Dear shareholders, good afternoon. I welcome you to the 28th Annual General Meeting of Tata Consultancy Services, would like to take you through key points regarding the participation at this meeting. The facility for joining the AGM through video conference, other audio-visual means, is made available for the members. All members who have joined the meeting are by default placed on mute to avoid disturbance arising from any background noise and to ensure a smooth and seamless conduct of the meeting. Once the question- and- answer session starts, the name of the shareholders who have registered as speaker shareholders will be announced one by one. Speaker shareholders will be connected in the audio-video mute mode. Once your name is announced, you'll be sent a request to unmute your microphone. Kindly unmute your microphone, switch your camera on, and speak.
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Thank you. Dear shareholders, good afternoon to all of you. I would like to welcome you all to the 28th Annual General Meeting of the company. As the requisite quorum is present, I now call the meeting to order.
This annual general meeting is being held through video conference in accordance with the circulars issued by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. A live streaming of this meeting is also being webcast on NSDL's website. The company has taken the requisite steps to enable members to participate and vote on the items being considered at this AGM. The registers, as required under the Companies Act 2013, are open for inspection. The company has received letters, along with board resolutions from seven corporate shareholders, appointing and authorizing representatives under Section 113 of the Companies Act 2013. These represent 264 crore 861 lakh 19,760 equity shares, which is 72.39% of the paid-up equity capital of the company. There is no physical attendance of the members, and therefore, requirement of appointing proxies is not applicable.
I now call all the directors who have joined through video conference to introduce themselves. Mr. O.P. Bhatt?
Thank you. Thank you, Chairman. Good afternoon, everyone. I am Om Prakash Bhatt, Independent Director on the company's board since April 2012. I also chair the Nomination and Remuneration Committee. I'm attending this annual general meeting for the financial year 2023 from my residence on video conference. I hope you and your family members are healthy and doing well. Take care. Thank you.
Dr. Pradeep Khosla?
Mr. Chairman, good afternoon, everyone. I'm Pradeep Kumar Khosla, and I'm an Independent Director of this company since January 2018. I also chair the Stakeholders Relationship Committee, and I'm attending this meeting, attending the fiscal FY 2023 meeting from the TCS House through video conferencing. Thank you.
Hanne Sorensen?
Thank you, Chairman. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Hanne Sorensen. I've been an Independent Director on this board since December 2018. I am attending the annual general meeting from my residence in Copenhagen, Denmark, via video conference. I hope that you and your families are all well and in good health. Thank you.
Mr. Keki Mistry ?
Thank you, Chairman. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Keki Mistry. I've been an Independent Director of TCS since December 2018. I also chair the Audit and Risk Committees of the Board. I'm attending this meeting from my office in Mumbai. I take this opportunity to wish all of you and your families the very best in the new year.
Mr. Don Callahan?
Thank you, Chairman, good afternoon. I am Don Callahan, Independent Director since 2019. I'm attending this annual general meeting from my home in the United States. I hope you and your family are well. Take care.
Aarthi Subramanian.
Thank you, Chairman. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Aarthi Subramanian, Non-Executive Director on the company's board since August 2017. I'm attending this annual general meeting of FY 2023 from TCS House through video conference. I hope all of you are doing well. Thank you very much.
Thank you, all. In addition, we also have our senior executives, statutory and secretary auditors of the company joining this meeting through video conference from their respective location. Joining this meeting here in TCS House are Mr. Krithivasan, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Mr. Ganapathy Subramaniam, Chief Operating Officer and Executive Director, Mr. Samir Seksaria, Chief Financial Officer, and Mr. Pradeep Gaitonde, the Company Secretary. As you're aware, Mr. Krithivasan has been appointed by the Board as the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the company, with effect from June 1, 2023. I would like to thank Mr. Rajesh Gopinathan for his contributions to the company over the years, and also would like to wish the very best for Mr. Krithivasan in his new role.
I would also like to take a moment at this time to express our deep sense of loss on the sad demise of our former CFO, Mr. V. Ramakrishnan, who was affectionately called as Ramki. He had made enormous contributions to the company during his time. I would like to focus on the market environment and performance of the company and what we can look ahead. As you all know, the year 2022-2023 has been a year of intense geopolitical as well as economic volatility. The ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict and other geopolitical tensions have caused a lot of disruption, especially in the functioning of the supply chains globally. There has been a surge in inflation, more so in the developed markets. The economic outlook for 2023 appears to have a downside risk, and the global GDP is expected to be around 2.9%.
In such an environment, the demand for your company's services has shown remarkable resilience. This is a testimony to the strength of your company's business model and its ability to adapt and adopt to the continuously evolving technological landscape. Your company has a clear focus on staying relevant for our customers and create value for all stakeholders. Our focus has been to continue to invest on our people, build new capabilities, invest in research and innovation, as well as development of the intellectual property. We continue to play a very important role for our clients to enable their business transformation, helping them to accelerate technology adoption, as well as bring agility in execution during the transformation. The world is going through multiple transitions at this point in time.
The most important three such transitions are: a digital and artificial intelligence transition, new energy transition, and transition towards a resilient global supply chain. All of these transitions require significant investment in technology, new products and innovation by all our clients. First, over the past decade, there has been a rapid evolution of digital technologies. We have gotten used to several buzzwords, but each of these technologies have had a significant impact on all businesses. Now, particularly the advancements in AI have made AI as a key focus area. The world and businesses have been focused on adapting to what we call as a predictive AI, but already we are seeing a transition happening from predictive AI to generative AI. The majority of the businesses are still.
Adopting to predictive AI, and they are all at different stages of such transformation, capturing large volumes of data and harnessing the power of analytics, cloud, and IoT. Generative AI would further require technology investments and talent, and execution on the part of all companies globally, irrespective of the industries they operate in. The second transition I want to talk about is the transition towards new energy. Commitment towards new energy transition, sustainability, and a greener world is becoming a top priority for all businesses, governments, and society. It is happening across industries, be it services or manufacturing. New business models are emerging. The transition requires significant innovation, investment in technology, be it electric mobility, renewable power, hydrogen or sustainable aviation, and a number of other areas, including small modular reactors. In addition, sustainability compliance-related standards are evolving, and new regulations are coming into play.
Across all of this, there will be significant investments required in information technology and systems and applications that the companies will have to invest in. The third, the geopolitical shifts are altering the current established supply chains. Companies are creating alternative supply chains to ensure continuity, resilience, in addition to efficiency. Due to this, new ecosystems are being created, and India is playing a pivotal role in such supply chains. This requires capital investments as well as investments in technology to set up digital-first manufacturing operations and delivery. All the above trends require investments in technology, talent, project execution, and your company is extremely well-placed to partner with clients in enabling them in such transformations, and is making all the necessary investments.
In addition, your company is focused on the talent that is required for the coming decade, both in terms of hiring the required talent, as well as investment in training of the existing people, as well as the new talent that we bring into the company. A large number of young engineers have been hired by the company in the last two years. In the year FY 2022, we brought in over 110,000 engineers. In the last fiscal year, another 44,000 engineers. Our workforce is global, diverse, and represent 150 nationalities. Women make up close to 36% of our workforce. The training investment is very significant. During the last year, the company has logged in more than 50 million training hours. All of this continues to help the company to deliver the right financial results and value to shareholders.
The company delivered INR 225,458 crore of revenue, which is a growth of 17.6%, at an operating margin of 24.1%. Our net profit was 18.7%. The earnings per share was INR 115.19, a growth of 11.2% over the previous year. In line with the practice of returning 80%-100% of free cash flow to shareholders, based on the company's performance, the directors have recommended a final dividend of INR 24 per share, bringing the total dividend for the year to INR 115 per share. For the full year, the company's shareholder payout was INR 42,079 crore, representing 108% of the free cash flow during the year.
The company also received several awards and recognition globally. I'm happy to say the company was the only Indian brand in the Top 50 of the 2022 Kantar BrandZ Awards. Company is amongst the Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands and is named among the Top 10 Fastest Growing Brands. TCS combines its strong sense of purpose with a digital expertise and innovation, not only for its own sustainability journey, but also that of its customers. The company's sustainability program is in line with Project Aalingana, which is the Tata Group- level initiative to drive the group entities to be a net zero group by 2045. On the CSR front, we continue to work with communities across the world, pursuing our long-standing commitment to programs in the areas of skill development, bridging the digital divides and STEM education.
The company's CSR initiatives have benefited over 4.5 million people during the last fiscal year. The future before us is exciting. Your company, with customer centricity at the core of its strategy, is well-placed to scale up to the opportunities in various areas, whether it is digital engineering, transformation using cloud, IoT, and artificial intelligence, necessary deployment of cyber tools to ensure cybersecurity of all our clients, or play a leading role in deploying 5G and 6G technologies, not only for the telecom operators, but for the enterprises, to take advantage of modern technology to make every company a real-time company. Our commitment to our employees will remain topmost, with a focus on their career development, well-being, and camaraderie. I would like to thank all of you, shareholders, for your valued support. Now I look forward to taking questions from you.
Before that, I'll request the CEO and MD, Krithiva san, to make a presentation.
Thank you, Chairman. Good afternoon, shareholders. Let me begin by saying that I'm very excited and humbled by the opportunity to lead this remarkable organization, that I've been part of for the last 34 years, and also to be in front of you today. Over the next few minutes, I'll provide you an overview of our performance in FY 2023. We had a very strong growth in FY 2023, with the revenue growing at about 17.6% and delivering a revenue of INR 225,458 crores. In constant currency terms, it translates to about 13.7% year-on-year growth. We also, despite the strong macroeconomic overhang, we delivered a strong total TCV. Our total order book for the year was about $34.1 billion, and it translates roughly to 1.2 billion book-to-bill ratio.
Continuing our TCV growth, we actually ended Q4 at about $10 billion TCV, which is the strongest for the year, and this despite the banking crisis in the U.S. and also the resultant uncertainty. Our strong revenue growth also came with industry-leading profitability. Our operating margin was at 24.1%, and net margin was at 18.7%. With the three interim dividends, the special dividend and the final dividend, our total dividend for the year was INR 115 per share, which translates into a total payout of INR 42,079 crores, which is 108.2% of the free cash flow. On the people front, we ended the year with a workforce that is 614,795 strong.
With falling attrition, we recalibrated our hiring efforts, focusing more on utilizing the excess capacity we built in the prior year. Net addition during the year was 22,600 people. Our workforce continued to be very diverse, with women making up 35.7% of the base and with 150 nationalities represented. On the environmental front, we are all making good progress on our net zero journey. You might recall that we had set an intermediate goal of reducing our Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 70% by 2025, versus the base year 2016. I'm very happy to inform you that we surpassed this target in FY 2023, two years ahead of schedule, bringing down our absolute Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 71%.
This was made possible through greater energy efficiency and by significantly increasing our use of renewable energy. Since 2016, we have had a twelvefold increase in the use of renewable energy. Lastly, we continue to work for the betterment of communities across the world. Our contributions and the volunteering efforts of TCSers have resulted in beneficial outcome for 4.5 million individuals across the world. Let's also look at into the financial numbers now over the five-year horizon. Okay, on a five-year horizon, from FY 2029 to 2023, if you look at, our revenues have grown by 54%, and this is entirely organic growth. This translate into a compounded annual growth rate of 12.9%. Importantly, this is a profitable growth.
Our operating margin is industry-leading and has been consistently within a narrow band of 24%-26%, as you can see. In terms of longer-term value creation, you can notice as we have extremely shareholder-friendly capital allocation policy. That's very evident from these two charts. The first chart shows our cash usage over the last five years. We've been re-returning 91% of the cash generated to the shareholders. Also, the annual payouts in absolute terms, as well as percentage term of the net profit, has been close to, It's been consistently at about 91%, I'm sorry, at 99.8%. Overall, in these five years, our pure company has paid out INR 175 lakh 5 crore in regular dividends, special dividends, and buybacks, including taxes. This amounts an average payout of 98.2%. Okay?
