IT Staffing Report: Nov. 21, 2013

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Public IT solutions firms up 10% in Q3

Publicly traded information technology solutions firms chalked up median 10.4 percent year-over-year growth in their worldwide revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 30. Cognizant Technology, Tata Consultancy, Infosys and Syntel, all firms with offshore operations, experienced outstanding growth across the board.

One of the biggest drivers of demand for IT services these days is stemming from all things social as well as mobile, analytics and cloud computing.

“While these provide a challenge to some clients’ business models, it also creates tremendous opportunities for them to generate business value,” said Francisco D’Souza, CEO of Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation. “For example, there is growing interest in using these technologies to develop better one-to-one relationships with customers or leverage smart connected products. These opportunities to generate business value go beyond IT and into other areas such as new delivery models.”

N. Chandrasekaran, CEO and managing director of Tata Consultancy Services Limited, noted a shift in demand from traditional ERP implementations to newer technologies. While emphasizing that Tata’s Oracle and SAP business is still growing, Chandrasekaran said, “in addition, we are also seeing technologies like Salesforce, Workday, those kind of technologies gaining traction with customers. We are also seeing a lot of solutions around digital, which use a variety of products, not necessarily the standard products. So it's a mixed bag.”

Overall, the IT solutions companies were bullish about the remainder of 2013. Cognizant upped its full-year revenue guidance for the second time this year. The company expects to reach $8.84 billion, which would be year-over-year growth of about 20 percent. Similarly, Infosys changed its full-year revenue guidance to an increase of between 9 percent and 10 percent from the previous guidance that called for an increase of between 6 percent and 10 percent. Most firms described the pricing environment as stable, yet competitive — especially for the coming quarters.

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