While Wipro leads the pack on absolute numbers, analysts for Infosys for reporting consistent growth, revising FY22 guidance and beating TCS on revenue growth.

'India is still a small market but whatever we do, we do it with full focus.'

Tata Motors recently cut the sales forecast of its luxury car brand, JLR, due to chip shortages, scaling down its production numbers from the earlier 120,000 units to 60,000-65,000 units by September, and leading to an almost 10 per cent fall in the company's stock. In May this year, Bosch India, too, had stated that chip shortfalls would impact its production, as supply chains were getting disrupted.

A seasonally-strong quarter, with no immediate impact of the second wave and continued acceleration of digital transformation will allow the IT services sector to report a robust Q1 this financial year. However, key metrics to look out for will be attrition rate and margin lever as they will be impacted by salary hikes. Analysts expect growth for the quarter to be broad-based, with sectors like banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), retail, manufacturing, hi-tech and life sciences driving revenue growth. Analysts across brokerage houses are pegging revenue growth in the range of 1.5 per cent to 4.5 per cent.

Since its launch in April, helpline 155260 has been able to prevent more than Rs 18.5 million of defrauded money from reaching the hands of fraudsters.

Bug bounty hunters or independent ethical hackers are certified cybersecurity professionals or security researchers who crawl the web, scanning the systems for gaps through which hackers can sneak in and alert the companies, says Shivani Shinde.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has weathered the pandemic very well, and has earned tremendous goodwill from customers, which enhanced the firm's standing in the market, N Chandrasekaran, chairman, said in his virtual address of the 26th Annual General Meeting on Thursday. He said TCS shareholders received over 3,000 per cent return on their investments since the company was listed in 2004.

One of the biggest lessons for cities fighting the Covid-19 pandemic has been the criticality of access to data. Mumbai, which has shown significant success in managing the second wave of the pandemic, is a case in point, reports Shivani Shinde.

The total value of India's top 100 brands has increased by 2 per cent, from $162.1 billion in 2020 to $164.9 billion in 2021, according to the latest Brand Finance India 100 2021 report. This uplift in brand value over the course of the first year of the pandemic is an impressive feat given the global economic crisis following the implementation of national lockdowns in March 2020, when business activity was brought to a halt, affecting both production and consumption. Among the brands that came on the top of the list include Tata Group, Reliance Industries, and Mahindra Group.

Shortages of chips will impact the car market

Although the number of resignations came down at Cognizant in April and continued to slow in May, the impact of attrition would play out in the second quarter also because of the longer notice period in India.

Attrition is driving the hiring effort on campuses.

The IT services giant is also slated to hold a board meeting on April 13 and 14, to approve of and take on record the consolidated financial results of the company for the quarter and year ended March 31, 2021. Indian IT majors will be announcing their fourth quarter (Q4) and 2020-21 results starting April 12. At the end of the Q3 FY21 Infosys had cash and investment of $4.5 billion.

With the economy gaining pace and large deals back on the table, chief executive officers (CEOs) of tech companies believe global tech spending will witness growth this year. According to CEO Survey by Nasscom, about 71 per cent chief executives expect global spend to grow over 4 per cent. The figure is significantly higher than the previous two years - 41 per cent and 59 per cent in 2019 and 2020, respectively. The survey also said the recovery in global tech spending will be led by the digital segment.

The company is also looking at creating an algorithm-based talent marketplace and an internal gig workers' community. Talent Cloud will be powered by Algo Talent Development, enabling associates to move across different technologies and industry domains.

'With nearly double the market share of our nearest competitor, we are shaping the digital transformation journey of close to 1,000 clients in India.'

From the beginning of 2021 Wipro has moved on to a new organisational structure. Analyst tracking the company are now wondering if CEO Thierry Delaporte's attempt to bolster Wipro's presence in the BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) space by acquiring Capco for $1.45 billion is a step taken too early. Though many agree that Capco as a target may be good, but Wipro, which has been the most aggressive player in acquiring firms compared to its Indian players, does not have much to show in terms of performance as it continues to lag peers.

The world's top brands across sectors might lose between $93 billion and $223 billion because of a data breach, a first-of-its-kind study by Interbrand and Infosys, called 'Invisible Tech, Real Impact', has found. This represents 4-9.6 per cent of their cumulative value. The study gains significance in the backdrop of yet another massive hack, this time of Microsoft's email software, which is estimated to have affected at least 60,000 known victims globally, according to Bloomberg. The study found that there is a long-term impact of data breaches on brands across sectors.

For Q4CY20, PC shipments grew by 27 per cent year-on-year, said data from the IDC.

The first half of the year (H1-2020) was marked by sluggish growth with demand down 26 per cent YoY, while the second half saw recovery. H2-2020 recovered with 19 per cent YoY growth, reports Shivani Shinde.