The strength and resilience of our business model comes from our customer centricity. By putting the customer at the heart of everything we do, we have been able to build deep, enduring relationships with them across every industry. Customers simply love the experience of working with TCS, and continually reward us with incremental business that helps drive our growth and wallet share expansion. The outcomes are evident in the two charts on this slide. The number of clients contributing over $100 million in annual revenue went up from 44 to 60 over the last five years. Those contributing over $50 million went up from 99 to 133, and those contributing over $20 million went up from 215 to 291. The revenue per client who are kind of there, from with whom we are billing more than $1 million, okay?
That's also average revenue of those clients have also moved up from 20.8 to 22.5. Revenue per client has moved in that, in this range. More importantly, you can also see from the bottom of the chart that we have been rated consistently number one in customer satisfaction over the last eight years by industry independent survey, which is the largest one done in Europe, and we are very proud of what we have done with our customers over these years. Now, let's look at some of the demand drivers in FY 2023. Okay. Our order book in FY 2023 had a good mix of all kinds of deal wins. We have listed the vertical specific demand drivers in the Management Discussion and Analysis section of our annual report.
In the interest of time, I have abstracted out the broad themes and listed them here. We continue to win growth and transformation projects throughout the year. Key themes included M&A integration or divestitures, product or business model innovation, customer experience transformation, and data and analytics for improved decision-making. Cloud transformation continued to be a key driver in FY 2023, with greater emphasis on execution. Clients turned to us to migrate their larger, more complex workloads to the cloud and also to optimize their cloud expenses. Deals linked to cost optimization came into greater focus in the second half of the year. We saw clients consolidate their vendor landscapes to not only drive greater cost efficiency, but also to accelerate their transformation programs.
With our scale and full services capability, clients saw us as a preferred strategic partner to manage their current application estates while migrating them to their new technology stacks. We saw significant traction to our operating model transformation. In FY 2023, we signed 29 large operating model transformation deals, covering business as well as IT operation, compared to 18 in the prior year. These basically entail reimagining each of these processes within a set of business or IT operations by embedding next-generation technologies within them to significantly boost automation. This results in leaner, faster, more agile, and more resilient operation. TCS Cognix, our AI-driven human machine collaboration suite, has been a game changer, enabling faster transformations and deliver concrete business benefits within months. Its 600 prebuilt, configurable, and reusable digital solutions enable plug-and-play transformation of a range of business and technology functions, horizontal and vertical.
Nearly 300 of our clients are using it to transform their business and IT operations. In our FY 2023 annual report, we have provided a few illustrative case studies of how TCS is helping clients, as well as nations transform using technology. While I won't go into the detail, you can read them in the annual report at leisure. What stands out in these stories is how clients across the world are looking at TCS as their innovation partner to power growth, their growth and transformation. See, this innovation is made possible by the sustained investments we have been making in research and innovation. Today, we have over 5,500 dedicated researchers and innovators across TCS, focused on industry use cases for various cutting-edge technologies like generative AI, quantum computing, space technology for remote sensing, robotics, and digital twins.
We have over 440 innovation centers and five co-innovation hubs that we call Pace Port across the world in New York, Pittsburgh, Toronto, Amsterdam, and Tokyo. The Toronto and Pittsburgh centers were inaugurated in FY 2023. At these Pace Ports, our teams collaborate with clients to ideate on solutions to their most pressing business problems, rapidly build prototypes, get stakeholder buy-in, and build minimum viable products. Clients can also gain access to our extended innovation ecosystem, consisting of over 2,700 startup partners and more than 80 academic partners at these centers. You can see the outcome of these investments at the bottom of the screen. As of March 31st, we had filed for 7,305 patents, of which 2,878 have been granted.
For 30 of our clients, we have set up agile innovation clouds, which are location-independent teams of innovators who help speed up and scale up their innovation programs. Now, let's move on to our workforce. We closed the year with a headcount of 614,795 people, associates. That's a net addition of 22,600 over the last year. The industry-wide spike in employee churn started settling down in FY 2023 after we expanded the talent pool by bringing on board an unprecedented number of fresh engineers over the last two years. Attrition in IT services on an LTM basis is still high at 20.1%, but as we exited the fiscal year, the quarterly annualized figure has fallen significantly from the peak figure in September.
Over the years, we have been steadily localizing our workforce, bringing on board local talent in each of our major markets. Our workforce today is a highly diverse one, with 150 nationalities represented and with over 220,000 women. Importantly, our focused leadership development programs are helping increase the number of women in senior management. Over the years, that number has grown by 60%. Women make up a significant proportion of our innovator as well as contextual master communities. In terms of talent development, investment in organic talent development has been at the core of how we successfully navigated technology change and participated fully in the opportunities that opened up by new technologies. We have fostered a culture of lifelong learning and link learning to career growth.
That is how we have been able to achieve these big numbers. TCSers are proactively investing in deepening their expertise and picking up new competencies, qualifying them to better assignment and faster career growth. Cumulatively, they logged 48.3 million learning hours in FY 2023 and acquired 6 million new competencies. Five hundred thousand TCSers have been trained on digital technology, and over 110,000 of them are certified on hyperscaler cloud technologies, making us a top one or two partners to the top three cloud providers. We also have been investing in the mid-level cohort to help them gain new market-relevant skills and accelerate their career growth. We have made very good progress, with 90% participation rate from the cohort, and 60% of them getting certified on new technologies.
A big driver of employee interest in upskilling and cross-skilling has been the TCS Elevate program, which links learning to career growth. Over 400,000 employees have participated in this program, and 22,000 TCSers have been identified as high talent, qualifying for higher pay. These industry-leading outcomes have made our talent development program a benchmark and the recipient of many global awards, a few of which are listed here. We've also been focused on giving back to the society. As a purpose-led organization, we continue to invest in helping communities across the world in areas of skill development, bridging of digital divide, and STEM education. All these programs have scaled up very nicely in recent years. Our adult literacy program benefited 1.1 million learners in FY 2023. Similarly, for each of our key programs, you can see the number of beneficiaries.
Altogether, we estimate that our community outreach programs have benefited over 4.5 million people across the world. Besides the financial contributions we make through the TCS Foundation, we have a large number of TCSers stepping forward and volunteering their time and effort for local community initiatives. In FY 2023, TCSers contributed over 2.8 million volunteering hours, making a huge difference to their local communities. Talk about the sustainability journey. On the environmental front, we are making very good progress in our journey to be a net zero emitter of greenhouse gases. You might recall that we had set an intermediate goal of reducing our Scope 1 and 2 emission by 70% by 2025. This is the base year, 2016.
I'm very happy to inform you that we surpassed this target in FY 2023, two years ahead of schedule, bringing down our absolute Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 71%. This has been made possible by reducing our energy consumption and increasing our use of renewable energy. If you look at the last seven years, we have more than doubled our business in revenue terms and grown our headcount by 73%. Despite such strong growth, we have been able to reduce our absolute energy consumption by 29% during that period through a variety of initiatives. We have increased our use of renewable energy 12-fold during this period, amounting to over 55% of the total energy consumed in FY 2023. In addition to mitigating our own carbon footprint, we are also helping clients manage theirs.
We continue to see strong traction for our sustainability offerings across multiple industries, led by BFSI, Retail and CPG, and Manufacturing. One such story of the work we are doing to help Eversource Energy grow its clean energy business is described in our annual report, which you can read at leisure. Moving on to our brand building. During the year, we organized multiple in-person marketing events. The return of in-person customer forum was greeted with much enthusiasm by clients, and we saw strong turnout at our customer summits and other events. Our capabilities and market success continue to get strong endorsement from various research firms in their competitive assessments. In FY 2023, TCS won 126 leader rankings in such assessments.
The strong goodwill we enjoy across our stakeholder universe with clients, employees, investors, and with communities across the world, has resulted in a strong brand positioning. TCS was ranked among the top 2 most valuable IT services brand by Brand Finance. TCS was the only Indian brand to feature in the Top 50 in Kantar BrandZ Most Valuable Global Brands, and named among the Top 10 fastest growing brands. Some of the other awards we won during are displayed here. With that, I conclude my presentation. Over to you, Chairman. Thank you.
Thank you, Krithi. I would like to turn to the speaker shareholders. Let us start with Mr. Arun Kumar Boppana.
Hello? I can't hear you. Hello?
We can hear you. We can hear you.
Okay. Good afternoon. Today, the focus is on market cap and not value, valuable businesses, sir. TCS is built on to be a valuable business. Even when went for public issue in 2004, when the stock market was at peak, I think somehow we postponed. When questioned, Ratan Tata said, "I'm glad TCS did not go for public issue when the market was high, because all would have lost money." Who else but Tata will say like that and be humble? Sir, I send all questions to Pradeep. Pradeep has answered all the questions. It will be inappropriate to repeat them. But I do not want to be jobless at this AGM. At 73, I will take some liberty with you. I picked up, added two more questions.
I'd like to see the smile and twinkle in your eyes, that it's your parent company, we are there to support you. Sir, how dangerous is AI, and what are the remedy measures? Technology definitely made our life easier. Now, children want to make money trading in cryptocurrencies. Is this a new fad, and how dangerous is this? Closing on a light, lighter note, Chairman, sir, your smile is a curved line that is straightening a lot of things in the group. Compliments for that. In conclusion, TCS has tremendous opportunity to capture, to develop, to deliver, to destine us, and to delight us with good results. I wish you all the best. Thank you so much.
Manoj Kumar Gupta?
Hello?
Yes, can hear you.
Hello. Yeah. Good afternoon, respected Chairman, Board of Directors, fellow shareholders. My name is Manoj Kumar Gupta. I've joined this meeting from my residence, Kolkata. Namaskar. Sir, I feel proud because, and today you are its chairman. TCS. It all credit goes to you. Whatever today is TCS. Being a shareholder, we feel proud on your leadership. I think that you should also feel proud that you are chairing the company where you have started the journey of your life. I warm welcome our new MD and CEO, with the hope that he will also help you to take the company on new heights under your guidance and supervision in future. Sir, I thank to the Company Secretary and his team to help us join this meeting through VC. Sir, dividend is INR 115.
Excellent dividend of INR 115 on the paired up of INR 1 share. Sir, today, your market cap is near approximately INR 1.175 crore. When the market cap will be double? What's your plan to increase the liquidity in the market, and market cap should be double. I will not suggest to you that issue the bonus share in the ratio of 1:1, because you have issued the bonus in the ratio of 1:1 in April 2018, so 5 years back. The time has come to reward again to the shareholders. You consider in the ratio of 1:2, so our market cap can touch INR 20 lakh crore, if you will consider the bonus.
CSR, you are doing a wonderful job for the community and society. I will not say a single word on the CSR for the Tata company. Think about to, in this region also, to start some CSR job, to help the community and the society in this part also. Have you any plan to open the campus in Northeast? Northeast is also growing fast. After become the NDA government in Assam, Tripura, the states are moving fast. Have you any plan to start? Some days back, there was a media report that, work from home system, young generation. How many peoples have resigned?
क्योंकि अभी 3 years तक Tata Consultancy Services एक ऐसी कंपनी थी, लोगों को पैसा भी दिया, घर से काम भी कराया और जब दुनिया खुल गई और घर काम पर आने को बोले तो बोले हम काम नहीं कर पाएंगे. How many people है रिजाइन? Sir, have you any plan to get more government job like ए passport? You can tie up with the IRCTC or CBSE and ICSE. Sir, education learning center for students from class 6 to 10 or 12. You can open the education learning center for students in different part of the country to make the future of the country bright and talent because India है talent and foreigners are using our talent to become the global leader in the world. We can also use the talent of the country by use opening some education learning center under the umbrella of TCS. Sir, reward future plan? What's your future plan?
लास्ट बट लीस्ट आई थैंक्स टू यू एंड सर, आई बिलीव दैट यू विल थिंक माय व्यू टू रिवार्ड द इन्वेस्टर्स एंड इंक्रीज द मार्केट कैपिटलाइजेशन बाय डिवाइडिंग द शेयरहोल्डर। थैंक यू सर!
