TCS

June 12 (Reuters) - Anthropic:

• ANTHROPIC: TCS AND ANTHROPIC PARTNER TO BRING CLAUDE TO REGULATED INDUSTRIES - WEBSITE

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Adds details

June 11 (Reuters) - India's Tata Consultancy Services TCS.NS has partnered with Anthropic to launch an alliance to drive enterprise AI scaling, the country's largest software services exporter said on Thursday.

The partnership comes at a time when investors are concerned that AI tools will disrupt the traditional, labour-intensive business model of India's $315-billion IT sector. In February, Indian IT services firms lost more than $62.8 billion in market capitalization, in part, after Anthropic launched an AI agent tool.

The Tata group company will equip 50,000 associates with Anthropic's Claude and both will jointly take AI solutions to market for highly regulated sectors, it added.

TCS expects IT companies to slow down hiring, as the company moves towards having an equal number of employees and AI agents in its workforce, Chairman N Chandrasekaran said at the company's annual general meeting on Tuesday.

Last July, it cut more than 12,000 jobs, while headcount fell by more than 23,000 on a net basis in the fiscal year ended March 2026.

Rival IT services firm Infosys INFY.NS struck a similar partnership with Anthropic in February.

(Reporting by Urvi Dugar in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala and Janane Venkatraman)

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Updates with details of commentary from exec, recasts throughout

BENGALURU, June 9 (Reuters) - India's largest software services exporter Tata Consultancy Services TCS.NS expects IT companies to slow down hiring, as the company moves towards having an equal number of employees and AI agents in its workforce, Chairman N Chandrasekaran said at the company's annual general meeting on Tuesday.

India's $315-billion IT sector has been grappling with investor concerns that AI could disrupt its traditional, labour-intensive business model. The industry, one of India's largest private sector employers, has already slowed down hiring with geopolitical turmoil also denting client demand.

Mumbai-headquartered TCS does not plan to downsize staff, but will hire less, Chandrasekaran said. Last July, it cut more than 12,000 jobs, while headcount fell by more than 23,000 on a net basis in the fiscal year ended March 2026.

"If the company has half a million employees, the day is not far when the company will have half a million AI agents... The company's employees and AI agents will work together, and that will be the future."

TCS shares have fallen more than 32% so far in 2026, compared with a 25% drop in the Nifty IT .NIFTYIT index.

Advanced AI tools have shaken up the way companies work across industries from Silicon Valley to media and IT in the last few years as businesses seek efficiencies while staying on top of rapid technological changes.

Chandrasekaran said increased usage of AI agents would curb the number of people hired by both TCS and the broader IT industry as tasks are automated. At the same time, he said new roles and opportunities would emerge as companies adapt to AI-driven ways of working.

"Some of the work being done will go to AI agents. That will be the nature of the transition that we have to go through not only as a company, as an industry, and as a country," he said.

Chandrasekaran's comments carry added weight as TCS is India's largest IT firm by both market cap and number of employees.

The company's annualised AI revenue crossed $2.3 billion ​in the quarter ended March 31. Chandrasekaran said 100% of TCS' revenue will have an AI component before the end of the decade.

(Reporting by Haripriya Suresh and Sai Ishwarbharath B in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Ronojoy Mazumdar)

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June 8 (Reuters) - Tata Consultancy Services Ltd TCS.NS:

• TCS - LAUNCHES DEDICATED BUSINESS UNIT TO HELP ENTERPRISES BUILD AI-NATIVE GLOBAL CAPABILITY CENTRES

Source text: ID:nBSE5Kqyd3

Further company coverage: TCS.NS

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The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own. Updates to add graphic.

By Shritama Bose

MUMBAI, June 4 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Finding a good job in India is going to get a lot harder. Headcount growth at its biggest private company, $190 billion Reliance Industries RELI.NS, is slowing sharply as an investment binge fades. But a chronic skills shortage also gives businesses a strong incentive to rapidly adopt artificial intelligence. That will turn today's hiring squeeze into a deeper, structural slump.

The energy-to-retail giant's over 419,000 headcount as of March 2026 represents 4% year-on-year growth, just one quarter of its expansion rate the previous year. Its disclosures have turned hazier too: last year Reliance discontinued a table in its annual report offering a detailed breakdown of employees across business divisions.

The hiring slowdown is partly explained by the end of a phase of higher recruitment for its fledgling renewable energy business. But the growth remains well below India's 7%-plus GDP growth—and the squeeze could soon become entrenched: Reliance says it is "building talent fluent in leveraging AI to enhance decision-making, productivity and purpose-driven work", implying that the impact of AI on hiring will become clearer next year.

The problem is pronounced at IT outsourcers like $85 billion Tata Consultancy Services TCS.NS, the country's second-largest company by market capitalisation, and Infosys INFY.NS, where the number of employees is now up to 5% below their respective March 2023 peaks, thanks to a slowdown in revenue growth and rise of new coding tools.

Indeed, future job growth is a bigger worry than headline-grabbing layoffs, as the government's Chief Economic Advisor V. Anantha Nageswaran warned in February. His call on the private sector to hire more and balance capital-intensive growth with labor-intensive growth has gone unanswered by industry titans. Urban youth unemployment is as high as 13.6% and it's common for college graduates to queue up for janitorial roles in the public sector.

The danger is employers – who have long complained that India's 600 million-strong workforce does not have the modern skills required for the service-oriented economy – will turn to AI as a quick fix and adopt new technologies faster. Some 65% of respondents to a World Economic Forum survey saw a skills gap in India as a challenge to business transformation, and more than one-third of them expected talent availability to worsen over the five years to 2030. Indian employers plan to outpace global adoption in computing technologies, quantum and encryption to transform their businesses, according to the WEF's Future of Jobs report for 2025.

It all threatens to tip India Inc's hiring slump into a depression.

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CONTEXT NEWS

Reliance Industries' group headcount stood at over 419,000 at the end of March 31, 2026, the company said in its annual report for the year. The total number of employees increased by around 4% year-on-year, slower than a 16% rate of expansion in the previous financial year.

(Editing by Una Galani; Production by Ujjaini Dutta)

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June 3 (Reuters) - Tata Consultancy Services Ltd TCS.NS:

• TCS - EXPANDS PARTNERSHIP WITH EUROCLEAR TO MODERNIZE SWEDEN'S CENTRAL SECURITIES DEPOSITORY

Source text: ID:nNSE6ssGsn

Further company coverage: TCS.NS

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By Shritama Bose

MUMBAI, June 2 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Forcing an initial public offering of the Tata conglomerate's holding company would be a clumsy application of rules designed to reduce shadow banking risks. It could also sting the Indian government as it would curb the financial flexibility of the $270 billion cars-to-chips group when New Delhi most needs agility from its corporate behemoths.

