'Client caution is slowing IT'

Extreme caution among clients in the global market has sparked a slowdown across verticals in the IT industry, Debashis Chatterjee, managing director and chief executive officer of LTIMindtree said.

The trend is reflected in LTIMindtree's quarterly earnings as well. The company's target of achieving 17-18% operating margin by this quarter is being pushed back due to the slowdown, and this could also impact its long-term $10-billion revenue goal, Chatterjee said in a post-earnings interview. Edited excerpts: 

What is the most important takeaway from your earnings?

Delays in decision-making among clients continue. This is impacting our ability to predict upcoming quarterly businesses, to some extent. It's not just us the entire industry is facing that. There are also deeper, wider furloughs in the December quarter.

There are furloughs in industries which never used to have, such as oil and gas, and manufacturing. In fact, slowdowns are not just in these verticals they're broad-based.