थैंक यू, मनोज। अ, संतोष कुमार सरफ।
नमस्कार चेयरमैन, माय नेम इज संतोष कुमार सरफ, आई इज़ स्पीकिंग फ्रॉम कोलकाता सर। सर, माय थैंक्स फॉर गिव ए गुड डिविडेंड ऑफ हंड्रेड एंड फिफ्टी रूपीज़ इज मोर देन गिव सेविंग्स अकाउंट सर। सर, माय टू और थ्री क्वेश्चन इज हाउ मेनी न्यू क्लाइंट एडेड ड्यूरिंग द ईयर सर एंड व्हाट टाइप ऑफ न्यू प्रोडक्ट लॉन्च ड्यूरिंग द ईयर? एंड थिर्ड, आई वांट टू नो कि आउट ऑफ थ्री हंड्रेड लैख थ्री थर्टी फोर थाउजेंड एट हंड्रेड ट्वेंटी फाइव मेल एंप्लॉई ओन्ली फिफ्टी फोर एंप्लॉई गेट पैटर्निटी बेनिफिट, व्हाई नॉट ऑल? सर, जो एंप्लॉई को आप पैटर्निटी बेनिफिट दे रहे हैं, जब तीन लाख चौंतीस हजार टोटल एंप्लॉई हैं सर, क्या कारण है?
Sir, आपका कोई बायबैक का प्लान हो, बताइए कि आपने 2021 में भी बायबैक किया था, 2022 में भी बायबैक किया था। अभी मार्केट प्राइस हमारा कम है। अगर आप बायबैक करते हैं तो इसका फायदा हमको होगा क्योंकि आप अर्टम टेंडर के थ्रू बायबैक करते हैं, मार्केट से बायबैक नहीं करते हैं, sir. ज्यादा समय नहीं मिलेगा। वर्क फ्रॉम होम की क्या पोजीशन है, sir? क्या अभी वर्क फ्रॉम होम में कितने % एंप्लॉई अभी काम कर रहे हैं और फ्यूचर प्लान क्या है, sir?
समय देने के लिए धन्यवाद। आशा करता हूं जितने भी director हैं, जितने भी अधिकारी हैं और जितने भी कर्मचारी और भी जो company में present हैं, उनको शुभकामनाएं देता हूं। अब वहां से प्रार्थना करता हूं आने वाले साल 23 और 24 सभी के लिए उनके और उनके परिवार के लिए healthy, wealthy, personal safety के साथ व्यतीत हो, sir. future में आशा करता हूं कि इसी तरह DC meeting में मिलते रहेंगे, जिससे की बहुत से city के shareholder attend कर सकेंगे और बहुत से director भी अपनी जगह से attend कर सकेंगे। धन्यवाद! नमस्कार, एक बार।
Dharav Jamadar.
गुड इवनिंग एंड ग्रीटिंग्स ऑफ द डे टू द रिस्पेक्टेड चेयरमैन एंड ऑल द बोर्ड मेंबर्स। माय नेम इज डॉक्टर दरो जमदार फ्रॉम सूरत, गुजरात। आई वुड लाइक टू कांग्रेचुलेट, each एंड एवरी स्टेकहोल्डर ऑफ माय कंपनी ऑन परफॉर्मिंग ट्रिमेंडसली वेल, आउटपरफॉर्मिंग each एंड एवरी पीयर्स ऑफ द सेक्टर एंड पोस्टिंग, रोबस्ट एंड इंप्रैसेबल नंबर्स बोथ ऑन Q वन Q एंड बाय बाय बेसिस फॉर द होल फिस्कल ईयर। सो लाइक एवरी ईयर, इट इज एन ऑनर एंड प्रिविलेज टू गेट एन अपॉर्चुनिटी टू हैव एन इंसाइटफुल कन्वर्सेशन विद यू ऑन डिफरेंट एस्पेक्ट्स। सम ऑफ माय क्वेश्चन व्हिच आई वुड लाइक टू, अह, व्हिच आई वुड रिक्वेस्ट यू टू एड्रेस आर, फर्स्ट वन, अपार्ट फ्रॉम बीएफएसआई सेगमेंट, व्हिच सेक्टर इज आवर कंपनीज, कंपनीस फेसिंग लो डिमांड एंड हाईली अनसर्टेन डिमांड। व्हाट आर द स्टेप्स टेकन फ्रॉम योर साइड टू इंप्रूवाइज द डिमांड इन दैट पर्टिकुलर सेक्टर?
सेकंड, कीपिंग इन माइंड हाई इंफ्लेशन सीनारियो अक्रॉस ऑल जियोग्राफि, पर्टिकुलरली यूएस, देर इज लो डिस्क्रिशनरी स्पेंडिंग फ्रॉम रिटेल एंड इवन फ्रॉम बिग क्लाइंट्स। व्हाट इज योर ओपिनियन बाय वन कैन द डिमांड एनवायरनमेंट फ्लॉरिश बैक? थर्ड, व्हाट हैज़ बीन द मेजर सक्सेस फैक्टर ऑफ आवर कंपनी सक्सेस इन द यूके मार्केट, स्पेशली इन द Q थ्री एंड Q फोर ऑफ दिस फिस्कल ईयर। फोर्थ, व्हाट इज योर आउटलुक ऑन वेदर? द प्राइसिंग पावर विल इंप्रूव और डिमिनिश इन द कमिंग ईयर कंपेयर टू द प्रेवियस ईयर अक्रॉस ऑल सेगमेंट। फिफ्थ, कैन यू प्लीज एक्सप्लेन हाउ आर कॉग्नि, कॉग्निक्स प्लेटफॉर्म इज डिफरेंट फ्रॉम दैट ऑफ पीयर्स?
व्हाट आर इट्स सैलिएंट फीचर एंड दैट शल गिव अस अ कंपेटेटिव एज। सिक्स, कैन यू प्लीज शेयर व्हाट आर द प्रोडक्टिव रीजंस बिहाइंड इंक्रीजिंग आउटसोर्सिंग ऑफ सर्विसेज इन यूरोप, यूरोपियन रीजन। सेवन, व्हाट स्टेप्स हैज़ माय कंपनी टेकन फॉर द वेल बीइंग ऑफ इट्स एंप्लॉई इन द लास्ट फिस्कल ईयर? थैंक यू सो मच फॉर दिस अपॉर्चुनिटी। आई वुड लाइक टू वेलकम आवर न्यू सीईओ एंड विश हिम गुड लक। थैंक यू, सर!
Thank you. Rachana Todi.
अ, गुड इवनिंग, चेयरमैन सर एंड मेंबर्स ऑफ द बोर्ड। आई एम रचना तोडी, मेंबर ऑफ मिलेनियम, कोलकाता एंड अ प्राउड शेयरहोल्डर ऑफ टीसीएस। सर, ऐज़ वी नो, जर्मनी इज़ ऑलरेडी इन रिसेशन एंड यूरोप एंड यूएस आर ऑल्सो स्लोइंग डाउन। सो माय क्वेश्चन इज, as मोर देन फिफ्टी परसेंट ऑफ द कंपनीज रेवेन्यू कम्स फ्रॉम यूएस एंड थर्टी परसेंट फ्रॉम यूरोप।
What impact will this have on the company in the current financial year? Thank you, sir.
Mr. Hiranand Kotwani?
Yes, sir, I am audible?
Yes, you are audible.
Yeah, it's a great pleasure to join you, respected Chairman. Namaste to all dignitaries attending this meeting. This gentleman has narrated well, there is a little room to criticize and ask the question. Certainly, Mr. Chairman, I will —your opinion and your own talent development, how our organization is going to develop the talent of the organization. Certainly, the Tata ethics remain the importance in the future of our employees, how we teach, because everybody this time is a teaching is a well, spiritual teaching and other teaching is well. You said in learning, how much cost are involved in the learning of our organization, these employees? My only concern is the huge HR. Certainly, the health issue. How you tackle the health of this TCS people at global level, our cost involved in that? Nothing more to add.
I will convey good wishes to our organization. Thank you and good luck.
Shankar Bansal?
You can hear my voice, sir? Hello.
Hello.
You can hear my voice, sir?
Yeah, I can hear you. I can hear you.
Okay. Respected Chairman and Board of Directors, I first thank for Company Secretary to joining this AGM. I want to know more about [IA], [inaudible] income this year. Also, I have two TPs in the account. One is myself, one is my partner name. My partner name is, speaker name is, number is, I don't visit the number, speaker number. Right. Also, I have given my queries by email, if you can reply us, I might have put to you. Thank you so much.
Mr. Gautam Tiwari?
Sir, you can listen me, sir?
I can listen to you.
Okay, sir. Can you see me also? Very good afternoon, my dear sir, very much honorable and our respectable, very popular Chairman, Sir Chandra ji. Our Mr. O.P. Bhatt, also, I must say, Keki Mistry also, our MDs, our new MD, CEO, and all other eminent board of directors, team TCS, my fellow shareholders, myself, Gautam Tiwari, I'm participating at this AGM from Mumbai. Dear sir, first, I observed that our CSR team has really worked hard and has identified the areas and projects for very good CSR activities, which are beneficial to the society and community at large. Congratulations to each and every member of our CSR team for their work.
Sir, I thank you, as usual, for paying the very generous dividend of INR 115 per share. Thank you very much, sir. We shareholders are very happy about it. Sir, I thank our secretary department, IR and accounts department also for preparing very good annual report and sending notice in time to all shareholders for their cordial and harmonious relationship, and satisfying all issues and queries of shareholders always in all the time, precisely well. Sir, I warmly welcome our new CEO, MD. Of course, he's not only as a CEO, he's new, otherwise he's there in the company, Mr. Krithivasan, and I'm very sure his expertise and influence will benefit the company in the years to come. Dear sir, I support the appointments and reappointments of all directors, and I also support all resolutions which I already voted in advance to them.
Sir, here I would like to mention specifically, that we are very much proud that our company is ranked number 1 in customer satisfaction and number, I mean, we're very good in many other. Winning many awards and recognitions, sir, amongst top five, top 15 rather, globally, and among top eight also in our technical services. So many fields we are in the aggressive mode, we are leading. I am very much proud of being you and your under your superb leadership, the company will progress hard and hard. Sir, two things which you have explained, our geopolitical condition and altering supply, or they are altering supply chains because of volatility of global economy also.
Which are unavoidable, but rest all, what are the strategies that we are taking to afford the progress of our company? Sir, I express our deep condolence for our CFO, Ramkis, sudden demise, and I really pray Almighty, right from the depth of my heart, for his peaceful rest, for his rest, he may rest in peace, sir. Sir, a few queries which I would like to ask you, sir. Sir, what is the attrition rate of our company during the year? Sir, secondly, how many do we have any physically challenged employees now in our company? Sir, how many contract employees we do have in our company? Now, all are our company employees. Sir, what are your current year's budget for CSR and R&D?
Sir, very important thing, our company's strategy for protecting our clients from cyber crimes and providing them the cybersecurity. Sir, rest all is very fine. Sir, as usual, we have got total trust, confidence, and faith in the management under your supreme leadership, and we share in the years to come, you are going to reward shareholders in the best possible manner. All shareholders are very happy being with TCS always and all the time. Thank you very much, sir. I wish you all the best and a bright future and a happy and prosperous, healthy, very life all the way, sir. Thank you very much.
Tamal Kumar Majumder?
Well, good afternoon, Chandra, sir. Our new CEO, Mr. Krithivasan, Mr. Mistry, Bhatt sir, and other directors of the company, nice to see you, all of you, in good health and spirit. Myself, Tamal Kumar Majumder, an equity shareholder from Kolkata, but attending the meeting from Mumbai. My special thanks to our company secretary, Mr. Gaitonde, for sending me the annual report and the link for the joining today's meeting. Mr. Rajesh Gopinathan stepped down from the post of CEO, effective from 31st May, 2023. We all wish him good health and spirit in the coming years. In his place, TCS veteran, who is with the company for 34 long years, Mr. K. Krithivasan, took over as the new CEO of the company.
With the help and guidance from the Board chaired by Chandrasekaran, sir, we all hope that he will be able to deliver best or better results in the coming months. All the best to you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for sharing your thoughts with us and Mr. K. Krithivasan for his thoughtful presentation. Sir, our company disclosed its position as regards media reports on corruption in respect our employee recruitment is concerned. As an old shareholder, I accept the company's view in this regard. It is to be noted here that the company immediately acted on the whistleblower complaint and took remedial measures silently, long before its publication in the media. We have full faith on the distinguished board under your leadership. We hope that company management, if company management notice any loopholes in this regard, it should be corrected immediately.