A listing risk has hung over Tata Sons since 2021, when the Reserve Bank of India refreshed its rulebook, following the collapse of Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services, a major non-bank lender. The RBI enhanced capital requirements for large shadow banks and mandated listings to increase transparency. Tata Sons is registered as a core investment company, which the RBI counts as a category of shadow banks.

Tata Sons has since taken extensive steps to address potential risks. Last year it completed a $13 billion IPO of Tata Capital TATC.NS, a small non-bank financial company; cut its quasi-lending exposure by reducing the value of so-called “letters of comfort” issued to subsidiaries’ creditors by 60% in the two years to March 31, 2025; and moved from a net debt to net cash position as of March 2024. Yet the RBI’s latest update implies Tata Sons will still need to list after July 1.

The latest pushback comes from Noel Tata, chair of Tata Trusts which owns 66% of Tata Sons. He's written to the RBI saying a listing would shift the holding company’s priorities from long-term institution-building to catering to shorter-term market expectations, Moneycontrol reported on June 1, citing people familiar with the matter.

That's a real risk; Tata's big bet on building an indigenous chip industry may not have materialised if Tata Sons was a public company. What's more, a Tata Sons IPO would not significantly increase transparency. Most of its large investments already trade as public companies, including $85 billion Tata Consultancy Services TCS.NS, $38 billion Titan TITN.NS and $15 billion Tata Motors TAMO.NS.

But a forced IPO would crystallise a huge conglomerate discount. For investors, owning a holding company is usually less attractive than buying listed subsidiaries that provide direct exposure to a desired industry. In Asia, these discounts can be as high as 50%: Tata Sons held assets worth an estimated 1.75 trillion rupees ($18.42 billion) as of March 2025.

To be sure, Tata Sons has its problems. Minority shareholder Shapoorji Pallonji Group wants liquidity for its 18% stake and skirmishes among Tata Sons board members have intensified since the death of Ratan Tata, the group's chair emeritus. The RBI diktat is making matters worse.

New Delhi may also stand to lose from broadening out Tata Sons' shareholder base. The group's 2022 purchase of Air India, the bleeding national carrier that has lurched from crisis to crisis, would have been hard to justify to external investors. On balance, an IPO would enforce rules to the letter but achieve little else.

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CONTEXT NEWS

Tata Trusts Chair Noel Tata has written to the Reserve Bank of India opposing any potential listing of Tata Sons, news website Moneycontrol reported on June 1, citing unnamed people directly aware of the matter. He argued that going public could alter the long-term character of the Tata group’s holding company and disrupt the philanthropic objectives of the Trusts, the report added.

The RBI on April 29 expanded the definition of 'public funds' in its regulations for non-banking financial companies. The updated rules state that investment companies that have access to public funds indirectly through group entities or associates will not be exempted from the requirement to go public if they hold assets worth at least 1 trillion rupees ($10.5 billion).

The rules will come into effect on July 1.

(Editing by Una Galani; Production by Ujjaini Dutta)

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THE AI EXCEPTION: CHINA AND INDIA DEFY EM PRIVATE MARKET SLOWDOWN

Most emerging markets saw private investment pull back in the first quarter of the year, but China and India stood apart - riding a wave of enthusiasm for AI, according to data from the Global Private Capital Association (GPCA).

Despite private capital investment across EMs (excluding South Korea) falling to $33.9 billion in Q1 from $48.25 billion a year ago, venture investment emerged as a bright spot, jumping to $15.2 billion - the highest since Q4 2022.

The rebound was driven by China, where deal value hit $9 billion, a multi-year high. Notably, 60% of that capital was deployed to AI, robotics and biotech, data showed.

A near-record $5 billion was deployed to digital infrastructure deals. Among the largest: India's HyperVault - a joint venture between Tata Consultancy Services TCS.NS and private equity firm TPG TPG.O to develop data centers, backed by roughly $2.03 billion in equity - and Bharti Airtel-owned BRTI.NS Nxtra Data, which raised $1 billion from a group of investors.

"There is a durable long-run opportunity in markets outside the U.S., where persistent gaps in digital and energy infrastructure will serve pent-up demand from businesses and consumers for basic services – before you even get to AI anticipation," said Cate Ambrose, CEO of GPCA.

Private investment sentiment took a hit earlier this year after the collapse of several companies including U.S. auto parts supplier First Brands and British lender Market Financial Solutions - stoking broader concerns over the health of private markets.

But investor appetite for AI and AI-adjacent companies has proved resilient, with capital chasing almost anything remotely connected to the technology.

Outside Asia, PE firm Warburg Pincus plans to invest up to $1 billion in Brazil's Global Eggs.

(Purvi Agarwal)

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May 26 (Reuters) - Tata Consultancy Services Ltd TCS.NS:

• TCS - LAUNCHES SOVEREIGNSECURE CLOUD IN EUROPE

Source text: ID:nBSE796SJJ

Further company coverage: TCS.NS

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By Aditya Soni and Abhirami G

May 19 (Reuters) - Microsoft's MSFT.O biggest data center in India is on track to open by mid-2026, its country head said on Tuesday, as the tech giant spends heavily to bolster its position in one of the world's largest markets for artificial intelligence services.

There's "massive demand" for Azure cloud services and the $30-a-month Copilot 365 AI assistant in the country, Puneet Chandok, president, Microsoft India and South Asia, told Reuters.

Like rivals Alphabet GOOGL.O and Amazon AMZN.O, Microsoft sees India as a potentially profitable market for AI thanks to its more than 1 billion internet users and deep tech talent.

Tapping that market is crucial as it looks to prove to investors that its massive bet on AI will pay off.

The company announced late last year that it would invest $17.5 billion in India, its biggest outlay in Asia, on top of the $3 billion pledged at the start of 2025.

That includes a new data center in the southern tech hub of Hyderabad, where Microsoft already has a significant presence.

"We are the ones who are bringing this to life quickly, the fastest out of the gates," Chandok said of the company's data center build-out, adding that the Hyderabad facility would be its biggest in India without disclosing exact capacity.

The new capacity will serve a growing customer base for AI services in India. Microsoft counts IT giants Infosys INFY.NS, Cognizant CTSH.O and Tata Consultancy Services TCS.NS among Copilot customers, with about 50,000 licenses each.

Chandok also said the India operations are contributing to AI features Microsoft is rolling out globally. The company employs more than 22,000 people in the country across cities.

Hiring staff to develop the features is getting tougher as demand exceeds supply, causing a "war for talent," Chandok said.

"The challenges in India are the same as everywhere else in the world."

