
Thank you, everyone. Once again, we are very excited, and thank you for the support and confidence that you have laid in us. It's exciting times as we are celebrating our 25th year. Thank you all for your support.
Thank you.
Thanks.
Thank you, everyone.