Please share your thoughts in this respect in order to put to rest media, future media stories, sir. During financial year 2023, TCS again declared excellent results, and also announced total dividend of INR 115 per share against stand-alone EPS of INR 106.88, with a payout of INR 42,079 crores for the shareholders under your leadership. Our heartfelt gratitude to you and your dedicated team for such all-round success during financial year 2023. I've gone through the annual report, as well as the reports of subsidiary for financial year 2023, and have some queries relating to its audited accounts and other matters, and as usual, seek your indulgence, sir. During the year, the growth came with an industry-leading operating margin of 24.1%.
Our net margin was 18.7%, which was much higher than Infosys Limited's 16.4% during financial year 2023. For the full year, growth was led again by Retail and CPG, which grew by 22.1%. Last year, it grew by 20.6%, supported by Life Sciences and Healthcare by 20.2%. Last year, it was 19.2%. Communication and Media by 18.1%. Last year, it was 14%. Whereas growth in BFSI was lower at 14.6%. Last year, it was 15.1%. Manufacturing and Utilities grew by 13.1%. Last year, it was 19.4%. There is a decrease of more than 5% in this regard, as Manufacturing is concerned.
What is the reason for abnormal decrease in growth of Manufacturing and Utilities in relation to financial year 2022? Would you please share your thoughts in this regard, sir? How these verticals are doing in the current quarter, and your expectation for financial year 2024? What is the share of our digital segment as regards total revenue is concerned, and your target for financial year 2024? Digital revenue, sir, I want to know. Sir, page 94 mentioned, "If the delayed decision-making and cash preservation seen in some segments at the end of financial year 2023 flows over into first half of year 2024, that could result in some moderation in the full year revenue growth after two years of strong growth."
On the other hand, our CFO, Mr. Samir Seksaria, mentioned in page 32, he mentioned that with the supply side challenge easing, incremental cost of hiring should be lower, and it gives us an opportunity to bring down subcontractor expenses. That is one margin lever for financial year 2024. Would you please share your view in the strength of the proposed financial results for financial year 2024, in the light of company's order book position at $34.1 billion, and orders in pipeline as at 31st March, 2023, and margin lever for financial year 2024, as mentioned by your CFO. Sir, page 90-94 shows that our margin in respect of all segments, except Others, decreased in during financial year 2023 in relation to financial year 2022.
If you look at BFSI it decreased from 26.9% to 25.9%. Communication, Media, et cetera, from 29.9% to 28.3%. Retail and Consumer, from 28.8% to 25.7%. Life Sciences from 30% to 28%. Manufacturing from 30.1% to 27. 5%. Others, only in case of Others, it increased from 20.6% to 21.1%. Would you please share with us the reason for decrease in margin and our expectation for financial year 2024? In this connection, I want to mention here that our competitor, Infosys, is lagging behind us in all segments, except retail, where they booked a margin of 30.1% against ours, 25.7% .
There is a gap of nearly 5%, more than 4% as regards the retail is concerned with Infosys. In case of Communication, Manufacturing and Life Sciences segment, margins are concerned, our company is much better position than Infosys during financial year 2023. Sir, during financial year 2023, average currency exchange rate for three major currencies against rupee were: U.S. dollar, INR 80.74, Great Britain pound was INR 96.98, and Euro was INR 84.01. The rupee slide furthers against all the three major currencies during the current year. Yesterday, the rate was U.S. dollar, INR 82.05, Great Britain pound was INR 103.69, and Euro was INR 89.67. In this scenario, do we expect more profits for our company during Q1 of financial year 2024?
Because rupee is sliding against all these currencies. For the whole year, would you share your thoughts in this regard, sir? Sir, increase in attrition rate from 17.4% to 20.1% during financial year 2023 is a cause of concern. Our Chief Human Resources Officer, Mr. Milind Lakkad, said in page 33, that the high attrition among women in 2023 is a setback for our efforts to promote gender diversity. Would you please share your thoughts in this regard, sir? Sir, it is noted from page 107, that after decreasing number of days sales outstanding in rupee terms from 81 days in financial year 2014 to 65 days in financial year 2022. During financial year 2023, it increased to 67 days.
For financial year 2022, it was 65 days, but it changed to 67 days during the current year. What is the reason for such increase? What was its financial impact during the year, financial year 2023, on our accounts? What is your target in this regard for financial year 2024? Sir, it is nice to note from page 79, that the company increased its R&D expenses on standalone on consolidated basis during financial year 2022, and consolidated basis, it was INR 2,500 crore. Due to higher sale, the percentage decreased by 0.1% in relation to financial year 2022. In this era of competition and increased dependence on artificial intelligence, I strongly believe that company must increase its expenditure in this regard substantially, at least up to 2%-3%, to remain the front runner in the coming months.
Please share your thoughts in this regard, sir. Sir, it is noted from page 211, that the company written off INR 253 crores and also provided INR 126 crores, and U.S.A contributed 43.65% of credit risk during financial year 2023. What was the reason for such huge written off, and how much is relates to U.S.A? What steps the company has taken to decrease the menace? Sir, by geographic markets, North America grew by 24.42%, followed by U.K. at 11.4%, and Continental Europe by 9.2%. India grew by 14.9% during financial year 2023. Whether you are noticing any change in the geographic markets taking into geopolitical situation? Because you mentioned in your speech.
Tamal-
Huh?
There are lots of questions. I'll answer all of them, but I think you should get your closure now.
Sir, two questions only. Two questions. Sir, as regards tax contingency in the of INR 318 crore as at 31st March, 2023 is concerned, present status is to be disclosed. Whether the company received any amount till date from the seller of TCS e-Serve in this respect, due to indemnification from sellers? Sir, another is TCS Foundation, sir. TCS Foundation showed 0 donation during financial year 2023, against last year's figure of INR 679.87 crore. This year, instead of donation, the foundation showed under other liabilities, INR 543.45 crore as earmarked fund received from holding company and other subsidiaries. What is the reason for change of accounting in this class?
Sir, the foundation also showed for the first time a tax provision of INR 61.13 crore during financial year 2023. For the first time, the foundation provided a tax provision. Why the foundation made the provision for tax? Would you share your thoughts in respect of all the changes in TCS Foundation during financial year 2023? It is to be mentioned here, sir, that TCS used to share audited accounts of TCS Foundation with its shareholders. While Infosys, as usual, only shared a 30-page colored booklet without any audited accounts of Infosys Foundation with its shareholders. Thank you, Chandra sir, for giving me a chance to complete my note and my questionnaire, and also to others for patient hearing.
Arti Tekriwal.
A very good evening, respected Chairman, sir, and to the Board of Directors. This is Arti Tekriwal from Jakarta, Indonesia. Besides being a proud shareholder of TCS, I'm a proud member of Millennium Mams. Sir, first on behalf of Millennium Mams, I would like to pay my tribute to Mr. Gopinath for his great contribution to the company. I wish him all the very best in his future endeavors, also wish the new MD the very best in his new role. Sir, although the attrition rate of TCS is not alarming, the way digital India is growing, there may be a shortage of employees soon.
Recently, Millennium Mams visited the GIFT City in Ahmedabad. I'm tempted to request you to think of a TCS city, which may resolve the problem of attrition in the long run, because money cannot be the only attractive factor for employees. This is only a suggestion, sir. Sir, is there any plan to start operations in the GIFT City where all the facilities are available? On a lighter note, sir, we wanted to meet you in person at the AGM. Please do consider our request. Thank you.
Aspi Bhesenia.
Sir, can you see me and hear me?
Yes, Aspi, I can.
Sir, at the outset, I congratulate the management on excellent results and nothing to say, but one thing is there, why no physical meeting, as my predecessor also asked? Next year, even if the MCA extends the date, please ensure that there is a physical AGM for the entire Tata group. Mr. Rajesh Gopinathan ends his letter to the shareholders, saying: "I am confident that TCS's best years are ahead, and I look forward to watching the company's continued success from outside." Sir, why outside? Why not inside? He's leaving us at the wrong time. At the same time, I welcome Mr. K. Krithivasan as CEO, and I hope he not only follows the steps of his predecessor, but also improves. Sir, page 55 of the annual report, list of subsidiaries, associates are given.
Please arrange them alphabetically so that it's easy to locate. Sir, what is our relationship with Tejas Networks? Sir, thanks for increasing the dividend from INR 43 to INR 115 per share. However, I would prefer a buyback since it is tax- effective. Sir, what are you doing about cybersecurity? Quite regularly, we hear of cybersecurity lapses. Sir, page 107, employee cost to total revenue has been steadily increasing year-after-year. Sir, what are your comments on that? Sir, page 131, during the year, INR 3.83 crore of unclaimed dividend was transferred to IEPF. Further, 50,232 shares were also transferred. I would request the company secretary and share department to please try to locate the shareholders and give them the dividend and the shares, rather than simply sending reminders.
Is there any way I can find out if any unclaimed dividend is there of mine before it goes to IEPF? Sir, thank you very much and all the best. I would request you to follow Asian Paints. They had a meeting. They had a WhatsApp group where they used to write the names of the shareholders who were to speak next. That it's easy for us to locate rather than waiting right from beginning till the end. Also, when the chairman's speech started, they sent a message saying, "Now chairman's speech is starting, replying." We know we don't have to wait for the whole meeting. Sir, thank you very much and all the best for the future.
Thank you. Shailesh Mahadevia?
Respected Chairman, distinguished directors, and members of the company. Sir, congratulations for achieving not only excellent, but also exceptional result during the year. Well reproduced in the annual report, which is most exhaustive. Sir, you have also given details in BRSR, et cetera, which are sufficient for the shareholders to understand and appreciate the working of the company. Sir, now I wish to appreciate two more things in your report. Sir, the glossary of nine pages which has been given in the report is extremely useful, particularly people like us who are only investors, but not technically experts. Sir, I would also like to appreciate and congratulate you for the Eisenhower Global Leadership Award.
What is important is the citation given, "One of the most purpose-driven and influential leaders of our time." Sir, we are experiencing them, and we are benefiting from your services to our group, and I'm sure, sir, you will continue to do so in the times to come. Sir, I would also like to appreciate the services of Rajesh Gopinathan and wish him well in the future endeavors. I welcome Krithiv asan as our new CEO and Managing Director. I am sure he will take the company further at a faster speed. Sir, now, I wish to put some questions with a view to increase my understanding. Sir, my first question is that the world GDP is likely to be as low as less than 3%, and therefore, the money spent on IT is likely to go down.
Sir, what I would like to know is that which of our verticals are not affected and which of our verticals are affected the most as a result of this reshuffling of investment? Sir, my next question, that the company is always willing to help the clients to invest and also to train. However, very often we find that the companies are not willing to come forward at the rate at which we like, and therefore, that delays the implementation of the whole thing. Sir, in which way we are likely to or we are already encouraging our clients to be on the line as fast as possible? Sir, my third question is the acquisition of Tejas Networks at a price of INR 15,000 during the year, about, I think, two months ago.
Sir, may I know in which way this acquisition will be helpful to us in the times to come? Well, I may put it the other way. In what way Tejas Networks will benefit by associating with us, as it is already an independent and listed company which is likely to benefit considerably. Sir, my next question is that what is the economic value added of our company, and what rate of interest we have taken into account on reserves and capital of the company? Sir, my fifth question is that today's meeting, how many participants are there and from how many countries they are participating? I believe that large number, not only from India, but from abroad, are likely to be participating. That leads me to my question and suggestion that virtual meetings should be continued in the times to come.
It will give benefit to shareholders around the world to participate, and a person like me, who is more than 84+ , even if the meeting is in Mumbai, I may not be able to join. Sir, this is my suggestion regarding the meetings. My last question is that 5G, and maybe shortly, 6G technology, is also likely to continue. Sir, what I am surprised is that even today, to some extent, 2G continues, 4G is not even adapted by all in every aspect, and in that process, 5G and 6G are likely to be introduced. Sir, can you explain how this whole thing works or likely to work in the times to come? Sir, with this, I wish your organization every success, which is, of course, a way of life as far as TCS is concerned. My best wishes and namaskar to all.
Thank you, sir. Krishma Bijen Shah.
