Tata Technologies rebounds from pandemic lows, eyes about USD 500 mn revenue this fiscal

PTI, Nov 21, 2021, 11:43 AM IST

New Delhi: Tata Technologies, a global engineering and product development digital services firm, expects to clock close to half a billion dollars in revenue this fiscal, riding on accelerated growth from electric mobility across the globe and offshoring of projects by its customers in the aftermath of COVID-19, according to a top company official.

The company, which had witnessed a ”precipitous drop” in revenue at the beginning of the pandemic, had clocked a revenue of USD 119.3 million in the second quarter of the ongoing fiscal as compared to USD 80.1 million in the same period of FY21.

”We’ve seen sequential quarter on quarter growth now for the last six quarters and we expect that to continue. We had a precipitous drop in revenue at the beginning of COVID-19. We’ve seen all of that comeback. ”This year (fiscal) for the first time in our history, we’ll get close to half a billion dollars (revenue),” Tata Technologies CEO and Managing Director Warren Harris told PTI.

Terming the second-quarter revenue as ”the largest revenue that we’ve ever had in our history”, he said, ”So to go from that precipitous drop at the beginning of COVID, up to a point whereby we are bigger now than we’ve ever been is a testament to our portfolio and value proposition, the relationships with customers, but also the excitement that surrounds our industry.”

When asked if the company’s revenue growth would mainly come from its capability in electric mobility, he said, ”I think it’s appropriate to say that the move to electrification has provided the catalyst for the breakout growth that we’ve enjoyed in the last 12 months…”

However, he added, ”But I would also caveat that, to say that COVID has taught all of our manufacturing customers — not just automotive, industrial machinery and now aerospace is coming back — that complex engineering, full turnkey product development can be undertaken in an offshore context.

”And that is something that Tata Technologies is uniquely known for. That is also providing the type of fuel to the growth that we’ve received.”

Elaborating on the company’s strength in the electric vehicle (EV) space, Harris said, ”We have the great privilege, from a market position, to work with some of the most progressive automotive companies in the world — not just the startups, not just the new energy vehicle companies but a lot of traditional OEMs that are investing very heavily to catch up with the likes of Tesla.”

Stating that Tata Technologies developed its first EV in 2012 and has been investing in building skills and intellectual property on EV technology for over 10 years, he said a lot of that has been done ”in the anticipation of the kind of pendulum swing that we’re seeing at the moment” with almost everybody moving away from internal combustion engines to embrace some form of electrification.

”That history of 10 plus years in this space and the fact that we’ve worked with the likes of NIO, the fact that we’ve worked with the likes of Rivian, the fact that we were very much involved with JLR’s investment in the I-Pace, those experiences and the investments that we’ve undertaken has really positioned Tata Technologies in a relatively unique way,” Harris added.

While the pandemic has hit hard, a lot of positives have emerged from it from Tata Technologies’ point of view. ”At the outset of COVID-19, none of us knew what was going to happen. Our customers in not just automotive but also in aerospace and industrial heavy machinery, most of them took steps to cut costs and to protect their own viability and health.

”We had organizations in different parts of the world that executed their force majeure clauses within contracts, and short closed engagements with us,” he said.

The first three months of the last fiscal — April, May, and June of 2020 — were a ”very difficult time for the industry. It was a very difficult time for our customers and by association ourselves”, he recalled.

Since then, he said, ”Most of our customers have taken that opportunity to really affect the change from the old way of doing things to the new way of doing things. The appetite for outsourcing has grown exponentially, the confidence in digital has grown exponentially, and the willingness to change has accelerated.

”All of that has meant tremendous demand for, again, our industry, and specifically for organizations like Tata Technologies that are regarded as strategic partners to many of our customers.”

As a result, he said Tata Technologies has witnessed sequential quarter-on-quarter growth now for the last six quarters.