(Reporting by Aditya Soni and Abhirami G in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva)

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Updates with statement from Tata Trusts in 4th bullet

By Jayshree P Upadhyay

MUMBAI, May 15 (Reuters) - India's Maharashtra state charity commissioner has ordered Tata Trusts to defer its Saturday board meeting after complaints triggered an inquiry into the trusts' governance.

• Tata Trusts holds a controlling stake in the holding company of the Tata Group, Tata Sons, which faces pressure to list.

• The trusts have been told not to hold the meeting until an inspector completes a probe and submits a report.

• The order, seen by Reuters, follows complaints over trust composition. One of the complainants is Venu Srinivasan, a senior trustee at Tata Trusts, the charity commissioner's order said.

• In a late-night statement, Tata Trusts said that directions from the authorities are being examined and that it was not aware of any complaint filed by Srinivasan.

(Reporting by Jayshree P Upadhyay in Mumbai, Writing by Anna Peverieri in Barcelona; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli and Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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By Jayshree P Upadhyay

MUMBAI, May 15 (Reuters) - India's Maharashtra charity commissioner has ordered Tata Trusts to defer its Saturday board meeting after complaints triggered an inquiry into the trusts' governance.

• Tata Trusts holds a controlling stake in the holding company of the Tata Group, Tata Sons, which faces pressure to list.

• The trusts have been told not to hold the meeting until an inspector completes a probe and submits a report.

• The order follows complaints over trust composition. One of the complainants is Venu Srinivasan, a senior trustee at Tata Trusts.

  
  

(Reporting by Jayshree P Upadhyay in Mumbai, Writing by Anna Peverieri in Barcelona; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)

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The hosts are Reuters Breakingviews columnists. The opinions expressed are their own.

By Aimee Donnellan and Una Galani

DUBLIN/HONG KONG, May 14 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Follow on Apple or Spotify. Listen on the Reuters app. Read the episode transcript.

Listen to the podcast

The country’s $4 trln consumer-led economy is already seeing a slowdown in hiring and firms like Oracle are laying off staff. In this Viewsroom podcast, Breakingviews columnists explain why India is so vulnerable and how the situation may play out elsewhere.

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FURTHER READING

AI job shock risks throttling India’s consumption

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The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own. Refiles to fix grammatical error in the first paragraph.

By Shritama Bose

MUMBAI, May 13 (Reuters Breakingviews) - No people whose word for 'yesterday' is the same as their word for 'tomorrow' can be said to have a firm grip on the time, Salman Rushdie once wrote in a friendly dig at Indians in reference to the Hindi language. Yet by urging fellow citizens to stay home, shun gold purchases, halve fertiliser use, and skip overseas travel including destination weddings, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is deliberately playing catch-up and being pre-emptive at once.

The Indian leader's dramatic appeal, made first on Sunday and repeated a day later, marks a belated shift into austerity mode. In countries from Pakistan to Thailand remote-working mandates and fuel rationing kicked in within weeks of war breaking out in the Middle East. New Delhi held off but things are abruptly changing following the conclusion of key state elections that underscored Modi's popularity.

It paints a picture of crisis management seemingly incongruous with India's comfortable foreign exchange reserves relative to historical levels: the central bank's $691 billion warchest is equivalent to 11 months of imports, higher than the 2013 level of under seven months.

The sense of premature panic is reinforced by movements at the central bank. It is also mulling reviving a scheme for India's diaspora to open foreign currency deposits rolled out in 2013 when the taper tantrum sparked huge capital flows out of India, Reuters reported citing unnamed sources. Another measure could be to ease the tax burden on foreign buyers of Indian bonds, the report added.

New Delhi may be acting early precisely to avoid a repeat of past crises. That's sensible. Another reason to look sharp is that usable reserves adjusted for the Reserve Bank of India's net short position in the currency forwards market are lower, sufficing for imports for just under nine months, analysts at UBS estimate. And a growing share of those reserves are attributable to gold, less useful in a quick pinch than hard currency.

Modi's call to action may also betray a fear about how quickly advances in artificial intelligence may crush India's $418 billion of services exports, much of it linked to outsourcers' earnings. Tata Consultancy Services TCS.NS reported a rare drop in U.S. dollar revenue for the last financial year as coding tools by Anthropic and others compress growth across the industry.

Throw in record portfolio outflows, muted net foreign direct investment and a potential fall in remittances from the Gulf - home to some 10 million Indian workers - and the South Asian country looks caught in a perfect storm that could ruin its external balances and macro-economic stability. The rupee has lost over 6% of its value against the U.S. dollar this year.

Modi's appeal risks further cooling sentiment toward India and, if ineffective, may be a precursor to more extreme steps, such as a tightening of a $250,000 limit on overseas spending or an outright ban on imports of gold and electronics, goods which New Delhi sees as 'non-essential'. For now, India's leader is just asking.

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CONTEXT NEWS

India is considering emergency steps to shore up foreign exchange reserves, including curbing non-essential imports like gold and electronic goods, and hiking fuel prices, to help cushion the economy from the fallout of the Iran war, Bloomberg reported on May 11, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter.

Indian ​Prime Minister Narendra Modi on May 10 urged a ‌spate of measures including fuel conservation, work-from-home practices and limits on travel and imports, as a surge in global energy ​prices puts pressure on the country's foreign exchange ​reserves.

"In the current situation, we must place great emphasis on saving foreign exchange," he said. Modi asked Indians to ⁠avoid buying gold and to cut non-essential ​overseas travel for at least a year while urging farmers to cut fertiliser ​use by as much as half.

The Reserve Bank of India is studying ways to mobilise dollar inflows to bolster its foreign exchange buffers and cushion rising pressure on the rupee from a spike in oil prices driven by the Iran war, Reuters reported on May 4, citing three unnamed sources familiar with the discussions.

Reviving a mechanism to draw in dollar deposits from non-resident Indians and removing withholding tax on overseas government bond investors are among the measures being considered, the report added.

(Editing by Una Galani; Production by Aditya Srivastav)

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Adds details on sector paragraph 2 onwards

May 12 (Reuters) - India's IT shares fell to a three-year low on Tuesday as investor jitters around the threat posed by artificial intelligence to flagship IT firms flared up again, after OpenAI announced a new AI venture.

The Nifty IT index .NIFTYIT fell 3.6% to its lowest since May 2023, with Tata Consultancy Services TCS.NS, Infosys INFY.NS, HCL Technologies HCLT.NS and Wipro WIPR.NS falling between 2.5% and 4%.

Analysts at HSBC said in a Tuesday note that India's top-tier IT firms largely failed to meet street expectations for earnings in March quarter as well as in their outlooks for the new financial year, adding that strong spending globally on AI could be "crowding out" demand for traditional IT services.

