TCS sees flat business growth

Tata Consultancy Services chairman Ratan Tata said on Tuesday that the software company’s growth in the coming three months would be “close to flat”.

The country’s largest software company by sales has been adversely affected by companies cutting down on outsourcing due to the economic downturn, Tata said. “Our view for the immediate future is slow growth, or no growth,” he told shareholders at the annual general meeting.

TCS may need to “aggressively protect” its profit margins, he said, adding, the company would transfer more jobs to India.

TCS posted a 4.6 per cent rise in net profit in the three months ending March 2009. This was the fifth consecutive quarter of single-digit year-on-year quarterly profit growth for the firm, after seeing a rise of more than 20 per cent in the previous quarters, report agencies.