CHAIRMAN'S MESSAGE
ROBUST FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE
2023-24 was a transitional year for eClerx, as we moved from promoter-led leadership to
professional leadership under our Group CEO, Kapil Jain. While there is a change of guard,
the values and culture of the firm remain unchanged. The solidity of our culture and
client franchise and the durability of our business model enabled us to execute on our
growth agenda, deliver outstanding services to our clients, and generate value for our
shareholders. For the full year, our revenue in USD terms grew by 6.4% Y-o-Y to USD 354mm,
outpacing the market - this despite macroeconomic headwinds, geopolitical uncertainties,
and high inflation. In INR terms, operating revenue was INR 29,255mm for the full year, up
10.5% over FY ‘23. Our performance resulted in 25% CAGR (5-year) in stock price
growth for our shareholders, over and above our capital allocation policy of returning
excess cash to shareholders through dividend and buybacks. In FY '24 we added 65 new
clients and our $10mm+ revenue cohort of clients reached 10 - an all-time high. Automation
and Analytics services are at $65mm, and Business Process as a Service (BPaaS) or managed
services is now at $86mm.
DRIVING DIFFERENTIATION
Your Company's focus on productized services including FAO, Creative, Content &
Commerce, Omni-channel Customer Experience, Client Lifecycle, and Field Tech Operations
for mid-market and enterprise clients, helped us dominate profitable service niches across
core industries. Each of these service lines grew as we added new logos and achieved
higher wallet share in existing accounts. Notable highlights of the year included the
inauguration of an office in Paris to support our fast-growing fashion and luxury clients
in France, the opening of an office in Bangkok to deliver cutting-edge content production
services and complement our Phuket production site. We also expanded our KYC practice by
opening a new Centre of Excellence in Fayetteville, NC, enabling us to deliver high end
regulatory work that requires onshore presence for our financial markets' clients.
Automation continued to be our engine for innovation and growth. This year, we made
significant strides in integrating GenAI across our engagements - development of
horizontal products like Insights on Demand, ContentOps, CareOps and QA360 enabled us to
fill whitespaces in existing clients where we have a proven track record and demonstrated
right to win, and open doors with new clients. Our GenAI specialists demonstrated thought
leadership by presenting several papers at international conferences -noteworthy
publications include "Literature Survey on Large Language Models" at the ICCMB
2024 (Singapore), "Vector Databases and Vector Embedding - Review" at the IWAIP
2023 (Indonesia) and "Performance Evaluation of
Vector Embeddings with Retrieval-Augmented Generation" at the ICCCS 2024 (China).
As part of our commitment to being talent creators and not just talent consumers, we
partnered with IBS (ICFAI Business School) to create the next generation of AI leaders.
With NASSCOM, we are working to nurture the start-up ecosystem through various programs
like GenAI Foundry and NASSCOM AI Game Changers, pressing forward our innovation agenda in
GenAI and machine learning.
Our Analytics practice has been growing stronger as clients are now partnering with us
on their strategic priorities around driving sales, product range strategy, accelerating
and monetizing marketing efforts. Our analytics products - eMatch and M360 - continue to
see greater demand and adoption in industrial / B2B and retail. We enhanced our BI
solution of data storytelling and dashboarding by embedding machine learning and Gen AI
capabilities to deliver actionable insights. We also doubled down on our data engineering
capabilities and were recognized by Analytics India Magazine (AIM) with the "Data
Engineering Democratization" award, and also won at the "Big Data Awards
2023". Like previous years, this year again we were picked up in "AIM's 50 Best
Firms for Data Scientists to Work For".
INVESTING IN OUR PEOPLE & CULTURE
In FY ‘24, we grew to 17,000+ employees across the globe as we on-boarded senior
leaders in sales, client services and marketing, and specialists and consultants across
business segments.
Our employees appreciated our varied learning offerings, diversity initiatives and
managerial effectiveness programs, resulting in our highest ever employee engagement
scores, and one of the best retention rates.