Sir, am I audible?
You are.
Good afternoon, sir, respected Chairman, and members of the Board. I'm Krishna Shah from Mumbai, a proud shareholder of the company and a member of Millennium Mams. Sir, my question is: AI will be the biggest disruption of the decade. How will TCS be affected, both positively and negatively? Can you please elaborate? Thank you, sir.
Praful Chavda.
Hello, sir. Sir, mere awaz aa rahi hai, sir?
Aa rahi hai, sir.
Chairman, sir, Board of Directors. Mere aage 13 aadmi ne bahut sare prashn puche to isko main repeat nahi karna chahta hoon. Main jaanana chahta hoon ki abhi company naye employees kitne increment kar rahi hai, iske baare mein batayenge. Sir, company 3 baar dividend deti hai, to dividend dene ke badle 1 nayi policy laaye, har saal buyback kijiye taki company ki equity kam hoti jayegi aur share rate bahut badhte jayega aur future mein share market mein share ka rate achcha investor ko milega, shareholder ko. Sir, Tata ka 1 IPO aa raha hai to kyon nahi IPO bazaar mein lane ke badle Tata ke jo family shareholder hai, jo Tata Group ke shareholder hai, isko bhi aap preference de taki un logon ko 1 mini bonus jaisa ho jaye aur benefit mile. Aisa kuch hai to koshis kare to kar sakte hai.
Sir, abhi dekhta hoon ki mera video saamne dikhta hai. Prafull Chavda naam dikhta hai par mera speaker number kitna hai, nahi dikhta hai. Chairman sir, aapko bhi taklif hoti hai ki aap shareholder ka naam bolte hai speaker ka par number nahi bolte hai. Number bole to pata chalta hai. Abhi-abhi Sailesh ji bolne ko aaye. Itna senior citizen hai, 90 years ke ho sakte hai, usko bhi 13 number tak wait karna pada. Aise senior citizen ko next future mein aage speaker ka number dena chahiye. Sir, dusri baat hai ki abhi company ka kuch news aata hai ki Tata Group mein koi scam hua. Employees ko galat tareeke se bharti karke INR 100 crore koi kama liye. Isme sir main jaanana chahta hoon ki sahi aadmi ko naukri nahi mili, galat aadmi ko naukri mili.
Agar main bhi koi jagah pe galat tareeke se ghusunga, naukri pa lunga to paise kaise cover karna, paise kaise kamana bolke company se paise kaise vasool karna bolke sochte, main bhi galat kaam karunga. Jo galat tareeke se aaya wo galat kaam bhi karega. Aapki company mein hua, kaun si company mein hua, kya hua? Khali employees ko nikal dene se kya hota hai? Isko to bada se bada punishment milna chahiye. Iski puri sampatti japt honi chahiye. Isko to road pe leke jaane bhikhari bana dena chahiye taki next future mein aisa koi scam na kare. Company ko to nuksan bahut hua hoga. Bole to jo employees aaye honge, jo bhi company mein aapki company ka nahi bol raha hoon. Woh company ko to aane wale jo employees hai isne nuksan hi kiya hoga.
Uski taakat nahi thi kaam karne ki, isliye unhe diye. Aisa next future mein nahi dekh rahe. Sir, Tarun Kumar ji ne bahut lambi speech di hai. Sir, mere ghar mein bhi two chartered accountant hai, two-two CA hai. Main chahu to 50 prashn puch sakta hoon. Aise logon ko three minute se zyada time mat do. Three minute bole three minute sir. Aapki company mein kitne CA hai, yeh main puchna chahta hoon. Kitne MBA final se puchna chahta hoon. Mere khayal se 150 CA honge. 50 CA ki haath mein se annual report jata hai to koi mistake nahi reh sakti hai. Aapke pass har ek reply hota hai. Mujhe pata hai sir. Aise log kyon time barbad karte hai?
Sir, maine hard copy ke liye two baar request bhi jaye, hard copy mujhe nahi mili hai aur next future mein sir kisi ko bhi three minute se time na diye. Chahe Modi ji ho, Amit Shah ho ya Yogi Adityanath Yogi ji ho, isko bhi three minute. Tum manch mein kitna bhi bolo, hamare stage pe aaye, three minute cut kar do. Dhanyawaad sir.
Celestine Elizabeth Mascarenhas. Yes, ma'am.
Yes. Again it went down. Can you hear me, sir?
Very well.
Achha, I'll just go ahead. I heard the previous speaker saying. Respected Chairman, Mr. N. Chandrasekaran, CEO and MD. Welcome to our as a CEO and very good mention. All the insights you are given. Other board members, my fellow shareholders. I am Mrs. C. Mascarenhas speaking from Mumbai. First, I thank the Company Secretary Pradeep Manohar Gaitonde , for giving, for registering me as a speaker and sending me an e-annual report. Thank you so much. Our annual report is very good, informative and with adhering to all the norms of corporate governance, we got a very good dividend of INR 115 per share. It's very good. Also a buyback and very good market capitalization. I congratulate you all for the awards and accolades received during the year. All documented in the annual report. Also, very good CSR work.
Tatas are known for that work. My query is ESG is given more and more importance. My query is: have we gone for the rating? If rating, who is the agency and what is our rating score and whether it is listed on any ESG platform? The same question Infosys I saw it listed Crisil also on the rating, plus it is listed on the ESG platform in some New York and various other places. My second question is, are all work employees now working from home or days in a week in the office? I feel home will be better because traveling is becoming a lot of hassle. Now, third one is, what is the rate of attrition you have given, 20.1%.
How do you control this attrition rate? Actually, I would like to know what is the attrition rate in our researchers and R&D section? What is the global company, which country in the world we get the highest attrition? Just give me an insight in this point of it. Now, how many customers clients added in the last three months, and how much margin we get on an average? Has the margin fallen? Give your comments on AI, machine learning, and other modes making services customers delight. I would endorse the view of Mr. Praful Chavda, who said that, or IPOs, you give it as a preferential, like Tata Technologies will be coming shortly. See that the existing vendors are also made a part at whatever it comes.
Future roadmap for the next three years, where do we can see our TCS as a company in the Tata conglomerate? I support all this. I will, what do you say? Thank you for giving me this patient hearing. Thank you once again.
Homayun B. Pouredehi?
Can you see me, sir? Can you hear me?
I can see you and hear you.
Thank you very much. Sir, it is such nostalgia. We have been attending this TCS meeting right from the very beginning. We have seen it grow in front of our eyes. Of course, a delight to meet Mr. O.P. Bhatt, Mr. Keki Mistry. My God! Remember those days. I'm a senior citizen, by the way, so naturally, a very long association. Sir, I want to just know certain things. Sir, are we into banks also? Infosys we know is into banks. Are we into banks? Sir, you should do a lot to improve the digital services of our bank. I don't want to, you know, enumerate so many hardships and tensions we face, but just one thing I want to give you an example. I've taken my card and gone to Bombay Hospital for very urgent admission of my sister-in-law for black fungus.
My card was not accepted. Finally, you know, we used my sister-in-law's card. Afterwards, I get a call from my bank. "Madam, is it you? Can you answer these questions?" I said: "What nonsense is this? Why did you not accept my card?" They wanted to be sure whether it was me. It was my card. I was holding my card. Sir, how do you tackle these issues? I said, "Please, next time, do not dishonor my card." It was very urgent admission for black fungus, and we had to get admission very fast. Sir, how do you tackle these issues? Please do research. Please make it sure that the banks do not reject the card on the ground, that they want to be sure that we are holding the card and, you know, all that. There are many other issues. I went for GPay payment.
It said my bank is disconnected with GPay, has problems, I don't know, technical issues, server down. Thank God, I had cash with me. Sir, please keep that all in mind. Cyber crimes, cyber attacks, all these issues pertaining to ordinary, common people like me every day. Plus, I'm scared about the mobile banking. You know, we are even more scared of our mobile than of our jewelry.
Can you focus on the company?
Yes, sir. Yes. Now, one more thing I'm going to ask you is, you mentioned that Ukraine war and Russia war has affected our company. Did we have offices in Ukraine and Russia? Please let us know. Of course, or is it generally because companies were affected, so we were affected? We want to know that. Third, please, sir, if you can take up this issue. Yes, your dividend has been very good. Sir, the taxes we have to pay are very high. Can you not use your influence and tell the government to go back to the former rule? The former rule was deduction of tax straight by the company, from the company itself. We are saved. You know, we get confused. We receive a dividend, but it is TDS, and we don't know how to go about it.
Please use your influence in letting the government know that let it go to the former rule of deduction of tax before distribution to the shareholders. Sir, one more thing, you have mentioned 36% labor, ladies workforce. Sir, I think it is very rare a company is appointing such a high number of ladies in their workforce. We are proud of TCS. You have mentioned TCS is a top 10 fastest growing brand. Why? Why not number one? We should target for that. Sir, we heard your speech in detail. We heard your MD speech in detail, I'm closing here itself. I wish our company all the best. We have been rewarded by TCS. You all have been so sincere in being with TCS. You all have worked so hard. Mr. Chandrasekaran, you were first in TCS.
We remember you as the Chairman of TCS and even now. We wish our company all the best. And also you all members having wisdom to make our company progress more and more. Thank you.
Thank you. Sunil Agarwal.
Thank you, sir. Mr. Chairman, Krithivasan , sir, Chandrasekaran, sir, Aarthi Subramanian, madam, Ganapathy Subramaniam, Natarajan, sir, Samir Seksaria ji, Pradeep Manohar Gaitonde, my Company Secretary, and all the other non-executive directors, sir. Wonderful, sir. Main jyada samay nahin leta hun, sir. Bahut log jyada samay le rahe hai, dusra topics baat kar rahe hai, phir bhi hamara board of directors bhi peacefully aur patiently sun rahe hai, sir. Toh bahut bahut dhanyavad, sir. Vanakkam, namaste sir, I'm from Hyderabad, sir. Sir, main sub dividend ke liye bahut khushi tareef karta hun sir. Achcha dividend hai, sir. Bahut proud shareholder hun sir main. Wish naya hamara MD and CEO ko main Krithivasan ko welcome karta hun. I wish you all the best, sir.
Also sir, my company is both world- class ka transparency ka governance hai, isliye bahut congratulation karta hun, sir. Wonderful financial, sir, wonderful awards and CSR also very wonderful, sir. Sir, my question toh kuch bhi nahin hai, sir. Aapke saamne kuch TCS mein puchhne questions nahin hai, sir. Mera suggestions hai, sir. Sir, main from Hyderabad hai na, sir. Hamara IIIT Hyderabad ko kuch support kar rahe hai kya, sir? Is there any collaboration with IIIT Hyderabad? My humble suggestion and request is, sir, please support all the institutes of NIT, sir, NIT Technology, NIT institutes of our Indian NIT, sir. Isliye sir, NIT aur IIT ko support kare toh sir, aur India bhi bade both entrepreneurs ko like Natarajan sir jaise logon ka bahut production bhi hota hai.
Achhe logon ko hum log achhe infrastructure de sakte hai, achha facility de sakte hai, sir. Isiliye I am interested and requesting to support all the IIIT Hyderabad, sir. Also, sir, another question, sir. This strong growth achcha hai sir digital mein, also non-digital ka bhi revenue bhi achcha hai, sir. My company kaisa hai, sir? What is the plans to maintain the growth in non-digital and other revenue sources in coming finances, sir? Is there any acquisition, sir, in please comment, sir. Also, sir, hybrid working ke liye abhi kaisa chal raha hai, sir? Work from home mein chal raha hai aur all work from both offices ko sab log aa rahe hai, sir, iske bare mein bataye, sir. Yeh mera observation question hai, sir. Main jyada samay leta nahin hun, sir.
Under leadership of a new company, new MD and CEO, sir, will aapko hopefully, sir, woh achcha banenge sir, aage badhenge sir. Thank you so much, sir. Namaskar.
Thank you. Lekha Shah?
Hello, can you hear me, sir?
Yes, ma'am, I can hear you.
