Eclerx Services Ltd

NSE:ECLERX

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q3

[Operator]

Thank you, good evening, friends. Thank you, everyone, who's joined the Q2 earnings eClerx Services Limited. Please note that this webinar is been recorded. As usual, the safe harbor clause applies. Joining me today to give you an update about the quarter gone by and to answer your questions, we have with us the top management at eClerx, PD Mundhra, Profound and Executive Director; Anjan Malik, Co-founder and Director, Director; Rohitash Gupta, Chief Financial Officer; and Srinivasan Nadadhur, who is the Head of the Financial business of eClerx. We'll start the call with a brief opening remarks by Rohitash and then we'll have a brief update with PD and then we'll move to the Q&A section. Having said that, I'll now hand over the floor to Rohitash. Rohitash, all yours.

[Rohitash Gupta, Chief Financial Officer]

Thank you, Drake. A very good evening, and welcome to eClerx's Q3 FY'22 Earnings Call for the quarter and 9 months ended on 31st December 2021. This quarter, we built on the demand momentum and scale business with very good operating leverage. Our operating revenue in this quarter was USD 73.4 million which is sequentially up by 5.9% in constant currency terms. This quarter's total revenue was INR 5,636 million, which is up 7.4% sequentially and up 42% on a Y-o-Y basis. Our net profit this quarter was 1,066 million. This quarter, we had a one-off charge of about INR 50 million on account of Personiv earnout store.As a reminder, we have two earn-outs as part of the person deal: 1 for CY'21 and 1 for CY'22. And these were accounted in goodwill in our FY'21 financials, so this charge is towards the shortfall in the first earn-out provision based on CY'21 business performance of Personiv.We expect second and the last [ true-up ] due to earnout 2, sometime during CY'22 as in when we determine the likely CY'22 business performance of Personiv. We had cash balance of INR 6,248 million at Q3 end, which has decreased since the last quarter due to completion of buyback and payouts. The CapEx and associated depreciation is likely to increase in the next two quarters as we refurbish our facilities for return to office. This plan got a little bit delayed because of wave 3, and that's why our next two quarters instead of this and last one.Our DSO have remained similar to last quarter at 66 days. on people side, we continue to work from home for 90% plus of our staff, and substantially all of our employees have been double vaccinated. Our hiring drive continued at an accelerated pace to support business growth that we have seen in the last quarter, and we hired a net 540 employees globally this quarter. Overall, demand environment in Personiv's revenue trajectory have remained strong in the last few quarters, and we see a very stable pricing environment also in near term.And lastly, our Chairman, Mr. Pradeep Kapoor, resigned from his position as Independent Director after his 17 years long stint in leading the Board due to his advanced age. Mr. Anish Ghoshal, who has been Independent Director with the firm for 17 years, will be the new Chairman of the Board. On a personal note, I have also decided to step down from position of CFO, and Board has approved the appointment of Srinivasan Nadadhur, who is present with me in this call. I wish to take sabbatical leaves for personal reasons from mid-May onwards after completing the due handover to Srini. I trust that you all will support and welcome Srini in the new world in due time. I would like to pass the call to PD now for any additional comments, after which we can have the Q&A.

[Priyadarshan D. Mundhra, Co]

Yes, Rohitash. Thank you. So thank you for all for joining our Q3 call. I just wanted to take a moment and talk about the two transitions that Rohitash just referenced. So Mr. Kapoor has been Chairman for quite a few years and on the board since 2007. He recently turned 76, and I think this COVID era also has led a lot of us to sort of question our allocation of time, et cetera, and he has expressed the desire to step down and reduce his commitments. So the Board was very appreciative of all his contributions and leadership of the firm during his stint in that role. And after his resignation, we have elected Anish Ghoshal as the Chairman, as Rohitash mentioned. Anish is also a long tenured independent director on the Board and also came on the board sometime in the 2006, 2007 time frame. And we look forward to his leadership in the years to come.As Rohitash mentioned, he is also taking a sabbatical leave, and the Board was very appreciative of his contributions during his time with the company. Rohitash has been with eClerx 2003, originally in an operations senior management role and then as CFO from 2010. During the past decade, he has overseen the company's journey and also helped us adapt to ever-changing regulations from a corporate, finance and compliance perspective and has also led many initiatives internally to improve efficiencies and optimize operations. So the Board was very thankful to Rohitash for all his contributions in this capacity. He will take a sabbatical, as he mentioned, from mid-May onwards for a period of time. And therefore, the Board has appointed Srini to step in as CFO.Srini is also an eClerx veteran, having been with the firm for 10-plus years. And for the last 6, 7 years, was running delivery for our financial markets business out of India and therefore understands our business intimately. And the Board felt quite confident in his ability to be successful in this new role and new challenge. So I just wanted to sort of provide that context. And if there are any more questions on this topic, we will be happy to take them as part of the Q&A.

