India’s bellweather IT companies are also feeling the strain of the coronavirus pandemic.
Infosys has said that it’s suspending promotions and salary hikes following the coronavirus breakout. Infosys, though, said that it would honour all the job offers it’s made thus far. Infosys COO Pravin Rao said the impact caused by COVID-19 since last few weeks of March has led to “significant displacement” in the operating model while severely testing business continuity plans of companies.
Additionally, in an indication of how confusing these times even for established companies, Infosys didn’t provide guidance about its revenue outlook for FY21. “Considering the business uncertainty emanating from COVID-19, the company is unable to provide guidance on revenues and margins for FY21 at this stage. The company will provide guidance after visibility improves,” Infosys said in a statement. Other IT companies have done the same –Wipro for the first time did not forecast revenue for the first quarter, while Cognizant withdrew the guidance for 2020 it had issued in January.
Like Infosys, TCS too had earlier said that it was suspending salary hikes, but would honour job offers it had made to nearly 40,000 freshers before the epidemic had broken out. TCS had also additionally said that it wouldn’t be firing any staff during this period. Cognizant had even said that it would give two-thirds of its employees an additional 25 percent of their base pay for working during the coronavirus epidemic. Infosys too seemed to suggest that while the current conditions were hard, they were likely to improve going forward. “While the immediate short-term will be challenging, looking ahead, we can see that there is a strong interest to consolidate with partners with high-quality and agile service delivery and strong financial resilience. I am confident we will emerge from this stronger,” said Infosys CEO and MD Salil Parekh.
While India’s IT majors have the wherewithal to weather a storm like the coronavirus, India’s startups don’t quite have that luxury. Several startups, including Treebo, Meesho, Travel Triangle, Instamojo and Shuttl have laid off employees, while several others, including Credit Mate, Ixigo, Lenskart, Droom and Makemytrip have given employees pay cuts.