TCS reskilling staff on AI domains

Bengaluru Market leader Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has successfully navigated the high employee churn seen in the IT industry on the back of hiring a record number of freshers from campuses in the last two financial years. In its annual report released on Wednesday, the company also pointed out that its employees are getting reskilled in AI-related domains given the potential of these new technologies.

“The supply side challenges of the last two years peaked in the first half of FY2023, with employee churn reaching unprecedented levels. We broke out of the vicious cycle of hiring and counter-hiring within the industry by investing in onboarding an unprecedented number of fresh engineers – over 110,000 in FY 2022 and over 44,000 in FY 2023 – and training them on the technologies most in demand,” the company said in its annual report for 2022-23 fiscal year. According to the annual report, TCS has rolled out a hike of 5-8 per cent for its workforce as it has emphasised on the needs to upskill on the back of AI-led changes. Total salary increase in India was in the range of 6-9 per cent as per the document.

CEO pay

According to the annual report, former TCS, CEO and MD Rajesh Gopinathan drew Rs29.16 crore in remuneration in FY23, an over 13.17 per cent YoY increase from Rs25.75 crore he received in FY22. Gopinathan handed over the charges of CEO to K Krithivasan from June 1, 2023.

Gopinathan’s compensation is over 427 times the median remuneration of the company’s employees. In FY23, TCS employees saw a median remuneration increase of 5.11 percent. When calculated, TCS’ median employee pay for FY23 stood at Rs6.82 lakh per annum on an employee base of 6,14,795 during this period. Chief Operating Officer of TCS, NG Subramaniam earned Rs23.6 crore in FY23, of which Rs19.5 crore was the commission, and the rest being his salary and benefits.

The annual report didn’t provide the compensation details of new CEO K Krithivasan, although it was mentioned that he will be paid a basic salary of Rs10 lakh per month, which can go up to a maximum of Rs16 lakh per month.

TCS’ CEO salary was way below its counterparts in smaller peers like Infosys and Wipro. While Wipro’s CEO Wipro CEO Thierry Delaporte drew a salary of Rs82.4 crore in FY23, Infosys’ CEO Salil Parekh had a compensation of Rs56.44 crore during this period.

Focus on AI

As generative AI tools take the world by storm, TCS’ annual report has a major emphasis on AI-based technology areas. Chairman N Chandrasekaran pointed out that AI has become the major focus area for the company.

“The impact of AI and machine learning is going to be profound. There is a transition already underway from predictive AI to generative AI. Majority of the businesses are still adopting predictive AI and are on the journey of capturing large volume of data, harnessing the power of cloud and IoT. There are varying levels of adoption in companies across sectors,” Chandrasekaran said in the annual report.

“Leveraging generative AI would further require technology innovation and investments,” he added.

Defying Supply Side Challenges

• These problems peaked in last 2 yrs
• Major emphasis on AI-based technology
• K Krithivasan took CEO reins from Gopinathan from June 1, 2023
• Gopinathan’s overall remuneration rose 13.17% to Rs29.16 cr in FY23
• But it’s lower when compared to many of his peers

Leveraging generative AI would further require technology innovation and investments

-- N Chandrasekaran, chairman, TCS