HSBC's warning comes a day after OpenAI said it is launching a new company backed by more than $4 billion, embedding engineers into organizations to identify where AI can make the most impact. It's the latest challenge to Indian IT firms' business model from a major AI company targeting enterprise clients.

Indian IT stocks are unlikely to attract positive investor interest unless global AI activity, cloud capex growth and cloud revenue momentum slow, HSBC said.

Indian IT companies derive a significant share of their revenue from North America and are considered sensitive to U.S. economic uncertainty and corporate technology spending trends.

The industry has been under pressure for much of 2026, starting with a February rout after the roll-out of Anthropic's Claude Code and on fears rapid advances in generative AI would disrupt demand for traditional IT and professional services.

India's IT stocks have slid 25.4% so far this year, making them India's worst-performing sector, compared with a 9.7% drop in the benchmark Nifty 50 .NSEI.

March quarter results have done little to soothe investor worries. Dollar revenue at industry bellwether Tata Consultancy Services TCS.NS shrank 0.5% year-on-year to $30 billion for the year ended March - the first decline since the company's 2004 IPO.

Industry peers have flagged challenges of meeting targets with limited visibility on demand: HCL Tech's CEO C Vijayakumar said in the company's post-earnings investor call it took "25%-30% more effort to convert and get to the same number" in terms of total contract value.

The broader Indian market remained under pressure on Tuesday, with the rupee sliding to a record low on elevated crude oil prices with talks to end the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran finding no success.

(Reporting by Chandini Monnappa, Surbhi Misra and Pranav Kashyap in Bengaluru; Editing by Ronojoy Mazumdar)

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By Arpan Chaturvedi and Aditya Kalra

NEW DELHI, May 11 (Reuters) - India's National Commission for Women said on Monday it had found a "toxic workplace environment" at a Tata Consultancy Services TCS.NS back office, which it added also failed to comply with the country's anti-sexual harassment law.

TCS, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the findings published on Monday, has previously said it is cooperating with Indian authorities, who have arrested at least six employees over the sexual harassment allegations.

The case has attracted nationwide attention as it involves India's ‌top software-services exporter, which has annual revenue of $30 billion and is part of the salt-to-aviation Tata Group.

TCS has in recent weeks launched an internal investigation and suspended staff after police began looking into allegations that some staff at the company's back office in Nashik, western India, had sexually harassed women and that some employees were pressured to convert from Hinduism to Islam.

The National Commission for Women, India's federal body for women's rights, said on Monday it visited the facility last month and interviewed staff. It said it found "pervasive harassment", "systemic bullying" and that some staff "used to bully female employees by denigrating Hindu mythology".

"This was a typical case of sexual harassment at the workplace, involving bullying of female employees, stalking, and demeaning conduct," the commission said in a statement.

The Nashik unit, with around 150 staff, was primarily engaged in call centre work for TCS, which operates across 55 countries through its 584,000 employees and whose clients include many large global companies.

The commission also said it found "zero compliance" with India's law on the prevention of sexual harassment of women in the workplace.

"It is more than clear that this inaction on the part of the organization was not just a compliance deficit but was a governance deficit as well," it added.

(Reporting by Arpan Chaturvedi and Aditya Kalra; Additional reporting by Sai Ishwar; Editing by Alexander Smith)

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May 5 (Reuters) - CrowdStrike Holdings Inc CRWD.O:

• CROWDSTRIKE EXPANDS PROJECT QUILTWORKS, THE CYBERSECURITY COALITION FOR SECURING FRONTIER AI RISK

• CROWDSTRIKE - ARMADIN, COGNIZANT, HCLTECH, INFOSYS, KPMG, NTT DATA, TCS, WIPRO JOIN QUILTWORKS COALITION

• CROWDSTRIKE - INTEGRATES ANTHROPIC OPUS 4.7 AI INTO FALCON PLATFORM

Source text: ID:nBw1WDjhXa

Further company coverage: CRWD.O

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By Shritama Bose

MUMBAI, April 30 (Reuters Breakingviews) - The jobs crisis stirring in India’s vast outsourcing industry spells trouble for the country’s $4 trillion consumption-led economy. With the gap between household income and spending already widening, the consequences of the churn on finance and markets will be far-reaching.

White collar jobs are starting to disappear in the world’s services capital where many global firms employ thousands of staff in global capability centres that are responsible for everything from back-office functions to fraud detection to critical research and development.

Following the launch of artificial intelligence tools by Anthropic and others that allow companies do the same amount of work with fewer people, Oracle ORCL.N laid off 10,000 workers, or one-fifth of its India workforce in March, and Amazon.com AMZN.O let go of 500 people in the country in January, the Economic Times reported, citing sources. It looks like just the beginning of the headcount reductions.

One executive of a global bank told Reuters Breakingviews their workforce in India could shrink by one-third. This could happen quickly within just one or two years because of the double digit attrition rates at offices of global firms in cities including Bengaluru, Gurugram and Pune. JPMorgan Chase JPM.N has a whopping 55,000 employees in the country, which equals about one-fifth of its total workforce and includes one-third of all its technologists; HSBC’s HSBA.L 47,000 local employees make up 23% of its global headcount.

Then there is also “AI deflation” – the term Indian IT firms that typically lap up fresh graduates use to refer to slowing revenue growth. Annual revenue in U.S. dollar terms at industry leader Tata Consultancy Services TCS.NS shrunk for the year ended March 2026, marking the first decline since the $97 billion company's initial public offering ​in 2004.

Altogether, global capability centres and the IT sector employ up to 15 million people who anchor India’s middle class and whose jobs are under threat from generative AI, Bernstein analysts Venugopal Garre and Nikhil Arela said last week in an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Though this is a small fraction of India’s 616-million-strong workforce comprised mostly of swathes of informal and agricultural workers, the AI vulnerable cohort represents a sizeable chunk of the employed within the rising middle class. With fewer jobs, there will also be pressure on salaries for those who keep theirs.

For India, advances in generative AI are intensifying the intractable challenge of creating enough jobs in a country that skipped over the traditional manufacturing route and where 8 million people enter the workforce each year. Modi's push to drive manufacturing isn’t softening the blow much either, thanks to factory automation.

There are already signs that India’s world-beating 7.8% growth is decoupling from employment generation: New Delhi’s latest Economic Survey notes that since 2022 – the same year that OpenAI launched ChatGPT -- the labour intensity of output has marginally declined. That rupture will deepen unless workers upskill, the survey says, with the change coming “not in a single shock, but in a quiet, steady drift”.

This threatens a blow to spending on what people want, rather than what they need. Private consumption accounts for about 60% of GDP and the top 140 million Indians who on average each earn roughly $15,000 per annum, according to Blume Ventures, drive two-thirds of discretionary spending.