Thank you, sir. Respected Chairman, sir, Board of Directors and my fellow members, good evening to all of you. Myself, Lekha Shah from Mumbai. First of all, I'm very much thankful to our Company Secretary, Pradeep ji, for sending me the AGM notice well in time, which is full of knowledge, fact, and figures in place. Chairman, sir, a good time to all the persons of company for receiving awards and recognition by our plan during the year 2022 and 2023. Also, I am glad the company is doing very well in the field of CSR activities. Thanks for the wonderful dividend, sir. Sir, I hope the company will continue video conferencing meeting in future. I had many questions to ask you, but they are all covered with the previous speakers. There are two questions.
My first question is: How many employees still work from home, and the percentage of women employees? My second question is: What is our company order book and the new customers addition? I strongly support all the resolutions for today's meeting, and my best wishes, always our company and its prosperity. Thank you, sir.
Om Prakash Kejriwal.
Hello, sir. Am I audible?
Yes, sir.
Good evening, sir ji, and good evening to everybody attending this AGM. Myself, Om Prakash Kejriwal, a proud shareholder of your company from Kolkata. Thank you, sir ji, for providing me the platform to speak something before you. Thanks to our Secretarial Department for helping me in speaker shareholder. Sir ji, this is my first AGM, only due to virtual, though I am your very old shareholder, it is just an opportunity for me to join this meeting sitting in Kolkata. Kar lo duniya mukti mein. People are joining this meeting from U.S., Jakarta, and Denmark. Sir, if possible, please follow this virtual AGM in future also. Sir ji, wow! What a performance, mind-blowing performance. Iske liye aapko, aapke sare Board of Directors ko, aur sabhi employees ko bahut bahut dhanyavaad.
Our EPS is INR 107 on face value of INR 1 on external basis, and dividend is INR 115, means 107% distribution of net profit. Wow! What a distribution. Many, many thanks for such type of distribution. Beauty of our company, our total income is increasing every year. Our net profit is increasing every year. Our EPS is increasing every year, and our dividend is increasing every year, and equity is decreasing every year. Ek shareholder ko aur kya chahiye, sirji. I have no complaint regarding your performance. I support all your resolutions. Sirji, I have two queries in my mind. The scam in recruitment department. Sometimes back, I came to know from media. Sirji, we are Tata brand, and this brand has its own goodwill of more than 100 years all over the world.
What you people have planned so that such type of scam will not be repeated in future? Second, artificial intelligence, AI. Sometimes back, we were hearing cloud technology, now AI technology. What is this technology, sirji? How it will affect in our employment generations, and how it will affect our human behaviors. Sirji, sometimes back, I was reading a news article in which the inventor of this AI was regretting for his invention, and he left his job. Chandra Sir, you are a prominent leader in corporate world. What do you think regarding this AI? Every invention should be betterment of human beings, as I think. Sir ji, physical copy ke liye maine request kiya tha. If possible, please send my physical copy. At last, sir ji, please maintain your smile and be cheerful, because aap fit hai toh hum fit hai. Thank you. Thank you, sir ji.
Thank you. Gaurav Rozatkar?
Namaskar, sir. To our Chairman, Mr. N. Chandrasekaran, sir, new CEO and MD, K. Krithivasan, sir, independent directors, board of members, shareholders, and all my mentors. I wish all the very best for the health of everybody. My name is Gaurav Liladhar Rozatkar. Today I'm joining this meeting from Berlin, Germany. My question for the company is that how does TCS differentiate itself from the competitors in its industry? The second question is: how does company see in future to initiate and develop the rural part of the country? I might be wrong, but I think that opening campuses in the underdeveloped areas in the country might help.
My third and most important question will be that how do we think that the innovation and artificial intelligence taking place in the world, what challenges will company see for the future generation and the future employees, which we expect? Last but not least, I wish all the very best for the company, and I wish all the very best for overall of our performance. Lovely performance by the company. Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity.
Arvind Waikar.
Good evening, sir. Arvind Waikar here, calling from Ahmedabad. First of all, I must congratulate the entire board of directors for showing an excellent result, also for getting various awards and recognitions. Here, I personally feel that now, our OPM, I have seen in two financial year 2023, OPM, both in consolidated as well as standalone, has gone down by 2%. That is 28% to 26% and 29% to 27%. My question is that company has shown the everywhere extraordinary performance in terms of, you know, profit, growth, you know, reserves, dividend, everything is so nice. Why are we going down in, you know, OPM percentage? For financial year 2024, what OPM percentage do you envisage based on the orders in hand or even otherwise, considering the future?
Second point I wanted to ask you that, especially, you know, a couple of people have asked this also, BFSI, right, we saw, you know, Banking and Financial Services. Especially the banking problem in Europe and America, do you think that your business in this sector will drop or affect overall profitability of the company? I want you should kindly elaborate on this. I must thank you. I have passed, I have given consent to all the resolution, and I'm a proud shareholder of TCS, and I wanted to, in fact, you know, wish all the best to our new CEO and MD, K. Krithivasan. Thank you so much, sir.
Thank you. Pritesh Brahmbhatt?
Pritesh Brahmbhatt has not joined the meeting, sir.
Suman Agarwal?
A very good evening, Chairman, sir, and members of the Board.
Sir, I'm Suman Agarwal, joining from Kolkata. I'm a member of Millennium Mams and a proud shareholder of the company. My question is, Mr. Gopinathan, in the annual report, FY 2022, had mentioned that it is only a matter of time before we hit the revenue of $50 billion and double our revenues. Sir, by when do we expect this to happen? Thank you, sir.
Manjit Singh?
Manjit Singh has not joined the meeting, sir, neither has Deepti Ranjan Bhai.
Sharat Kumar Shah. Sharat Kumar Shah?
We could move on to the next speaker, sir.
Atanu Saha.
Am I audible, sir?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Good evening, sir. Good evening. Good evening, Sir Chandrasekaran ji. Namaskar. I, Atanu Saha, a shareholder of TCS Limited, my respective Chairman and Board of Directors, and all Independent Directors and all viewers, and all respective personalities, and all shareholders present in this virtual meeting, sir. Today, it's 29th June 2023. It's 28th AGM, sir. My previous shareholders, from Arun Kumar Boppana to Manoj Gupta to Santosh Kumar Saraf, not right now, I not necessary to repeat so many questions that right now, sir. I do one thing, just one important question just for me. This is that what the temporary and permanent workers right now, and how many handicapped work person working right now, and that is gender [inaudible] body is asked.
How many startup partners, how many startup partners, working with our company, and how many would we need in near future, sir? Thank you. I already casted my vote, and a good year ahead with good dividend and bonus issues, sir, if possible. I, Atanu, now I hand over to our moderator. Thank you, our Tata consultant, where we believe our together. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you.
Abhinav Jain?
Abhinav Jain has not joined the meeting, sir.
Ashok Subrahmanyam?
Yeah. Am I audible?
Yes, sir. Yes, yes, you are audible, sir.
Namaskar. Good evening, respected Chairman, the Board of Directors, Independent Directors, all stakeholders, and employees of TCS. I would like to put on record my congratulations and appreciation for the stellar performance. Also I would like to put on record the recognition that our Chairman has received as one of the most purpose-driven and influential leader of the time. This goes to say so that from the stellar performance. I also thank the secretary department for making a personal call to me and asking me to join this AGM. That gave me a little this thing, I thought I'll have to do justice, I have to spend some three, four hours to go through the audit to give a meaningful points on that company.
First of all, I place on record and appreciate the annual report teams, the punching teams year-after-year, which is excellent. Please keep it up. I have gone through in-depth about the letter from the Chairman as the, in the annual report, I need some insight into it on the generative AI apart of it. Further, I have three suggestions to put forward, maybe three businesses which TCS can look at. One is, why not one digital solution for Indian homes? Covering mobile network, internet, cloud storage, online computing tools, maybe e-classroom facilities, and then video conferencing facilities, and of course, with Tata Sky.
The second suggestion will be that, looking at your TCS partnership with Eversource Energy, a thought came to my mind is that, why not Tata Power and TCS together look at setting up and purchasing solar power from residential houses of the Indian mass? Okay. Especially if you can—o ne thing I would like to put on record here is that the company as it should make use of the biggest brand ambassadors of the company, that is the 24 lakh, 99,379 individual shareholders, for all these purposes. They, I think they will be supporting you in all these aspects. The next field which I would like you to put is that, one area in which TCS, or for example, none of the Tata companies have put their feet on, is the oil and gas partnership. Okay.
Currently, India is operating around 43,000 km of pipeline network. Looking at the colonial pipeline attack and all those things, we need an integrated solutions for managing this mammoth network of pipelines, and which are growing in a rapid manner. There are a lot of digitalization solutions so possible for it. As you know, the challenge the world faces, the customer doesn't know what they want. And they go for available solutions, and they struggle to work within that. Probably, you can look at people like us to help you out in this angle. I think this will be one aspect in which TCS should look at it. Second thing which I came across is that use of physical infrastructure of the organization, maybe especially TCS, to optimum use by clubbing with other properties or other company offices in the same premises.
I'm quoting this with an evidence of what I saw your TCS properties in Indore, close to the airport. The next is that ergonomic awareness You have created an ergonomic awareness. That was only the point which I could see in terms of OHS in the annual report. Why not this ergonomic awareness and the aspects which you have communicated to your employees, be transferred to the 25 lakh shareholders, in turn, will benefit 100 lakh Indians. It will be a biggest CSR at no cost. It will also develop healthy Indians, and now that everybody is exposed to this virtual world. The last, the bird is that, the country is running short of independent directors.
Why not we utilize the young retired professionals or people who are likely to retire soon, like me, and develop them as independent directors, who has been the expertise in the different fields? Why probably the Tatas can think about it and take it as forward? The finally, I would like to make a request. I would like to meet the chairman and the managing director in person, in his office, as a shareholder, as a well-wisher of the group, more so as a believer in Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu. Dhanyavad.
Thank you, sir. Sumit Jain?
Good evening, sir. Good evening, all the members of Board of Directors. First of all, thank you for sending me the physical copy of this annual report. Sir, I have just only one question, that our company's EPS for the current financial year, FY 2023, is around INR 115, and also the dividend per share is INR 115. It is good as a shareholder that so much dividend the company is paying, but the issue is that, which I am concerning about, that if the company is not retaining the per share amount from this EPS, how the company will going to fund its future prospect, future work prospects? Are the company expecting the future slowdown in the near future? Thank you, sir.
Deep Janak?
Hello. Can you hear me?
Yeah.
Good afternoon, sir, Mr. Chandrasekaran and other directors. I am Deep Janak from Mumbai. Thank company secretary for registering me as a speaker. I welcome Mr. K. Krithivasan as the new CFO. May your great talent, skill, and experience help our company to grow sustainably during your tenure. I also thank Mr. Rajesh Gopinathan for his excellent service provided to the company, and I wish him all the success for the future. Best of luck for your new endeavors. Post resignation, is he going to be connected or continue in any Tata Group companies? Would like to know. Firstly, like to touch upon the story on Tata Consultancy Services hit by recruitment scandal.
I understand we don't have —we have not been impacted financially, but socially, TCS, India's biggest IT company, hit by bribes for job scandal, will have a little impact. Was this issue highlighted by any other employee earlier? Have we taken any legal action against the people involved other than suspending them? This is very important, sir, so that no other one other employee thinks of repeating this kind of fraud. We should have an robust safeguards to prevent such corruptions. How many other whistleblower complaints are there, which can have a monetary impact? What impact will ChatGPT have on our company? Will it improve our productivity and faster completion of projects? How much benefit in percentage term it may achieve on the margins?
Long-term impact you see on recruitment or hiring of new impact because of ChatGPT. In all the industry verticals, we have delivered good growth ranging from 14%-22%, but have seen some impact on margins by 1% or 2%. Any specific cost has escalated, is this that one-time effect, impact? Wanted to know the contribution from our top five, 10 and 50 clients. Lastly, I understand that conducting AGM via audio conference is helpful for other shareholders outside Bombay. Request the board to consider doing an hybrid meeting that involves mixture of in-person and report remote attendees. Thank you for patiently listening to my queries.
Jasmeet Singh?
Am I audible and visible?
Sir.
