'Once we make a job offer, we honour it'

For RAJESH GOPINATHAN, outgoing chief executive officer and managing director, TCS, Q4 FY23 was his last full quarter in the company. Gopinathan, while refraining from answering questions related to his resignation, says only after the new CEO takes over will he discuss anything else. In an interview with Shivani Shinde, he talks about the macro environment, getting to a normal cycle on issues related to people, and growth. Edited excerpts:

Q4FY23 was a huge surprise. What are clients saying and do you see this pain continuing?

We are not negative on the macro. We shared only what happened in the quarter and what caught us by surprise, and it turned out to be much sharper. We were expecting it to be up so that's what we called out.

From a macro point of view, we're positive on the UK, Europe is incrementally positive, and the US has turned out to be surprising and hence difficult to call out for the short term. But we believe that the US companies, especially our clients, are in very good shape.

We are not overly negative about the US because the underlying strength is solid. Uncertainty is building up due to the change in the monetary policy stance and its ripple effects. But then we are not economists. We looked at it more from a fundamental basis and felt there should be caution going into the end of the year and it should bounce back at the beginning of the year. That has not happened.

Increasingly there is a mismatch between the TCV (total contract value) one signs and its into growth. Can transmission you explain?