[Operator]

Thank you, PD. Thank you, Rohitash. I think we'll now open up the Q&A.[Operator Instructions] First question is from the line of Manik Taneja from JM Financial.

[Manik Taneja, Research Analyst]

Am I audible?

[Operator]

Go ahead.

[Manik Taneja, Research Analyst]

Just wanted to pick your thoughts on a couple of things. Number one thing is that when I look at your headcount metrics, there is a significant increase in terms of the tech services headcount through the course of this year. So what -- if you could help us understand, what exactly is tech services headcount for us? And what's driving this change? That's question number one. And the second question was with regards to the qualitative outlook for the business, what qualitative outlook for the -- for each of the 3 business segments for us?

[Priyadarshan D. Mundhra, Co]

Rohitash, should I take that?

[Rohitash Gupta, Chief Financial Officer]

Yes. So Manik, among all of our pieces of businesses right from BPO to onshore to consulting and tech. Tech has been the fastest-growing business over last year by some degree compared to others. Having said that, it a smaller base compared to firm revenue. Nonetheless, that also required us to beef up tech strength for that -- for delivery of that revenue stream. In addition to that, as you can imagine, most of our managed services are also tech enabled at the back end, right? So even that has been going very nicely, and that also requires tech support. And that's why that strength has been increasing over the year. Sorry, your second question was on the qualitative future outlook, right. So PD, you want to take that?

[Priyadarshan D. Mundhra, Co]

Yes. Sure. as I think, Manik, the demand environment continues to be quite supportive for all of our businesses. And therefore, at least I think in the near to medium term, we hope that we can maintain decent growth momentum. And that's broadly through across all of the 3 of our 4 businesses, including Personiv as well. As you would have seen that we had a true-up on the Personiv earnout as well, and that obviously is a reflection of the fact that performance came in a little better than what we had anticipated originally at the time of deal closures.

[Manik Taneja, Research Analyst]

Sure. And if I can ask one more. So typically, 4Q tends to be a better growth quarter for you versus 3Q. Should we expect a similar kind of a trend playing out in FY '22 as well? And with regards to the tech services headcount, is that billable workforce or that's purely support staff for us?

[Rohitash Gupta, Chief Financial Officer]

So Manik, I will take the second one. So tech, as I mentioned, has 2 components: One is the direct revenue facing. So there is a significant part in that headcount that directly supports revenue. And then some part of that is also for tools or IP that goes into delivery of our managed services as well as some smaller internal applications for shared services. So it's a mix of 2 or 3 things. But I would say, largest portion of this tech will be revenue facing.

[Operator]

The next question is from the line of the Dipesh Mehta from Emkay Global.

[Dipesh Kumar Mehta, Analyst]

A couple of questions. Can you provide some sense about which service line, which segment is driving growth from the three segment, which we report, If you can provide some subsegment related details, what is driving growth for us? And second question is about the [ core party ] you addressed. But if I look at this quarter, typically, our gross revenue addition or de we used to report around 50-odd million, whether we have seen any material uptick in that number when gross revenue booking, which we do in any given year as that number has moderately changed and which gives this delta. If you can provide some detail on it.