Thank you. good evening, Chair, directors, co-shareholders. Thank you for allowing me to interact with you today. I will request the Secretarial Department to provide me a video copy of my interaction, including the answers given by the Chairman on my concern. To begin my note, I am happy to note yet another year of all round growth, that is increase in top line revenue, bottom line profits, margins, dividend payouts. My couple of questions have already been answered, though I have couple of observations as well. First, INR 115 dividend paid last year is more than welcome. Everyone, individual or corporate, who have received this dividend have felt very extremely happy. This distribution of profits in proportion to their holding was absolutely just.
I raised this point during last annual body meet, requesting that distributing profits by way of paying dividend is the only fair way. The buyback of shares which help only a very small group of shareholders, that too, who have very small, pretty small number of shares. I heard your reply, wherein it was said that the buyback of shares was found by our company to be better. Ironically, in another AGM of HDFC Bank held last year, which is a financial institute of equal repute and stature to TCS, their CFO categorically replied to another shareholder that distributing profits by way of dividend is more tax efficient over share buyback. I request our company to take this on record.
In this regard, I propose a resolution for any distribution of profits in future shall only be done by way of paying dividend and never by way of buyback. Second point, apart from dividend, I also want to bring out to your kind notice that following the guidance of SEBI on physical holding of shares, I submitted my request for updation of my KYC nomination, et cetera, to the company RTA few months back. Strangely, I have still not received a confirmation on updation of my records. I am unsure if a strict instruction was given to the RTA to adjourn this by our company. A small another point, sir. The news had recently come in the media that Tata subsidiary company, Tata Technologies, is coming out with a IPO.
May I request the company to keep a quota for us shareholders, so that we can get shares allotment in this IPO? Thank you, Pradeep ji and his team with Krishna, doing wonderful, keeping high level of corporate governance. I humbly request them to pull out the shareholding of those three, four shareholders who, in this ongoing AGM, have asked for buyback. It will be an eye-opener for us to know that the puny holdings that they have doesn't even deserve what they are asking for. Before I sign off, I request the company to pay an increased dividend of not less than INR 125 this year. Thank you, everyone. Thank you again. Bye-bye.
Prakashini Shenoy?
Sir, can you hear me?
Yes, I can, ma'am.
I'm Prakashini Ganesha Shenoy from Bombay. Respected honorable Chairman, other dignitaries on the board, and my fellow shareholders, good evening to all of you. I received the annual report well in time, which is transparent, knowledgeable, colorful, and contains all the informations as per the corporate governance. I thank the company secretary and his team for the same. I should not forget to thank them once again for phoning me and reminding me of today's meeting, which I had already forgotten, and it is because of them I'm in a position to speak in today's meeting. Thank you, sir. The Chairman has given a wonderful picture regarding the thick and thin of the company in a very good way in his speech. Thank you, Chairman, sir. I'm thankful to the Board for recommending dividend for the financial year 2022-2023.
I'm also happy to note that the company has done outstanding work in the field of CSR activities during 2022, 2023. At the outset, I congratulate one and all for getting various awards during the year. This shows their hard work and sincerity. Sir, I have few questions. My question number one is: The company has posted flat profits during last year, while the employee costs are on rise. Please explain the company's strategy to deal with the rising costs. Provide revenue guidance for next two years. What is the impact of falling valuation of tech companies on the prospects of our company's business? My last question is: How are we planning to increase revenue in future? Last but not the least, I wish the chairman to please continue with VC so that the people all over will have an opportunity to give their views and suggestions.
I wish the company good luck for a bright future, and pray God that the profit of the company shall reach the peak in due course. Sir, I strongly and wholeheartedly support all the resolutions put forth in today's meeting. Thank you, sir.
Goutam Nandy?
Am I audible, sir?
Yes, you are audible, sir.
Good evening, and namaskar. Respected Chairman, Board of Directors, and my online fellow shareholders. Myself Goutam Nandy of Kolkata, the City of Joy, very old equity shareholder of the company. Sir, firstly, I'd like to give thanks to your secretariat department for sending me annual report and other necessary relevant papers through email well in advance. Specially thanks to our respected company secretary, Mr. Pradeep ji, and his whole team for rendering very good services to our minority shareholders. My earlier speakers already expressed their views regarding the accounts and performance of our company, so no repetition from my side as per your guideline. The performance of our company is excellent in this year, in every segment, even in this challenging year. I am very happy. We are also very pleased to receive your fantastic dividend, INR 115 per share.
Thank you very much, sir. Sir, your CSR is remarkable, so please keep it up. Sir, I'd like to know: what is your roadmap for next three to four years? Sir, is there any plan for buyback of share in this year? Sir, one thing, when I have registered myself as a speaker, I requested to send me a physical copy of annual report, but very sorry to say, I have not received the hard copy of annual report till the date. If possible, please send immediately, sir. Better late than never. Anyway, sir, may we expect bonus share at the rate of one is to one basis from your end in near future? Sir, I am very proud to be a shareholder of your company, and I am very hopeful towards the prospect of our company.
I have full trust with our strong management, sir, like you. I wholeheartedly and strongly support your all resolutions, which I have already casted through my e-voting. Sir, I am very happy with your company. Nothing to say more today. Looking forward with a positive outlook towards our company, with higher profit margin and some dividend, 1:1 bonus and return. Thank you. Thank you very much, sir. Myself, Goutam Nandy. Signing off. Thank you.
Alka Karnani?
Good evening, respected Chairman, sir. I'm Alka Karnani, a proud shareholder of the company and a member of Millennium Mams, Kolkata chapter. Sir, buyback is very positive for the company, but the promoter holding of reaching the threshold of 75%, how will you utilize the cash being generated by the company, sir? Thank you so much.
Abhijeet Srivastava.
Good evening, sir. Can you hear me?
Yes, sir.
Good evening, sir, to all the board members and our new CEO, K. Krithivasan. It's an honor to be here, joining this audience. I have been an avid fan of you since last 15 years, and I'm following you and looking forward to follow your path of great success. I have just few questions to ask. Regarding your European business, how many European clients you have added in the recent past? Are you targeting any GPS clients or just the commercial ones? How you are handling the GDPR related issues? Recent acquisitions in U.K., does it help in delivery of services or product building like banks?
Thank you. Yusuf Rangwala?
Hello, Apko mera awaaz aa raha hai, sir? Respected Chairman and my fellow shareholders. Yes, sir, you are listening to my voice, sir. Good evening, sir.
I can hear you. I can hear you.
Yeah. Good evening, Chairman, sir, Mr. Chandra, sir. I'm very happy with our company share department, especially Pradeep Manohar Gaitonde sir, who is a very excellent Company Secretary. We are very lucky to have excellent unke liye ek chair person najar au. Chamakta rahe suraj, कभी सूरज की रोशनी कम नहीं होती, ऐसे अपने सेकेन्डरी की रोशनी कम नहीं होती, साहब। अभी डाइरैक्टली वन पॉइंट पे आता हूँ, डिविडेंड। आपने INR 115 दिया सर, INR 1 के शेयर पे। वेरी एक्सलेंट!
नो अदर कंपनी इज़ गिवन। सर, डायरेक्ट पॉइंट नंबर वन, इंफोसिस, विप्रो एंड देर आर सो मेनी अदर कंपनी विच, विच आर सेम बिजनेस एंड वी, वी आर वेरी हैप्पी टू वी हैव बी एक्सलेंट वर्क, सर, एंड आवर टीम इज़ वेरी एक्सलेंट, सर, एंड वी आर वेरी हैप्पी। वी हैव वन ऑफ वुमन थर्टी सिक्स वर्कर्स, यू मेंशनड टेन थाउजेंड इंजीनियर, एज़ यू मेंशनड इन द चेयरमैन स्पीच, एंड सर, एज़ यू मेंशन ऑन द, एज़ यू मेंशन ऑन द पेज थर्टीन, टाटा ग्रुप, आवर मिस्टर एन चंद्रा इज़ वन ऑफ एसएबेस्ट लीडर एवार्ड, सर। दिस यू हैव वन वेरी एवार्ड, सर, एंड वेरी हैप्पी। एंड आई ऑल्सो थैंकफुल आवर कंपनी शेयर डिपार्टमेंट फॉर गिविंग मी अ चांस एंड ऑल्सो रिमेम्बरिंग एंड ऑल्सो फॉर मी वेदर यू रिसी ओर नॉट। दिस शोज़ हाउ यू आर केयरिंग फॉर द शेयरहोल्डर। देर आर वेरी, वेरी, वेरी लेस कंपनी विच कैर फॉर द शेयरहोल्डर। चेयरमैन, चेयरमैन सर, हाउ इज योर हेल्थ, सर?
वी आर मीटिंग एवरीडे, सर। आई एम वेरी हैप्पी एंड आई प्रे और प्रार्थना फॉर योर गुड हेल्थ, सर। नथिंग मोर टू ऐड, सर, मेनी इयर्स पास्ट यू आर नॉट अरेंज अ विजिट एट योर मुंबई। यू ऑल्सो आई रिक्वेस्ट ऑल द प्रीवियस स्पीकर, नेक्स्ट ईयर यू प्लीज कीप अ फिजिकल मीट, आपसे सर मिल सकते हैं, सर। एक छोटा सा मिलने का पाना होता है, सर। हो सके तो दिवाली के टाइप एक छोटा गेट टुगेदर रखिए। Jain सर, आई एंड माय स्पीच ओनली। थैंक यू वेरी मच, गॉड ब्लेस आवर कंपनी, सर। थैंक यू वेरी मच, सर।
With that, we have come to the end of all the speakers, shareholders. I would like to respond. Before I go into responding to each of the individual queries raised, there are two or three questions that have been broad, so I would like to respond to them first. I will go to responding to the individual queries. I would like to first take up this issue about the media reports. Some of you raised it on recruitment in TCS and associated issues. Let me first say that for a Tata Group company, the most important thing that is expected of every employee is ethical conduct and integrity in operation. That comes first ahead of any financial performance.
Whenever there is a violation of ethical conduct by any employee, it pains us and pains me and all the leaders very deeply, and we take it extremely seriously, and we will deal always with very strong action. In this case, I want to give you the background. We received two whistleblower complaints towards end of February and March, and both the whistleblower complaints were investigated. The complaints were about certain favoritism being done and favors being received in recruitment of BAs. The company has two departments. One is the HR and talent acquisition, which hires people. The second one is the resource allocation group, which is about deployment of the available resources into projects.
Whenever there is a talent shortage or a particular skill that is not available at that point in time in the location where we need them, the company has a set of BA, we call them business associate firms, the firms to get contract employees. At any point in time in the overall deployment of resources, about 2%-3% are such BA associates or contractors. This complaint was related to certain individuals in the company working with certain BA firms to be recruiting in their favor. Two things I want to say: There are a large number of BA firms who do business with TCS. There is a rigorous process in the company to recruit a firm or qualify a firm or empanel a firm to be called as a BA firm.
There are about little over 1,000 such firms across the globe, because we need resources in 55 different countries, and each one of them do certain amount of business depending upon the skill availability. In this case, we found two whistleblower complaints, one related to India, one related to the U.S. The investigation in India is done by a senior officer in the company, and in the U.S. market, we had an external firm to be able to do that. We found six employees who did not follow the ethical conduct. While we cannot quantify what favors they got, but they certainly behaved in a way that they were favoring certain firms. We have banned all those six employees and also the six companies— six such BA companies. There are investigation pending on three more employees.
That's all I want to say with respect to that. The company will look at the whole BA supplier management process and see what the weaknesses are, and we'll completely tighten the process to ensure that we do not have such incidents. That's the job that we have to do at this point. The second question I want to answer is, there is a lot of question about the current environment, which industries are slowing? Will the inflation affect the spending by customers? Which sectors will slow down? Which markets will slow down? I want to give a holistic answer.
As I mentioned in my opening speech, all the trends in terms of future transformation that all industries and companies in all markets have to go through, be it artificial intelligence or energy transition or supply chain transformation or new skills and talent that is required for the future, all point to significant investment and adoption of technologies by all companies globally. TCS, with the right investments in capabilities building, partnerships, talent development, training, is extremely well positioned to be able to participate in all these opportunities. Having said that, when there is an uncertainty in the global economic situation and higher inflation or slowing of growth, companies will calibrate their spending, whether to do it in this quarter or another quarter, or postpone by two quarters, that will happen. Certain discretionary spending companies will make a choice.