Any contraction in their incomes could force them to cut back, hitting sales of goods from new homes to cars and demand for experiences from dining out to live events. There will be a ripple effect too: Middle-class homes in India employ cooks, cleaners and drivers.

Demand for their services, and those of India’s vast gig economy servicing the middle class, would recede. That puts at risk earnings of carmakers, consumer groups and financial services providers which, together with Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries RELI.NS – the owner of India’s largest retailer - account for nearly 62% of the benchmark Nifty 50 index .NSEI. Sluggish consumption is already hurting some of them: small car sales slowed at Maruti Suzuki India MRTI.NS last year and Unilever's ULVR.L Indian unit has been grappling with weak urban demand.

A potential 30% reduction in the 15-million-strong outsourcing and global capability centre workforce over the next two years could shrink the top consuming class by about 5 million to 135 million.

Assuming Blume Ventures' annual income estimate of $15,000, this cohort's total spending power stands to fall by roughly $75 billion a year, assuming those people don't find other employment or sources of income. That's equivalent to 10% of the Nifty 50 constituents’ net sales of 71.3 trillion rupees ($755 billion) for the financial year ended March 2025, per data from the National Stock Exchange.

Overall household savings are already declining as indebtedness mounts: Indians saved barely 23% of their personal disposable income in the financial year to March 2025, according to an estimate by CLSA, down from nearly 30% two decades earlier. Debt as a share of disposable income surged to 55% from 31% over the same period.

While India’s household debt to GDP ratio is much lower than for most peer economies, meagre earnings mean Indians end up spending 13% of their income on repaying borrowings, higher than 8.5% for China and 8% for the US.

Much of what Indians borrow goes towards financing consumption rather than creating assets. Households are leveraging up to pay for everything from overseas vacations to weddings and smartphone purchases.

Such financing, which the Reserve Bank of India calls non-housing retail loans, makes up 55% of household obligations and is growing faster than mortgages. India's household debt to GDP ratio stands at 41.9%. If half of those borrowings are consumption-linked, it implies household discretionary debt amounts to roughly 21% of GDP. Apply that to India’s nominal GDP of 331 trillion rupees for 2024-25 and you have at risk loans worth 69 trillion rupees across the country’s banks and non-bank lenders.

This threatens the loan quality at financial institutions led by the $130 billion HDFC Bank HDBK.NS as well as lenders backed by global investors from Sumitomo Mitsui Financial 8316.T to Blackstone BX.N who are accelerating their expansion in India to tap retail credit demand.

The impact of AI on the global workforce may ultimately create more jobs. First, though, it may turn India’s already weak consumption and much-vaunted demographic dividend into a nightmare.

Follow Shritama Bose on LinkedIn and X.

(Editing by Una Galani; Production by Aditya Srivastav)

((For previous columns by the author, Reuters customers can click on BOSE/[email protected]))

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.

By Shritama Bose

MUMBAI, April 30 (Reuters Breakingviews) - The jobs crisis stirring in India’s vast outsourcing industry spells trouble for the country’s $4 trillion consumption-led economy. With the gap between household income and spending already widening, the consequences of the churn on finance and markets will be far-reaching.

White collar jobs are starting to disappear in the world’s services capital where many global firms employ thousands of staff in global capability centres that are responsible for everything from back-office functions to fraud detection to critical research and development.

Following the launch of artificial intelligence tools by Anthropic and others that allow companies do the same amount of work with fewer people, Oracle ORCL.N laid off 10,000 workers, or one-fifth of its India workforce in March, and Amazon.com AMZN.O let go of 500 people in the country in January, the Economic Times reported, citing sources. It looks like just the beginning of the headcount reductions.

One executive of a global bank told Reuters Breakingviews their workforce in India could shrink by one-third. This could happen quickly within just one or two years because of the double digit attrition rates at offices of global firms in cities including Bengaluru, Gurugram and Pune. JPMorgan Chase JPM.N has a whopping 55,000 employees in the country, which equals about one-fifth of its total workforce and includes one-third of all its technologists; HSBC’s HSBA.L 47,000 local employees make up 23% of its global headcount.

Then there is also “AI deflation” – the term Indian IT firms that typically lap up fresh graduates use to refer to slowing revenue growth. Annual revenue in U.S. dollar terms at industry leader Tata Consultancy Services TCS.NS shrunk for the year ended March 2026, marking the first decline since the $97 billion company's initial public offering ​in 2004.

Altogether, global capability centres and the IT sector employ up to 15 million people who anchor India’s middle class and whose jobs are under threat from generative AI, Bernstein analysts Venugopal Garre and Nikhil Arela said last week in an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Though this is a small fraction of India’s 616-million-strong workforce comprised mostly of swathes of informal and agricultural workers, the AI vulnerable cohort represents a sizeable chunk of the employed within the rising middle class. With fewer jobs, there will also be pressure on salaries for those who keep theirs.

For India, advances in generative AI are intensifying the intractable challenge of creating enough jobs in a country that skipped over the traditional manufacturing route and where 8 million people enter the workforce each year. Modi's push to drive manufacturing isn’t softening the blow much either, thanks to factory automation.

There are already signs that India’s world-beating 7.8% growth is decoupling from employment generation: New Delhi’s latest Economic Survey notes that since 2022 – the same year that OpenAI launched ChatGPT -- the labour intensity of output has marginally declined. That rupture will deepen unless workers upskill, the survey says, with the change coming “not in a single shock, but in a quiet, steady drift”.

This threatens a blow to spending on what people want, rather than what they need. Private consumption accounts for about 60% of GDP and the top 140 million Indians who on average each earn roughly $15,000 per annum, according to Blume Ventures, drive two-thirds of discretionary spending.

Any contraction in their incomes could force them to cut back, hitting sales of goods from new homes to cars and demand for experiences from dining out to live events. There will be a ripple effect too: Middle-class homes in India employ cooks, cleaners and drivers.

Demand for their services, and those of India’s vast gig economy servicing the middle class, would recede. That puts at risk earnings of carmakers, consumer groups and financial services providers which, together with Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries RELI.NS – the owner of India’s largest retailer - account for nearly 62% of the benchmark Nifty 50 index .NSEI. Sluggish consumption is already hurting some of them: small car sales slowed at Maruti Suzuki India MRTI.NS last year and Unilever's ULVR.L Indian unit has been grappling with weak urban demand.

A potential 30% reduction in the 15-million-strong outsourcing and global capability centre workforce over the next two years could shrink the top consuming class by about 5 million to 135 million.

Assuming Blume Ventures' annual income estimate of $15,000, this cohort's total spending power stands to fall by roughly $75 billion a year, assuming those people don't find other employment or sources of income. That's equivalent to 10% of the Nifty 50 constituents’ net sales of 71.3 trillion rupees ($755 billion) for the financial year ended March 2025, per data from the National Stock Exchange.

