Revenue from non-Tata group cos growing at a faster rate: Warren Harris, Tata Tech MD

The MD talked at length about the company's strategic relationships with other Tata Group companies and how the relationships have helped Tata Technologies demonstrate their credentials.

After the launch of Tata Technologies' IPO, the first from the Tata Group stable in 20 years, managing director and chief executive officer Warren Harris told CNBC TV18, in an interview, that non-Tata Group revenue is growing faster than revenue from within the group.

The MD and CEO talked about the overall contribution to the company's revenue that Tata Group's various companies have had. Tata Group companies such as Tata Motors, Jaguar Land Rover, and Air India, Tata Lockheed Martin Aerostructures Limited contribute to the company's revenue.

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"We're very proud of our relationships inside of the Tata group, last year JLR and Tata Motors represented about 40 percent of our services mix and about 33 percent of the overall aggregate revenues of Tata Technologies," the CEO said.

The MD talked at length about the company's strategic relationships with other Tata Group companies and how the relationships have helped Tata Technologies demonstrate their credentials.

"The relationships are not only important to us but strategically important to the other group companies and we have been able to use those references within the group to accelerate the growth and the contribution from outside of the group. Not only are group companies a platform for us to drive revenues within the group but they are also an opportunity for us to demonstrate our credentials which we then use to to grow the business in areas that the group is not involved in," Harris said.

When asked about the level of dependence on the Tata Group that Tata Technologies can comfortably have in terms of revenue, the CEO said that the company is witnessing a higher growth in revenues from outside of the Tata Group at a much faster rate than revenues inside of of the group.

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"Looking at our revenues 10 years ago, the majority of services that we were responsible for were delivered to the Tata group and again specifically Tata Motors and JLR. Yet we've seen the revenues outside of the group grow at a much faster rate than revenues inside of of the group and we expect that trajectory to continue," Harris said.

The CEO added that the company has not specifically put a target on it but expects to continue to grow Tata Technologies' revenues from outside of the group at a faster rate than from within.

Talking about the margin trajectory of the company, the CEO stated that the growth has been driven by 'operational levers' over the span of the last four years.

"Four years ago we were at about 16.5 percent, last year we came in at at 18.6 percent and that's largely driven by operational levers such as improved offshoring and improvement and optimisation in terms of our people pyramid,"Harris said.

When asked whether he expects the margin trajectory to improve, the CEO said that he expects the company's margin trajectory to grow to 20 percent.

"We think a lot of the hard work has has been done as far as margins are concerned but we expect incremental improvement beyond the 18.6  percent our North Star is over 20 percent that's what we positioning our business plan against," Harris said.