[Priyadarshan D. Mundhra, Co]

Rohitash, I think, maybe let me take these questions? So Dipesh, on your first question as to what is sort of driving more growth. I would say the company has been on a journey over the last couple of years to try and focus on a few chosen subservices for each of our businesses where we believe we have a better right to compete and a better right to win. And those are the ones that are basically the managed services also that Rohitash was talking about, where we've invested also in terms of technology applications and potentially a different commercial model in terms of go-to-market with clients.And today, I would say more than half of our new sales, if I look back over the last 2 quarters that are coming in those 5 or 6 different service areas across the 3 businesses. So for example, in financial markets, a lot of that work is around client-life cycle. In our customer operations business, it's around optimizing customer experience. So there are select areas that we've picked, where I think we've had better deal win rates and better success than in the past. And what we like to do probably is provide maybe a little bit more insight into this perhaps with our full year earnings presentation next quarter to give you guys a little bit more tangible sense of what we're talking about.On your second question about gross sales, yes, you're right. I think in the past, we've been averaging, give or take, $40 million to $50 million a year. Certainly, 2020 and 2021 have been better than that. And as we've also shared in prior calls, we benefited from having fewer roll-offs than we had in prior years. So the combination of stronger gross sales and fewer rollouts has led to better net growth outcome. And we'll have to see what 2022 holds in store. But you're right, I think we did see an uptick in gross sales in the last couple of years.

[Dipesh Kumar Mehta, Analyst]

And is it because of the sales headcount savings time or productivity improvement? And considering the market dynamics and other factors, can you provide some sense about what works well for us?

[Priyadarshan D. Mundhra, Co]

Anjan, do you want to respond to that?

[Anjan Malik, Co]

Yes. I would say that what works well for us is what's been working well for us over the last 3 years. On the last few calls, in fact, for the last couple of years, of course, we've been consistently maintaining that we've been investing in what we would call productized services. These are areas of expertise in which we are developing deeper skill sets and developing also onshore capabilities and automation like platform capabilities. These are the areas in which we've continued to see demand as the overall macro trend has moved towards greater offshoring, which is obviously a function of tighter labor forces in our client markets and of course, the greater comfort with work from home and working virtually. So I think creative broad demand and very differentiated services that are capturing our customers' demand.

[Operator]

The next question comes from the line of Sandeep Shah.

[Sandeep Shah, Director of Research]

Can you hear me?

[Operator]

Yes, Sandeep. Please go ahead.

[Sandeep Shah, Director of Research]

Just a question in terms of some demand visibility trends, can you share in each of your 3 segments, including financial markets, customer operation and cable and wireless as a whole? That's question number one.

[Rohitash Gupta, Chief Financial Officer]

PD?

[Priyadarshan D. Mundhra, Co]

Anjan, I think you might be better at this. Do you want to...

[Anjan Malik, Co]

I didn't catch the question, would it possible to repeat it?

[Sandeep Shah, Director of Research]

Yes. What I'm saying is the demand trends across of your segments, including financial or capital markets, customer operations and the cable environment?

[Anjan Malik, Co]

Yes, [indiscernible]. So I think demand, as PD mentioned in the beginning of the call, has been broadly positive across the board. So we've definitely seen service demand for CX, which is the name we give to our customer support services, everything from quality to customer engagement in chat and voice to some of the work that we do in advanced trouble to get support. Those areas in which we've seen a fair amount of demand, I think -- we think it's from people shutting their clients moving work away from high-cost locations such as the U.S. where it's going harder and harder to run these functions given lever challenges.We've seen demand in the markets business, as PD mentioned, in areas like client life cycle, things like KYC, plant onboarding. And also actually, in our bread and butter market operations as more and more clients have found it hard to continue these operations in their mid-cross markets. And also where they're facing dialing shortages, even in captives they set up in places like Philippines and in India. And then digital, we continue to see a tremendous amount of demand in areas like analytics, and various parts of the market information, which is broadly the 2 or 3 large areas that we support for the Fortune 2000 as they look to digitize their customer experience. So broadly supportive environment across the board.

[Sandeep Shah, Director of Research]

Okay. And just a second question with pandemic may turn endemic in of the [indiscernible] countries starting from Europe. And one of the key driver for the demand in 2021 has been shortage of skills even at the client locations. So do you believe this may lead to a lower order intake, may lead to higher in-sourcing? Or you still believe our clients have realized the fruits of offshoring and even the work from office at client side continues, the order intake may continue to remain robust over a longer period of time?

[Anjan Malik, Co]

PD, do you want me to do that?

[Priyadarshan D. Mundhra, Co]

Sure.