Overall household savings are already declining as indebtedness mounts: Indians saved barely 23% of their personal disposable income in the financial year to March 2025, according to an estimate by CLSA, down from nearly 30% two decades earlier. Debt as a share of disposable income surged to 55% from 31% over the same period.

While India’s household debt to GDP ratio is much lower than for most peer economies, meagre earnings mean Indians end up spending 13% of their income on repaying borrowings, higher than 8.5% for China and 8% for the US.

Much of what Indians borrow goes towards financing consumption rather than creating assets. Households are leveraging up to pay for everything from overseas vacations to weddings and smartphone purchases.

Such financing, which the Reserve Bank of India calls non-housing retail loans, makes up 55% of household obligations and is growing faster than mortgages. India's household debt to GDP ratio stands at 41.9%. If half of those borrowings are consumption-linked, it implies household discretionary debt amounts to roughly 21% of GDP. Apply that to India’s nominal GDP of 331 trillion rupees for 2024-25 and you have at risk loans worth 69 trillion rupees across the country’s banks and non-bank lenders.

This threatens the loan quality at financial institutions led by the $130 billion HDFC Bank HDBK.NS as well as lenders backed by global investors from Sumitomo Mitsui Financial 8316.T to Blackstone BX.N who are accelerating their expansion in India to tap retail credit demand.

The impact of AI on the global workforce may ultimately create more jobs. First, though, it may turn India’s already weak consumption and much-vaunted demographic dividend into a nightmare.

Follow Shritama Bose on LinkedIn and X.

(Editing by Una Galani; Production by Aditya Srivastav)

((For previous columns by the author, Reuters customers can click on BOSE/[email protected]))

April 28 (Reuters) - Tata Consultancy Services Ltd TCS.NS:

• TCS - CO, ASX GO-LIVE WITH CHESS RELEASE 1 FOR CASH CLEARING AND SETTLEMENT

• TCS - CO AND ASX BEGIN WORK ON CHESS REPLACEMENT PROGRAM RELEASE-2

Source text: ID:nNSE7HSXpZ

Further company coverage: TCS.NS

(([email protected];;))

April 27 (Reuters) - Tata Consultancy Services Ltd TCS.NS:

• TCS - CO AND SIEMENS ENERGY AG ANNOUNCE STRATEGIC AI PARTNERSHIP

• TCS - SIGNS TWO MOUS WITH SIEMENS ENERGY AG AND SIEMENS ENERGY INDIA LIMITED

• TCS - SIEMENS ENERGY INDIA LIMITED TO SUPPORT TCS HYPERVAULT FOR AI DATA CENTER ENERGY NEEDS

Source text: ID:nNSEYKKGq

Further company coverage: TCS.NS

(([email protected];))

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.

By Ujjaini Dutta

BENGALURU, April 24 (Reuters Breakingviews) - "AI deflation" is the new popular shorthand for an uncomfortable truth: getting paid less for doing the same amount of work. Coding tools such as those made by Anthropic's Claude are eroding pricing power of India's top IT services companies far faster than expected. For the $315 billion industry, it heralds a reset toward outcomes rather than hours-based billing.

HCL Technologies HCLT.NS on Tuesday cut its revenue guidance in constant currency terms to 1%-4% for the year to March 2027, after missing its 4%-4.5% target. Its shares fell 11% the next day, wiping out $4.5 billion in market value. The plummeting growth is a far cry from the expectation that firms would unlock more work in the short-term as clients modernise legacy code and clean up data for AI infrastructure, even if it comes at a lower cost.

Indeed, deal wins and toplines show little sign of that support. U.S. dollar revenue at the $97 billion industry leader Tata Consultancy Services TCS.NS shrank 0.5% year-on-year to $30 billion for the year ended March 2026 - its first decline since the company's initial public offering in 2004. Wipro's WIPR.NS annual IT services segment revenue contracted 0.3% as well.

It is getting harder to secure contracts too: HCLTech CEO C Vijayakumar admitted in the company's post-earnings investor call that the total contract value of deals in the quarter ended March remained largely flat but it took "25%-30% more effort to convert and get to the same number." There is also margin compression: HCLTech's net profit margin stood at 12.8% in the year to March, compared to 14.9% in the previous year.

So what happens when the models keep improving and more services fall under generative AI capabilities? Anthropic's latest model, Mythos, is deemed so powerful at finding software vulnerabilities that the company is, for now, holding back releasing it to the wider public.

It points to a heavy remodelling how Indian IT functions. Charging by hour is a dead end. One option is to guarantee outcomes and agree remuneration by way of a share of revenue or cost-savings achieved by a client. Some firms, including HCLTech, already do a little bit of this but the risks are harder to manage. Revenue and earnings could become much more volatile.

Shares of Tata Consultancy -- one of India's most important white-collar employers -- are down nearly 21% since Anthropic's coding tools were released in early 2025. The country's IT sector has lived through many technology transitions, but debugging its model in the AI era may prove harder than usual.

Follow Ujjaini Dutta on LinkedIn and X.

CONTEXT NEWS

Shares of HCLTech fell nearly 11% on April 22 after the Indian IT services firm on the prior day slashed its full year revenue guidance to 1%-4% year-on-year growth in constant currency terms for the year to March 2027, down from 4%-4.5% guided for the previous financial year.

"The business environment remains highly fluid, ​making it difficult to form a definitive view of how the ​next 12 ⁠months will unfold," said CEO C Vijayakumar in a post-earnings call.

Wipro on April 16 reported IT services segment revenue of $10.5 billion, down 0.3% year-on-year. The company announced a record share buyback of up to 150 billion rupees ($1.61 billion) and said it expects June‑quarter revenue to range from a 2% sequential decline to flat growth.

Tata Consultancy Services on April 9 reported its U.S. dollar revenue fell 0.5% year-on-year to $30 billion for the year ended March 31. In constant currency terms, revenue fell 2.4%.

(Editing by Una Galani; Production by Aditya Srivastav)

((For previous columns by the author, Reuters customers can click on DUTTA/[email protected]))

Rewrites throughout and updates closing levels

By Urvi Dugar and Pranav Kashyap

April 22, BENGALURU - HCLTech HCLT.NS lost $4.5 billion in market capitalisation on Wednesday after it projected fiscal 2027 revenue growth below estimates, with restrained client spending raising fresh doubts over a recovery in India's $315 billion IT industry.

The weakness points to sector-wide challenges rather than a company-specific issue, Goldman Sachs analysts said, citing subdued discretionary spending, slower project ramp‑ups and ongoing macro pressures that suggest a meaningful demand recovery may remain elusive.

