Business certainty with Trump coming to power more important; India needs to up skilling, R&D spends in budget: Vijay K Thadani
New Delhi
NIIT Ltd, the skills and talent development company, reported a net revenue of ₹98 crore, up 8 per cent quarter-on-quarter (q-o-q) and 15 per cent year-on-year (y-o-y). EBITDA was recorded at ₹9.2 crore; the Profit After Tax was at ₹13.4 crore, up 13 per cent q-o-q.
According to Vijay K Thadani, Vice Chairman and Managing Director, NIIT Ltd, global uncertainties have come in as a “big driver” and there is some improvement in sentiments over the last two weeks.
In an interview to businessline, Thadani talks about the global macros witnessing some improved sentiments, what Trump’s ascendancy means, India growth story and skilling, and a Budget wish-list that includes thrust on R&D.
Edited excerpts:
The macro picture doesn’t look very bright. Europe is still down, and the US is battling inflation. Your comments…
I think uncertainty has been a big driver. Things are beginning to look more certain over the last two weeks than they were before.
But your timeline is basically linked to Trump’s ascendancy…
His presence has an impact, no doubt. But I have a feeling that people value certainty more than good or bad news.
Trump’s ascendancy is definitely inviting a lot of dialogue and debate. But, at the end of the day, he’s a business-driven person. What’s good for business, is what is good for him. And at NIIT, I think we have all the ingredients of what’s good for their business.
For instance, he is on record with ‘promoting immigration of competency’. That’s exactly what we stand for. Again, there is the $500 billion Stargate (AI project, backed by Trump). So how will that happen without (skilling) the (right) people. So these are areas where we can participate.
In short, my belief is, he will promote competency and get competent people to work there.
Are there any concerns for your India businesses?
The GCCs (global capacity centres) are growing, banking and financial services growing. The big technology companies are on record to start hiring. Gen AI will improve and will bring-in productivity, which means huge reskilling requirement, new investments in manufacturing. So the outlook for India businesses look good.
But, India is witnessing some softness on the economic growth front too?
At present, the overall momentum is pointing in the right direction. Never before has the impact of technology on mankind been as visible as it is now. And, India’s contribution to that is very much out there. There are Indian companies participating in the global arena, and Indians are participating in global policy making and economic development.
I do not see any pressure for our company (NIIT) in the short term. Because we are in an investment cycle and we are able to get a disproportionate return on on our spends. We are also coming from a negative. So therefore to us, it will always always be positive.
However, there is some softness, but I think policy balancing will take care of that.
For instance, allowing companies to invest in new age areas and giving them options to skill the workforce.
Previous attempts at skill development were met with only modest success. Your comments.
Earlier schemes for skilling had too many moving parts. In those social schemes, that were designed for a corporate to participate — specially for a public company — sharing designs every 90 days is tough. Moreover, payment cycles were to be streamlined. We understand that the government has difficulties, but the purchasing mechanism was designed was not for services, it was for goods.
What policy interventions do you expect in the Budget?
Something to balance out the softness.
Lets take the example of Singapore or Malaysia. In some of these countries, a part of their earning, say $100 was asked to be deposited into a ‘skills fund’ which you can use to scale your workforce too. So it came in as a sort of forced spend on training. There will be arguments against the creation and usage of this type of corpus. But look at the skills quotient across these economies now. There are other factors that contributed to their growth, but these economies at least made sure that people spend money on training.
Also, India needs to spend more money on R&D. At present, R&D spends are just about 0.04 per cent of our GDP; and so we have an immediate opportunity to scale it up.
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