<dhhead-CHAIRMAN?S MESSAGE</dhhead-
As India transforms from a "quantity" economy to a
"quality" economy, this philosophy drives our commitment to harnessing human
potential as the Nation?s most valuable asset; and consequently, our focus on
workforce matching, worker productivity and employability.
Dear Shareholders,
Aachievements for the year and vision for the future. Our journey
througRs 2023 remains a story of resilience, innovation and growth. While India continues
to create its mark in the global arena, the Indian workforce is evolving. With greater
formalisation, more opportunities for specialised roles in professional spaces and a
growing demand for vocational training, we are playing an active role in bridging the gap
between employers and employees. Our industry experience, technology-enabled methods,
specialised recruitment and compliance-based services continue to help us fulfil our
commitment of putting India to work.
Evolving workforce dynamics
As the management Guru Peter Drucker famously said, "The ultimate
resource in economic development is people. It is people, not merely capital or raw
materials that develop an economy." As India transforms from a "quantity"
economy to a "quality" economy, this philosophy drives our commitment to
harnessing human potential as the Nation?s most valuable asset; and consequently, our
focus on workforce matching, worker productivity and employability. As the very nature of
work and learning evolve, we are incorporating elements of continual learning and equally
importantly continual market signalling of that learning.
Growing strategically
Over the past year, our Staffing headcount grew 23% YoY in gross
revenue terms. We witnessed strong performances across sectors such as consumer, telecom,
retail, e-commerce, and manufacturing. One on-going challenge remains that with growth in
our large customers, there is a pressure on PAPM, and in turn on margins.
IT Staffing business continues to be impacted by the headwinds in the
IT industry. We have mitigated this by our focus on fast growing global capability centres
or GCCs as they have come to be known. We have used this downturn in the IT industry to
improve our processes and with the additional focus on GCCs are creating the operating
leverage, which should impact both revenue and margins, when the industry turns around.
Our productivity and technology businesses are smaller, but they have begun to add to the
top and bottom-line and are the seeds we have sown for growth in the medium-term. Our
innovative Work-Linked Degree Programmes combine education and employment, to help create
sustainable talent supply chains and provide high employer signalling value. We are
on-track to introduce several modules and features to our HRMS platform to further enhance
our capabilities and meet evolving business needs. Initiatives around cross-selling and
upselling have strengthened our market position in a dynamic operating environment. Last,
but certainly not least, we maintain a healthy free cash balance of over RS 250
Crores. We are ready to deploy this cash in any idea that will enhance out service
offering and your business returns. To signal our commitment to prudent capital
management, we did a small but successful buy-back of stock during the year.
Looking Forward
As we look ahead, we aspire to carry forward the learnings from the
past to continue to pave the path for profitable, capital-efficient growth. Our success is
largely a reflection of the hard work and dedication of our people. I would, therefore,
like to thank our teams and the management for their passion and commitment. To our
investors and shareholders, your consistent trust fuels our future, and for this, we are
grateful. As Mahatma Gandhi said, "The future depends on what you do today." At
TeamLease, we are focused on building a stronger, more resilient future by making
impactful decisions today. Together, we will continue to create meaningful employment
opportunities and provide value-added services to manage India?s growing workforce.
Warm regards,
Narayan Ramachandran
Non-Executive Chairman & Lead Independent Director