[Anjan Malik, Co]

so I think it's -- I think the fact that there is a tremendous amount of demand right now and a lot of it being driven by talent shortages in our customer markets continues. I think customers are solving that problem in two ways. One is, they're trying to automate everything they can. So I think a larger percentage of the budgets are moving towards what we would call digital first of straight-through processing across the supply chain. And I think they're looking offshoring and to third-party vendors like us to solve what they would recognize a short to medium-term talent shortages. So I think those two things are happening concurrently. What that means over the next 5 to 10 years, it's hard to predict. But our clients are very motivated to try and automate ultimately as much as possible, which is always been the case.So there's nothing different. It does feel to the point that you make at the talent shortage remains. And of course, we're seeing that, that shortage being exacerbated even in technology, which is, of course, the most important skill set that's required as you run along the automation journey. And that's also why you're finding, and I think one of your colleagues asked this question earlier on the call where we've seen greater demand for technology services because as more clients have moved towards requirements for technology. They've also been dialing to people like us to try and help automate their journey. So we have -- we're benefiting from that demand as much as I'm sure the large IT services companies are in India.

[Operator]

The next question comes from the line of V.P. Rajesh from Banyan Capital.

[V.P. Rajesh, Managing Partner & Portfolio Manager]

So PD, I just wanted to clarify one point. You said you had to pay INR 5 crore extra to the Personiv team because their business outcomes were higher than what was incorporated in the earn-out calculations. Is that correct?

[Priyadarshan D. Mundhra, Co]

Yes. So let me clarify. What happens is that at deal closure we make an estimate of the likely earn-out payments based on all available information at that time. So it's a provisional number. And keep in mind that this deal closed in December 2020, right? So at that point in time, we made an estimate for likely payouts in December '21 and December '22. Business performance during calendar year '21 was stronger than what had been modeled in those forecasts. And therefore, the eventual earn-out payment was more than what the provision was, and that's the true-up that we have accounted for in this past quarter.

[V.P. Rajesh, Managing Partner & Portfolio Manager]

Okay. And because of that reason, do you expect that the earnout will, again, be higher in this year? Or how are you provisioning for potentially a higher earnout in this year?

[Priyadarshan D. Mundhra, Co]

So we had made a provision in December '20 for both tranches of earnout. We have done the true-up for tranche #1 because we now have the information to do that true-up accurately. For tranche #2, I think it's a fair estimate to say that the payments will be higher than our provision simply because in our business, they're already at a higher trajectory. There is every chance that they will only continue to build on that in the year to come and not to lose momentum. So you're right. I think the base case is that the payment will be higher, but we don't yet have enough information sitting in January to model what the performance for the full calendar year 2022 will be. So our preference is that once we have better information and we narrowed the range of possible outcomes, we do the true-up only at that stage. So it will happen at some point as Rohitash mentioned, during the next financial year.

[V.P. Rajesh, Managing Partner & Portfolio Manager]

Understood. No, that's a very good development, actually. My second question is when you had announced the deal, you had talked about a lot of cross-selling between the two businesses. So if you can provide some update on that?

[Priyadarshan D. Mundhra, Co]

Yes. So I think it's fair to say that progress on cross sales has been definitely better than what was originally anticipated one year into the deal. And that's at least in some ways responsible also for better revenue and EBITDA outcomes. So with Personiv, I think there are three deals that we have already closed where services have been sold to eClerx clients, but delivery is happening at least in part from Personiv facilities both in India and in the Philippines. And there is another deal which has been sold to a Personiv client, where eClerx is helping with some aspects of the technology backbone required to deliver those services. So there are at least four deals that have been closed, which involve tangible cooperation between the teams. And there are, of course, a number of discussions that are still in progress. And with some luck, hopefully, some of those will also close in '22.

[V.P. Rajesh, Managing Partner & Portfolio Manager]

Okay. And just my last question. Any update on any major ramp downs in your core customers, the top 5, 6 customers?

[Priyadarshan D. Mundhra, Co]

Well, nothing at this point that would be material, which is why I think we made that statement that at least as of now, the demand environment, we feel continues to be broadly supportive. So as of now, I think we don't anticipate any material roll-offs in the near future that would change the revenue trajectory.

[Operator]

The next question comes from the line of Shradha Agrawal.