Top Indian IT companies have been beset by uncertainties over the last year from U.S. tariff and immigration policies as well as geopolitical turmoil in the Middle East, with clients choosing to focus on optimising costs.

HCLTech shares ended the session down 10.7% at 1,286 rupees, losing the most in a day in more than 10 years. Its fourth‑quarter earnings also missed analyst estimates.

The gloom spilled across the IT pack, dragging larger peers Infosys INFY.NS and Tata Consultancy Services TCS.NS down 3.4% and 3%, respectively, and the sub-index .NIFTYIT down 3.9%.

HCLTech's trading volumes surged as panic selling gripped investors, with 33.06 million shares changing hands—the busiest session since November 2012, and nearly 10 times the 30-day average. Meanwhile, at least six brokerages cut their price target, with Jefferies also downgrading the stock to "Underperform" from "Hold".

NSE data for HCLTech's May 26 expiry contracts showed a jump in put-buying at the 1,200‑rupee strike, with open interest swelling to 6,863 contracts by market close, and heavy call writing at 1,300.

The former implies investors are betting on the stock falling further by around 7% while the latter suggests limited scope for a near‑term rebound.

"The business environment remains highly fluid, making it difficult to form a definitive view of how the next 12 months will unfold," said CEO C Vijayakumar in a post-earnings call.

He also called out specific project scaledowns from two clients in the Americas region, which could shave about 0.5% off annual growth.

Tech Mahindra TEML.NS staged a partial comeback to close 2.5% down, after sliding nearly 6%, following a fourth-quarter revenue beat.

(Reporting by Urvi Dugar and Pranav Kashyap in Bengaluru; Editing by Ronojoy Mazumdar and Janane Venkatraman)

(([email protected]; +91 9558725583;))

India File is published every Tuesday. Think your friend or colleague should know about us? Forward this newsletter to them. They can also subscribe here.

By Blaine Julian Rodrigues

Top Indian information technology firms are back in the spotlight as they report fourth-quarter earnings, with analysts predicting another lacklustre quarter.

War in the Middle East and weak discretionary spending by clients are expected to affect their earnings, which will be offset to a significant extent by a weaker rupee.

And that is before the sword of Damocles - concerns around artificial intelligence - is even mentioned.

Is the Indian IT sector in trouble or is there still reason to be optimistic? That is our main focus this week. Share your views at [email protected].

Plus, the instant home-help apps that are the newest consumer craze. Scroll down for more on that.

THIS WEEK IN ASIA

*IMF warns of Asia's vulnerability to war-induced energy shock

*India fails to pass parliament expansion bill linked to quotas for women

*Iran war drives up costs, spoils the mood at China's largest trade fair

*China turns Taiwan’s own voices against it in information war

*North Korea fires ballistic missiles again, flexing muscle amid Iran war

REVENUE GROWTH UNDER STRAIN

Investors are trying to read the tea leaves of IT companies' fourth-quarter results. Brokerages predict that for the top six firms - TCS TCS.NS, Infosys INFY.NS, HCL Tech HCLT.NS, Wipro WIPR.NS, Tech Mahindra TEML.NS and LTM - revenue and profit will likely rise about 10% year-on-year but that would be based largely on a weaker rupee than on underlying growth factors.

The $315 billion sector is a major contributor to India's economic growth and a top driver of its export earnings. It

last reported double-digit revenue growth in the March 2023 quarter.

What will also interest investors is what the top firms forecast for the year.

Last week, Wipro forecast a weak current quarter citing muted demand as its U.S. banking and financial clients cut spending.

That forecast by India's fourth-largest IT firm overshadowed a record share buyback of up to $1.61 billion and wiped out $670 million in its market capitalisation.

Meanwhile, India's top software-services exporter TCS reported better-than-expected quarterly results including $12 billion in deal wins. However, analysts were disappointed with the 2.4% drop in full-year dollar revenue.

Jefferies analysts said ⁠the results offered limited evidence of any meaningful uptick in demand and that an uncertain growth outlook could drive underperformance in the stock.

You can read more in this analysis on how foreign investors have grown wary of India and the cascading effect it is having on earnings and equities.

THE AI QUESTION

If this were a gameshow the multibillion-dollar question would be - what is the impact of generative AI on the Indian IT sector?

Investor concerns about AI disrupting the Indian IT sector's traditional labour-heavy operating model wiped off about $68.6 billion in market value in February.

Comments from TCS management would seem to show no cause for concern at the moment. They said new artificial intelligence models and ​tools in the market did not hurt demand for its offerings.

TCS and Wipro have also sought to assure investors. In February TCS CEO K Krithivasan told a forum that they were encouraging employees to use AI and not to resist the change that it brings even if it cannibalises revenue.

TCS, which also provides AI services to its clients, said its annualised AI revenue crossed $2.3 billion ​in the fourth quarter, driven by accelerated deployments across industries, up from $1.8 billion in the third quarter.

Analysts, however, say that TCS still has some ground to cover on the AI front.

In February, Wipro also maintained that they expect rapid AI adoption to boost rather than shrink demand for software service providers.

Brokerages predict that Infosys and HCL Tech, which are reporting this week, are likely to provide revenue forecasts of a rise between 2%-4% and 4%-6%, respectively, for the fiscal year 2027.

HSBC analysts say that even a modest revenue forecast could support stock prices, noting valuations currently reflect only low-single-digit growth.

MARKET MATTERS

Equity investors have sold about $38 billion of Indian shares since the start of 2025. Foreign outflows stood at $12.7 billion in March alone.

The Iran war has hit earnings, adding fresh pressure on equities and has amplified concerns among equity investors.

Brokerages have begun cutting earnings forecasts with Goldman Sachs lowering its earnings forecast for India by a cumulative 9 percentage points over the next two years.

Nomura has cut its December 2026 target for the Nifty 50 by 15% to 24,600.

THIS WEEK'S MUST READ

India has a new obsession: a domestic helper at your door in minutes for just $1 an hour. Companies are training thousands of workers and fighting for a slice of a $9 billion market where customers are booking maids to peel potatoes and sort LEGO blocks by colour.

The catch? The startups fuelling the frenzy are losing $4 on every order, leaving both worker safety and profitability as problems no one has cracked yet.

Read here for more on that.

(Reporting By Blaine Julian Rodrigues; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

(([email protected];))

BENGALURU, April 13 (Reuters) - Tata Consultancy Services TCS.NS has ordered a probe into allegations of sexual assault and forced religious conversion involving employees at its Nashik office in western India, its parent Tata Sons said on Monday.

The probe, led by TCS's Chief Operating Officer Aarthi Subramanian, is underway to establish the facts and identify those responsible, Tata Sons Chairman N. Chandrasekaran said in a statement.

“Any necessary process improvements or corrective measures will be promptly implemented and strictly enforced,” he added.