In the second half of the year, we launched a world-class employee experience platform
that enables us to communicate and engage with our global workforce and drive our
#OneeClerx agenda. The platform is now central to driving open and community-led
interactions, and a key lever for inclusion, belongingness, and communication. In addition
to employee experience, employee wellbeing also took centre-stage as a strategic priority,
bolstered by a range of initiatives targeted at enhancing both mental and physical
wellness. These efforts included on-site health camps, comprehensive wellness surveys,
round-the-clock medical assistance, and counselling support systems.
On the Learning front, we achieved the highest learning enrolments, 92%, as we focussed
on offering a number of programs to augment niche domain and technology capabilities, as
part of our Skills University. We also invested in learning programs in the areas of
GenAI, consulting, business storytelling and executive coaching for key leaders.
Our People function was recognized yet again by the industry - this time picking up two
Gold awards at the Asia-Pacific Stevie? Awards - one for our skill of the year program
and the second for leveraging the metaverse for a world-class employee on-boarding
experience. We were also recognized with a "Silver award by the Brandon Hall Group -
2023" being the seventh straight year that we were recognized at Brandon Hall Group
HCM Excellence Awards.
OUR COMMITMENT TO SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY, SUSTAINABILITY, AND RISK MANAGEMENT
The thrust of our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives in the areas of
education, employability, and environment yielded substantial impact as we supported
education from early childhood through to university, invested in skill development and
placements for youth, and undertook environmental initiatives. Our employees actively
participated in a raft of community programs, including upcycling wastepaper into
notebooks, career counselling, resume building, communication skills workshops, job
readiness programs, and tree plantation. We impacted 24,000 lives and planted over 70,000+
trees in FY '24. We also continue to make progress on ESG initiatives - our share of
electricity from renewable sources at our India offices increased from 32% to 68% over the
last one year. Our facilities across India are environmentally certified to LEED standards
and we were awarded the bronze medal by EcoVadis on sustainability reporting.
Finally, I want to emphasize our robust risk management culture, which stands out as
one of our strengths. We have robust processes, advanced analytics, empowered risk and
control functions, and a culture of transparency and clear communication. Our risks span a
wide spectrum: some are financial, others operational, technological, or reputational.
Recognizing that risks evolve alongside our business mix, we continuously refine our
processes to address both familiar and emerging risks. We remain committed to a culture of
ongoing scrutiny, critique, and enhancement of our operational frameworks, ensuring our
global delivery teams can consistently deliver excellence to clients worldwide.
PREPARING FOR THE FUTURE
We have had impressive gross sales over the last 5 years. Our revenue from operations
grew at an above industry CAGR of 15% over last five years and our EBITDA and net profit
after tax also grew at a 5-year CAGR of 19% and 18% respectively. Over the past year,
Kapil has spent time meeting customers and internal stakeholders to understand what our
customers think of us, what we do well, and what we can do better. We are now at an
inflection point - the Board has approved Kapil's 4-year plan that builds on the strength
of our core franchise. The firm has made significant investments to strengthen the
leadership team - we hired a Chief Revenue Officer, a Chief Marketing Officer, and other
senior leaders. Our strategy has never been clearer, and pivots on a sharper focus on
sales, harnessing one eClerx to mine existing clients and win new clients, and deliver a
unified and consistent market message. The evolving landscape and our focused strategy are
paving the way for a new era for the firm. When I reflect on the strength of our position
in the market, the sheer depth and breadth of our global client franchise, and the calibre
of our talent, I am incredibly optimistic about the future of eClerx.
LOOKING AHEAD
In conclusion, I want to extend my heartfelt gratitude to eClerx's global team for
their unwavering passion and commitment to our clients and our business, which were
instrumental in delivering strong financial results in fiscal 2024. Looking ahead to the
new year, our business is propelled by strong tailwinds and a solid position in the
marketplace. With our differentiated capabilities, the substantial investments we are
making, and disciplined execution of our growth strategy, I am extremely confident in our
ability to further expand our market presence and generate value for all our stakeholders.
Sincerely,
SHAILESH KEKRE
Chairman.