Dear Shareholders,
As I write to you at the conclusion of an immensely dynamic year at Birlasoft, I'm
often reminded of Warren Buffets many mantras: and one in particular where he cites
customer delight. ‘Getting to really know and understand our customers' jobs to be
done, their expectations and their preferences. And in the end to exceed their
expectations.' In everything that we do at Birlasoft, this is the reason we exist, and
every day this is what we set out to achieve.
Our organisation is in the midst of a huge transformation, the business landscape and
the ways of doing business have evolved: and in response, we are becoming fitter and
leaner as an organisation. The wheels were set in motion early on in the year to help
create the Birlasoft we collectively envisioned. I note with satisfaction that we continue
to make investments in the right direction: in processes, people, systems. Our continued
engagements with external strategic partners help keep us up to speed with current and
emerging global market practices, and ensure we stay at par with global players.
A key marker of Birlasoft's ongoing transformation is the onboarding of a new CEO and
MD Angan Guha, who has brought on board not only his extensive experience in business
transformation and building scale, strong customer engagement, and creating high
performing teams in the IT solutions industry, but also his signature drive, vigour and
‘big thinker' energy, all of which align well with our growth ambition. Angan is
setting new benchmarks for the organisation, and is a hands on customer focused leader.
Notwithstanding the overall operating landscape, we secured multiple deal wins during
the year, including several multi year, multi million dollar engagements from both
existing and new clients. These wins were attained in a period of rising uncertainty and
have resulted in orders amounting to a total contract value (TCV) of $869 million during
FY'23. I am excited to share that this is the highest ever quantum of deal signings we
have ever had, a noteworthy 24.8% increase over the preceding financial year.
During FY23, our consolidated revenue grew by 16.1% to Rs 47,948 million, driven by our
business and technology transformation that includes Digital Services, which registered an
even higher growth of 19.2%. We reported an Adj EBITDA of Rs 6715 million, translating to
an Adj EBITDA margin of 14% for the year. All this signals that our deal win momentum
remains strong, and our margins are expected to strengthen as we move forward.
Today we are at the edge of a pivotal moment, so much has gone right as we work with
diligent focus on our inner transformation. With a focus on reorganising ourselves to
create efficient teams, verticals and functions, we have designed a future ready org
structure and ways of working, onboarded key leaders to strengthen our client proposition
and upgraded our Go To Market approach. This strategic realignment has empowered our
global teams with a "One Birlasoft" vision and culture.
We have enhanced our sales and delivery practices by institutionalising best practices
and investing in upskilling the teams. We are consciously strengthening our market facing
organisation, making necessary bold investments and have deepened our relationships with
key partners like hyper scalers, SaaS, ERP and data analytics partners.
We also strengthened our long standing customer relationships during the year, with
revenues from our Top 10 customers recording a 17% growth. This reflects the confidence
that our top tier customers have in our capabilities. We are committed to investing in
strategic relationship building and becoming increasingly relevant to our customers by
developing capabilities across the board: offshore and onsite, as we continue to think,
behave, and strategise. We expanded our delivery footprint with the operationalisation of
a new 250 seat capacity delivery centre in Coimbatore. Our suite of enterprise solutions
is streamlined and combines our sales and delivery capabilities to provide best in class
consultative, operational and delivery efficiencies for ensuring fulfilment at speed and
scale.
This value maximisation for our stakeholders is a direct outcome of the contribution of
each of our employees. All our 12,000+ professionals, have played a vital role in our
growth journey. Our employees are our partners and embody the Customer first mindset, the
stretch in their targets indicating how bold and ambitious they are for our clients. I
thank each one of our employees for making customer first and organisation a priority,
with a growth mindset that are the hallmarks of Birlasoft today. Our focus towards being
an Employer of choice ensures that our work environment is built around a culture of
collaboration and innovation. This has contributed to us being certified as a Great Place
to Work for the second consecutive year.
Birlasoft's innovative solutions and technical capabilities continue to be recognised
by various industry bodies and analyst firms, securing high ranks in their respective
studies. These include recognitions from ISG, Avasant and SAP to name a few. This repeated
external acknowledgment reinforces our position as a leader in the industry, and reaffirms
the value we add to our clients.
At Birlasoft, we believe in giving back to the society and the communities we work
with. Our CSR efforts are driven by two key themes, environmental sustainability and
empowerment and enablement of women and children. During this fiscal, we were honoured
with the award for 'CSR Project of the
Year' at the 8th CSR Impact Awards for our flagship community programme: Project
Shodhan. In addition, recognising that the receding pandemic has exposed a gaping void in
the space of mental health, we have recently partnered with the LiveLoveLaugh foundation,
an organisation that supports mental health for rural communities where the depth of this
underlying malaise is often felt the greatest.
I want to thank each of you, our shareholders, for your unwavering support and faith as
Birlasoft continues to pursue a bold ambition, chase lofty goals with agility: learning
and pivoting quickly. We are focused on systemically identifying and nurturing the right
set of leaders and change catalysts, and setting clear accountabilities for them. We are
confident that our ability to estimate and sense the customer requirements, helping them
articulate their unrealised needs and partnering for solutioning and delivery will be the
differentiators for Birlasoft's success going forward.
I foresee a resurgent Birlasoft: sharper, bolder, more agile as we emerge out of this
intense transformation, in close pursuit of our USD 1bn aspiration. I look forward to your
continued trust and partnership.
Warm regards
Amita Birla