Hedging helps TCS to absorb Re impact

Indian IT major Tata Consultancy Services has registered a 23 per cent rise in its net profit at Rs 1,252 crores for the quarter ended September 30 as against the net profit of Rs 1,019 crores for the corresponding period last year. The revenues of the company increased by 25 per cent at Rs 5,640 crores as against Rs 4,495 crores earned in the second quarter of the last financial year. The board of directors has recommended a quarterly dividend of Rs 3 per share.

Addressing the media in Mumbai on Monday, TCS CFO Mr S. Mahalingam said, "In Q2 of the current fiscal year, we have absorbed the impact of the rupee appreciation and improved our profitability too. At the end of Q2, we had about $2.6 billion outstanding in hedges. We remain confident that our hedging programme will help us expand the margins during the rest of this year. I foresee the value of the dollar to settle at around Rs 39.25 by the end of 2007."

TCS MD and CEO S. Ramadorai said, "The earning per share of our company for the Q2 of the present financial year was Rs 12.79. We added 51 new clients in Q2 and in dollar terms, our revenues rose by 11 per cent backed by strong growth in banking and financial services sector, and telecom and manufacturing companies. These sectors grew faster than the average company growth rate.

Travel and hospitality also emerged as one of the fastest growing verticals for us contributing around 4.4 per cent of our total revenues earned in the quarter. During the quarter, over 50 per cent of our revenues came from new services.

TCS inks deal with Swiss health group

Tata Consultancy Services, a leading IT services, business solutions and outsourcing firm has inked a partnership with the Swiss researched-focused health group Roche, and will basically support the demands of Roche’s increasing drug pipeline and advance Roche’s global capacity building initiative (GCBI).
This new initiative will provide services to a number of areas in Roche’s development organisation, including clinical data management, clinical programming, biostatistics and drug safety support. The aim of the collaboration between TCS and Roche is to create a flexible, scalable and high-quality partnership to support the demands of Roche’s increasing drug pipeline.
Mr Jean-Jacques Garaud, global head of pharma development at Roche, commented: "For Roche, it was key to find the best partner for our GCBI initiative and the collaboration with TCS is the result of an extensive international search. It will allow us to address the growing operational needs of our development organisation and to handle the increasing workload."
The Life Sciences and Healthcare Practice at TCS has over 3,200 professional including pharmacologists, physicians, biomedical engineers, biostatisticians, ICH/GCP compliance professionals, GxP consultants, PhDs, IT architects, consultants and management graduates who were focused on providing best in class IT consulting, solutions and services to Life Sciences and Healthcare customers.
Mr J. Rajagopal, TCS executive vice-president and global head, life sciences and healthcare, said: "The global capacity building initiative with Roche is another validation of TCS’ strategy to focus on services supporting the drug development processes and the investments made in building our domain competencies in this area."

TCS signs deal with AGL

Aug. 20: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has signed a five-year information technology services contract with Australia’s largest retailer of gas and electricity, AGL Energy Limited (AGL). The deal is worth $16 million. Under the agreement, TCS will manage and support all SAP applications for AGL. This includes AGL’s existing SAP ERP system and the SAP Industry Solution for the utilities which is currently being implemented.
The decision by AGL to outsource all SAP applications, maintenance and support is expected to reduce the implementation time of the new utilities module and accelerate the return on investment. AGL managing director Mr Paul Anthony said: "The decision to outsource our applications management and upgrade our systems is in line with AGL’s strategy to streamline business operations and offer a competitive service. TCS was selected because of its SAP skills, utilities domain knowledge, and proven track record in technology innovations and mature methodologies."
TCS Asia Pacific executive vice-president and regional director Ms Girija Pande said, "This engagement underscores our capabilities in Asia Pacific energy and the utilities markets. The deal is supported by our global network delivery model, the global alliance network and our large regional presence."
TCS vice-president (energy and utilities practice) Mr Ajoy Mukherjee said, "Our full service capability and the domain expertise coupled with with our delivery methodology will enable us to deliver sustained value and the operational excellence to AGL.