After years of flat revenues, CSS Corp expects 15% growth: Manish Tandon

CSS Corp is open to acquiring firms with a ticket size of around $50-60 mn to support organic growth

Chennai-based information technology (IT) services firm CSS Corp has clocked around three per cent growth in the past two quarters and is expecting the same rate of growth every quarter from now on, said CEO Manish Tandon.

Tandon, the former executive vice-president of Infosys, had joined the IT services firm almost a year back when the company's revenue growth was flat. 

"In the past couple of years, CSS Corp had been seeing flat revenues. Furthermore, towards the start of financial year (FY) 2017-18, NASSCOM projected the slowest growth rate for the IT industry in nearly a decade at seven-eight per cent. In this testing environment, CSS Corp has started clocking a q-o-q (quarter-on-quarter) topline growth rate of three per cent in the past two quarters," said Tandon. 

"We are also confident that our innovation-led strategy will continue to yield consistent topline growth beyond FY 2018," he added. The company is expecting a 14-15 per cent revenue growth during FY'18.

Tandon said that the strategy has been to stick to profitable growth through active discussions with customers regarding their requirements. The company has been profitable in the past too, but the revenue was almost flat. The company will continue to focus on the US, apart from its business in Europe and the Asia-Pacific.

"My vision is to create a new-age company," Tandon explained. The company is working on the latest technologies and has come out with an artificial intelligence platform, called Yodaa, to support its customers.

The company is also open to acquiring companies in the ticket size of around $50-60 million to support organic growth. CSS Corp would look at adding more people, cloud, and infrastructure capabilities through the inorganic route. A private equity firm owns the majority stake in the company, which can either raise funds from the owners or look at other options for funding. 

In 2016-17, the company earned $150 million in revenue. It expects this figure to go up by around 15 per cent this year.

In 2013, Switzerland-based investment manager Partners Group had picked up the majority stake in CSS Corp for around $270 million, according to reports. Through this deal, SAIF Partners, Goldman Sachs, and Sierra Ventures made their exit from the company.