It also depends on the amount of capital they want to spend at this point in time. I believe that the growth for medium to long term is going to be strong. On nearby quarters, there will be volatility in different markets on the customer spend, especially on discretionary projects. It will go across sectors. Some places it will be BFSI, some places it will be Manufacturing, some places it will be Retail. If the consumer consumption is going down in a certain market, the retail companies will conserve cash. All those things will happen in the coming immediate months and quarters. Overall, whether it is cloud, whether it is IoT, whether it is predictive AI or GenAI, et cetera, these are all trends which augur extremely well for the company. The next question is: What is generative AI? What is predictive AI?
These things are dangerous or not. See, every technology has to be used responsibly. Predictive AI was primarily based on data, and generative AI will have the opportunity to generate even text and will use all kinds of contextual information, not necessarily numbers. It kind of takes the opportunity and the impact that it can create to a completely different level. Countries across the globe will come up with regulations to make sure that generative AI is used responsibly. I can confidently say the impact AI will make with all the other associated technologies. Today, we are using cloud. Tomorrow, there will be 5G, 6G. Somebody asked a question about what is 5G and 6G, 5G and 6G will make every enterprise a real-time enterprise, and we're going to see that. It will take time.
It may not happen in 2023, 2024, 2025, but in the coming years, all of this will happen. Adoption of technology is going to be very helpful for businesses, for society, for benefiting citizens, for benefiting poor people. All of this is going to happen, and the company will invest and build capabilities and be very proactive, be it in terms of partnerships, be it in terms of any acquisitions that are necessary, be it in terms of internal intellectual property development. Already, many of these initiatives are going on, and we will accelerate our focus in these areas. There was a question about cryptocurrency from Arun Kumar.
You know, crypto is a, is a difficult area. I feel that it will take time, because every regulator is having a view, so it is something that will evolve, but it is not something that one will rush into. Manoj Kumar Gupta, your question about the other question that I want to address upfront is about bonus, buyback versus dividend. The company and the Board has all the options in front of it, and we'll take the appropriate decision every year. The company has a very shareholder-friendly policy of almost paying 100% of the profits as dividend, and it has got a track record of paying near 100% for the last several years. Which instrument to use is something that we will take a call, again, based on what is friendly for the shareholders.
Company has sufficient funds. At any point in time, it has INR 50,000 crore or above for any investments that the company requires. It does have a corpus. Mr. Manoj Kumar Gupta, most of your questions I've answered, and we will definitely participate in many governmental projects, especially the projects in India. Many of the government projects are of high impact in nature, be it passport, be it income tax, and even the BSNL system, that TCS is working with another company, group company called Tejas Networks. These are all high impact, national impact projects, and TCS will continue to invest in those projects. In Assam, we have a center. Kolkata, we have a large presence. We will continue to evaluate what other opportunities are there for creating centers.
TCS continues to increase the number of clients, Mr. Santosh Kumar Saraf, and in terms of the new clients, we report in terms of the number of new clients we add at different revenue bands. At the 1 million band, we added 58 new clients last year. Totally about 1,241 new clients we have. You asked about paternity benefit. The number reported is the number of people who have availed it. It is not that only they are eligible. The company has a paternity support policy benefit program, and those employees who avail is getting reported. Mr. Jamadar, I already answered most of your questions, and U.K. market is pretty strong.
The company has been the number one company in the IT service sector in the U.K. It is doing very well, both in the private sector as well as some of the governmental projects. Cognizant Platform is a very important platform. It has got 600 pre-created automation frameworks, which is extremely beneficial to the clients. In terms of employees, you asked about the attrition. The company had attrition of 21.3%. Total number of women employees is close to 35%. You know, somebody mentioned about the number of women employees, attrition is higher. Generally, that is not correct. In the IT services, the number of women employees, attrition is lower or very close to the male employees.
Company has a very women employee-friendly policy, employee attrition has come down after peaking for a couple of years, you will see a significant improvement in that metric in FY 2024. Rachana Todi, you asked about decision impact. I already answered that question broadly. Mr. Hiranand Kotwani, the company has a very strong health program, both in terms of a program for Fit4Life, where company has a significant number of physical fitness-related, running-related, and other activity-related programs, coaches, and who help employees. Company also has a program for mental health. Company has one of the most friendly and comprehensive health insurance policy, both in India and in other markets. Gautam Tiwari, I already answered your question.
Company roughly spends about 1% on R&D of revenue. On the CSR, our FY 2024 budget will be close to INR 850 crores. Tamal Majumder. Regarding the employee recruitment, I already answered the question. Manufacturing growth, there is nothing specifically wrong with the manufacturing sector. It is a slowdown with some specific clients last year. This year, as I said, the overall growth will vary. I do not want to say much because we are ending the first quarter. The company will make a commentary in its annual in its quarterly results in early July. See, every business is almost a digital business, so no point in reporting a specific number of digital revenues, because everything that the company does, there is a digital component. Somebody asked about the employee cost.
Yes, employee cost has been going up consistently, and it also, because of some of the steps the company took in terms of localization, et cetera, and the effort, is on to get it under control. You will see a focus to make sure that the employee costs remain under control by optimal use of resources and utilization, as well as at the right location of work. Our margins, at 24.1%, is industry leading among at least the large companies, and the company has plans to work on this further, and I will leave the management to articulate it during the result season. I really can't speak much about the growth and margins as we are in a silent period, pretty much. The sales receivables outstanding, you asked about 65-67.
I think it's generally in the 60s is a good number. When it crosses 70s, we try to bring it down. Company will definitely invest significantly on AI. The geography mix is unlikely to change because the IT spend also represents the same mix. Companies in the U.S., the IT budgets are very high, and so our presence in the U.S. is much higher. The geography mix is unlikely to change any time now. You asked something about the TCS Foundation-audited financials. I don't know whether you wanted a copy. If you wanted a copy, the company will be able to provide. There is no change in accounting treatment or anything like that. If you have any specific questions which I have not understood, you can please talk to the company.
You can send a written mail, company will respond. Arti Tekriwal, you talked about a TCS city, an out-of-the-box thought. I think as we go into the future, we need to really think about future of work, which locations we operate from. Do we operate from large campuses? Do we build smaller locations? This is an exercise the company is going through on what is likely to be the future of work over the next decade. We will take your inputs into account. Aspi, you asked about subs to be listed alphabetically. I have given the suggestion to the company. Tejas Networks is a company that Tata Group acquired.
They are into telecom networks. TCS and Tejas Networks has partnered to roll out the next generation 4G, 5G technology for BSNL. They produce the necessary gear, the radios and other related equipment. TCS provides the system integration. Cybersecurity is a big practice for the company. Yes, this is an area the company will focus to help clients. Your comment on IEPF is already noted. The company makes every effort to send the dividend to the shareholders, but when we are unable to reach the shareholders, then finally we have no option other than to send it to IEPF. Your comments about the best practice on WhatsApp is a good one. We will take note of that. Mr. Shailesh Mahadevia, thank you for a number of comments you made.
Tejas Networks is not an acquisition by the company, it's an acquisition by the Tata Group. As I mentioned, TCS partners with Tejas Network in building a solution in and rollout for the 5G. The company's EVA, you asked, our EVA is INR 34,133 crores. You asked about the rate of interest, for reserves, 15.33%. You or someone else asked about the order book. The company has an order book of a little over $34 billion. Someone asked about the number of participants in this AGM through video, 217. Mr. Krishna Bijen Shah, you asked about AI, how will TCS be affected, positive or negative? As I said, any new technology TCS needs to adopt and adapt at a faster pace.
Always have to stay ahead of technology so that it can reinvent itself. We have done that over the last four decades, five decades, and we will continue to do that. Praful Chavda, as I said, we added about 44,000 fresh engineers last year. All shareholders who ask for a hard copy, company will send the hard copy. I've already spoken to the company secretary, they'll ensure that it is done immediately. Celestine Mascarenhas, rating for CSR, I think there are many initiatives, there are many firms. The company and the group is evaluating. Some of the group companies are following different standards, we just want to make sure that we pick the right standard across the group, we are working on that. Working from home, I think the number of people coming to office has increased.
In fact, it is not that everybody is working from home or a certain number of people are working from home. almost everyone is coming to office, but for different days. Some people come three days a week to office and two days work. Some people come one day or two days to office, the remaining days they work from home. This is something that is evolving. Homayun Pouredehi, I guess, there's very little I can do with your credit card-related issues, but basically, banks do that to protect you. As far as my knowledge goes, they send you a SMS or a text for confirmation so that your card is not misused. Sunil Agarwal, we work closely with the IIIT Hyderabad. In fact, we have created a Dr. Kohli Center in IIIT Hyderabad.
We are very engaged, we work with many IITs, many NITs, and other academic institutions across the country. Lekha Shah, 35% of the employees are women. Already answered the order book. Om Prakash Kejriwal, I already answered your questions. Gaurav Liladhar, I've answered your questions. Arvind Waikar, you talked about the operating margin of 24.1%, the company will definitely look at it in enhancing it further. As I said, this year, we also have to take into account how the market is going to be. More color will be provided by the management. Suman Agarwal, I cannot give you forward projections on when will it be $50 billion. The company has excellent potential.
I firmly believe that the company will be a high-growth company, whether it is in a constant currency, 10%, double- digit on a particular year, I don't want to comment. These are things that the management should comment. The company has a huge potential. I believe that the opportunities for the company and the sector is only increasing. Sharat Kumar Shah, noted your comments. Atanu Saha, we have 953 handicapped employees: 725 of them are male, 228 of them are women. You asked about how many startups the company is working with. The company has a startup network of 2,700 startups globally. Mr. Asok Subrahmanyam, I must say that you gave very, very interesting suggestions for the group.
Whether it is in physical infrastructure or a solution for Indian homes. Tata Power already has a rooftop solar, and wherever they implement a rooftop solar, the excess power, they have a mechanism to sell it to the grid already. There are many other suggestions you gave and how we can share some of the knowledge that we have gained, et cetera. We will take that into account. Sumit Jain, you asked about funding for the future. As I said, the company has invested funds of INR 50,000 crores, so dividend is not being paid to the shareholders at the cost of company's future. Deep Janak, I already answered all your questions. In terms of the top 5, top 10, client revenue, the company publishes this every quarter.
I don't have it handy, but definitely, the company can provide you that information. Prakashini She noy, generally, I've answered all your question. You talked about employee cost rising and the flat profit. It is noted, and as I said, these are things that are being addressed. Goutam Nandy, thank you for your comments. Answered your questions. Alka Karnani, you asked how the cash will be used. I think wherever there is a need for acquisition, we will use the acquisition, otherwise, we'll make the necessary investments. We have a very healthy, in fact, one of the benchmark dividend payout ratios. Capital allocation is key for the company as well as for the group, so we focus on that.
Abhijeet Kumar Srivastava, we are continuing to add clients in the European market, the European market faces inflation and lower growth. There is increasing power costs and gas costs in Europe. We have to watch what is going to be the discretionary spend that is going to happen. U.K., the company has a very strong policy towards privacy. It has got a lot of focus on GDPR. It very strictly has implemented GDPR in the privacy policy in the company and also the systems, we are also working with clients to help them on the GDPR issue. You asked about U.K. I think, even though the U.K. economy have faces issues, the company has been doing extremely well. The order book is strong.
As I said, TCS is the number one IT services company in the U.K. Yusuf Rangwala, thank you so much for your very nice comments and asking me about my well-being. I'm doing very well. I'm very healthy. Thank you. Thank you for everything. With those answers, all the questions have been answered. Now, I would like to authorize the company secretary, Pradeep Gaitonde, to conduct the voting procedure and conclude the meeting. The e-voting facility will remain open for the next 15 minutes to enable those who have not casted their vote to exercise their vote. The results will be announced within the stipulated time and will be intimated to both the stock exchanges, as well as in the website of NSDL and that of the company.
I thank all the shareholders who have participated and all other shareholders also for your continuous faith, support in the company. I also want to thank all our directors who have been providing invaluable guidance to the company and for making time to join the meeting today. Thank you all. Wish you good health, and see you next year.