Nashik city police are investigating nine complaints linked to the alleged incidents at the branch of India's largest software exporter, the Indian Express reported.

Police have arrested six people so far, the newspaper said.

The employees under investigation have been suspended pending the inquiry, a TCS spokesperson said.

“We are looking into the incident carefully. The investigations are underway,” Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis told reporters on Sunday.

(Reporting by Sai Ishwarbharath B; Editing by Tasim Zahid)

(([email protected];))

Adds results details, analyst comments throughout

April 10 (Reuters) - Shares of Tata Consultancy Services TCS.NS fell nearly 3% on Friday after a rare annual revenue drop outweighed strong deal wins and a quarterly earnings beat, suggesting sustained growth recovery remains elusive amid weak client spending and rising costs.

The stock was on track for its worst day in nearly a month and was set to snap a six-session gaining streak.

It was the third-biggest decliner on the IT index .NIFTYIT and the benchmark Nifty 50 .NSEI.

The IT index was down 2.2%, even as the Nifty 50 was trading 0.9% higher.

TCS beat fourth-quarter earnings estimates and reported $12 billion in deal wins, but analysts were disappointed by a 2.4% drop in its full-year dollar revenue - its first annual decline since listing.

Despite sequential improvement during the quarter, the full-year revenue drop underlined prolonged caution in clients' technology budgets, said Dolat Capital.

Jefferies analysts echoed the view, saying the results offered limited evidence of any meaningful uptick in demand and that an uncertain growth outlook could drive underperformance in the stock.

U.S.-listed shares of TCS' smaller rivals Infosys INFY.NS and Wipro WIPR.NS also lost nearly 2% overnight.

While TCS' margins edged up 10 basis points during the quarter, analysts cautioned that upside could be limited.

BOBCaps said higher subcontracting costs, wage hikes and continued investments in AI platforms could cap near-term margin expansion.

TCS shares have slumped nearly 20.5% so far this year, compared with a 19% drop in the IT index, as concerns of AI-led disruption and weak client spending persist. The benchmark Nifty 50 index is down 8.2% year-to-date.

(Reporting by Kashish Tandon in Bengaluru; Editing by Sumana Nandy)

(([email protected]; 8800437922;))

April 9 (Reuters) - Tata Consultancy Services Ltd TCS.NS:

• TCS EXEC: SHIFT FROM EXPERIMENTATION TO SCALED AI DEPLOYMENT SHOWED MARKED IMPROVEMENT IN FY26

• TCS EXEC: SEE COLLABORATION WITH TATA POWER, TATA COMMUNICATIONS TO SCALE DATA CENTRE BUSINESS

Source text: [ID:]

Further company coverage: TCS.NS

(([email protected];))

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.

By Shritama Bose

MUMBAI, April 8 (Reuters Breakingviews) - It's a tough time to be in the Tata group's cockpit. The $260 billion conglomerate was already buffeted by its own leadership turbulence. Now the CEO of its beleaguered carrier Air India has quit, the carrier confirmed on Tuesday. That complicates Chair N Chandrasekaran's bid to stay in the pilot's seat of the unlisted holding company, Tata Sons.

Campbell Wilson had more than a year left on his five-year contract at the de facto national airline. But financial losses and operational issues, including a deadly crash, have been piling up since the Tatas bought it from the Indian government in 2022. Chandrasekaran, or Chandra as he's widely known, oversaw Air India's purchase, but the acquisition was driven by the emotional attachment to the asset by Ratan Tata, Tata Sons' late chair emeritus, whose family founded the airline prior to its nationalisation.

Wilson's departure also looks badly handled. He had, the airline said on Tuesday, told Chandra in 2024 that he intended to step down this year. That was ample time to find a successor. The board held discussions with prospective candidates, yet he's leaving with no one to take the helm. By contrast, rival Interglobe Aviation INGL.NS, or IndiGo, quickly found a replacement last month for outgoing CEO Pieter Elbers in British Airways veteran Willie Walsh.

It's reminiscent of the inability to resolve lingering leadership issues at the airline's parent. Tata Sons holds stakes in 25 public companies and private units, including the carrier and a semiconductor-making venture. A board meeting in June will decide if Chandra will get a third five-year term at the powerful Indian business. His current stint is due to end in 2027.

A year ago a renewal was all but guaranteed for the 62-year-old executive, who led the group's cash cow outsourcer Tata Consultancy Services TCS.NS for eight years and oversaw a turnaround of group companies, including Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles TAMO.NS. But problems at a number of subsidiaries have brought pushback from Noel Tata, the new head of the charitable trusts that control the holding firm.

To win over opponents, Chandra may have to lay out a fresh plan for turning around underwater businesses like Air India and the struggling e-commerce unit Tata Digital, Moneycontrol reported on Monday, citing sources. He will also be under pressure to chart ways for TCS to regain its edge as artificial intelligence tools disrupt the business model of India's largest outsourcer.

That makes Wilson's departure even more inopportune, lengthening Chandra's emergency to-do list. It looks increasingly like the Tata group is fighting to break out of a succession doom loop.

Follow Shritama Bose on LinkedIn and X.

CONTEXT NEWS

Air India confirmed on April 7 that CEO Campbell Wilson has resigned. It came hours after Reuters reported the news, citing an unnamed source with direct knowledge of the matter.

Air India said Wilson made known in 2024 his intention to quit this year.

Tata Sons chair N. Chandrasekaran is expected to spell out a clearer path to profitability for businesses such as Air India, Tata Digital and the group’s electronics manufacturing ventures, Indian news website Moneycontrol reported on April 6, citing unnamed officials from the Tata group.

(Editing by Antony Currie and Una Galani; Production by Ujjaini Dutta)

((For previous columns by the author, Reuters customers can click on BOSE/[email protected]))

March 20 (Reuters) - Tata Consultancy Services Ltd TCS.NS:

• TCS AND SWISSPORT EXTEND STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP TO ACCELERATE AI-LED TRANSFORMATION

• FIVE-YEAR AGREEMENT FOR DIGITAL INNOVATION ACROSS SWISSPORT'S GLOBAL AVIATION SERVICES

Further company coverage: TCS.NS

(([email protected];;))

March 19 (Reuters) - Amadeus IT Group SA AMA.MC:

• SIGNS GLOBAL STRATEGIC AGREEMENT WITH TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES

• RELATIONSHIP TO SPAN MULTIPLE AREAS OF BUSINESS

• IN FIRST INSTANCE, COLLABORATION TO SEE TCS BECOME SUPPORTING PARTNER IN IMPLEMENTATION OF AMADEUS NEVIO

Source text

Further company coverage: AMA.MC

(Gdansk Newsroom)

(([email protected]; +48 58 769 66 00;))