There’s fear of recession; all are preparing for downsides: HCLTech CEO C Vijaykumar

IT services clients are not out of their recession mindset yet, which is leading to delay in deal conversations, C Vijayakumar, CEO and managing director of HCLTech, said after the $12.6-billion company missed profit and revenue estimates for the first quarter of 2023-24 due to weakness in ER&D and telecom spends.

Yet, India’s third largest software company has maintained its revenue growth guidance of 6-8% and 18-19% operation margin for the fiscal year. The company is confident about converting its existing deals pipeline into strong revenue growth over the next few quarters and sees an increasing number of cost optimisation opportunities balancing out the lack of discretionary projects in the market, Vijayakumar told ET’s Romita Majumdar, Sai Ishwarbharath and Surabhi Agarwal in an interview. Edited excerpts: