Infosys loss is TechM's gain

After serving at Infosys for over two decades, on 11th March the company announced the resignation of Mohit Joshi, president, shortly followed by TechM's announcement of appointment as the next MD and CEO of the company. Mohit will take charge once CP Gurnani retires in December later this year. At Infosys he headed financial services and healthcare verticals which accounted for over a third of the entire revenue. His departure at Infosys marks two quick senior exits at Infosys, the other being Ravikumar who left the company in October of 2022 and went on to take up the top job at Cognizant.

In a note dated March 12, CLSA's Pankaj Kapoor opined that in the medium term though a transient business impact is not ruled out especially on the ongoing contract negotiations, however in the long term, since Mohit has had long-standing client relationships, especially in the financial services vertical where he headed sales as well as revenues, Infosys will step up its effort to retain talent in the accounts and sales teams. "While there is no immediate vulnerability-Salil was reappointed in May 2022 for a second term that ends in Mar 2027-an early move by Infosys to reset its leadership team is important to comfort investors, in our view," the note said.

On the other hand Emkay in a note dated March 12 saw his appointment as the next CEO of TechM as a strong positive with Mohit brining in his vast experience in the BFSI sector where the company lags behind compared to other large tech companies. "Mr Joshi would bring in a vast & competent experience as well as fresh energy, ideas & perspectives to TechM which would be a vital appendix to its traditional strength in communications," the note said. Also his experience in digital transformation, new technologies and large deals would complement TechM's strategies and continue to build on business-mix diversification it further said.

Further Nomura in its note dated March 12 said that it sees Mohit's focus at TechM is likely to be around increasing the large deals and also focus on BFSI which currently at 16% is the lowest amongst the large cap Indian IT services. “A key ailment in TechM's operating performance has been volatile and lower-than-peers margin. While some factors behind the low margin have been high onsite effort mix, higher dependence on subcontractors and business mix (higher contribution of telecom vertical), there have been issues around margin erosion due to a mixed history of acquisitions. We think Mohit's focus would include taking steps to reduce these headwinds structurally," the note said.