[Shradha Agrawal, Analyst of IT and Textile]

Congratulations on a great quarter PD. How should we take the margin profile going ahead? What should we bake in for margins going into next quarter and be ahead? Some directional sense would be helpful.

[Priyadarshan D. Mundhra, Co]

I'll share some thoughts, and then I'll ask Rohitash supplement because he'll be closer to some of these numbers than myself. I think in the near term, barring any large moves in the currency, we should not see too much change in the margins -- the volatility in the margins because the onshore/offshore mix, all of that is quite stable. So -- and that's a big driver of margin. I will say that we do anticipate that in our next increment cycle effective April 1, we do expect increments this year to be higher than what they were in the last year. And that, therefore, will have a near-term impact on margins. But we also feel that as usual, we should be able to mitigate some of that impact as the next financial year proceeds. And you have some effect of attrition and growth, which moderates the effect of the increments that happened on April 1.So net-net, I think in the very near future, no reason to believe that there is a material upside or downside to margins. Come next financial year, expect increments to be higher than what they were in the last year or 2, given the demand situation. But we hope to mitigate that impact in the remaining quarters of the year. Over to you Rohitash.

[Rohitash Gupta, Chief Financial Officer]

That covers it. Just to add, Shradha, if you remember about in Q1, we have answered this question as EBITDA percentage range to be around 28% to 32% in foreseeable future. And if you see the results of Q2 and this quarter, Q3, I think we have ended at close to 32%, which is the upper end. And as PD mentioned, at least in the near term, which is, let's say, next quarter, we see the dynamics to be similar on that metric. So probably it will be closer to the upper end. But next year, as the wage hikes impact, I think it can go down firmly in the middle of the range. So let's see how things pan out, especially on the demand side because wages we know, to a greater certainty, but the demand two quarters out is a little uncertain to predict.

[Shradha Agrawal, Analyst of IT and Textile]

Yes, Rohitash got it. But barring wage hike, the turn of travel expenses or other discretionary expenses, would that further put pressure on margins next year?

[Rohitash Gupta, Chief Financial Officer]

So there are only a couple of things that I can count for, which are material. So one basically -- and that event has been delayed. So basically, we are refurbishing some of our offices to welcome people back to office when things become a little more normal, but then Wave 3 came. So there will be some CapEx spend on that front during Q4 and Q1. And that, obviously, will increase a little bit on the depreciation side. Other than that, on travel, I think there will be a slight increase, both in employee transport, which goes in G&A and then the general business travel, which goes under marketing for S&D costs. There will be a moderate increase. But if you take the 2 years trend, chances are that things will remain more the same as opposed to changing in a couple of quarters on travel.

[Shradha Agrawal, Analyst of IT and Textile]

Right. And do you expect this high offshore percentage to sustain going ahead as well?

[Rohitash Gupta, Chief Financial Officer]

Offshore, you mean the demand side?

[Shradha Agrawal, Analyst of IT and Textile]

Yes, the high offshore revenue mix vis-a-vis ....

[Rohitash Gupta, Chief Financial Officer]

Yes, PD?

[Priyadarshan D. Mundhra, Co]

Yes, Shradha. I think, again, there is no reason to assume a big change in those numbers. So to the point Anjan was making, I think, this post experiment of remote working for the last two years that our clients have been have been enduring. I think have made them realize that many assumptions that were made in the past may not necessarily be accurate and a lot more work can be done in this remote configuration model than what they may have presumed possible earlier. And if you are going to be remote, then why not pick the most efficient lowest cost location for sourcing that service. So I do believe that in that sense, COVID has changed that dynamic somewhat structurally and has increased, if you want to use the term addressable market, for offshore delivered services than was the case in the past.

[Shradha Agrawal, Analyst of IT and Textile]

That's helpful. And if I can ask one more. It was good to see attrition rates cooling off at least for some companies. So do you see further let down in attrition number next quarter? What are your thoughts on attrition?

[Rohitash Gupta, Chief Financial Officer]

Shradha, I think there are two factors playing here, at least from a Q2 perspective. One is that Q2 has been historically at least traditionally highest attrition quarter, for eClerx also and probably for industry also. And that's why a little bit of tapering down was expected in normal course. And the second is, obviously, there has been some recent correlation that have been developing with the COVID waves and the attrition. So I think that might have also played in moderating the attrition. So I think those two factors -- so we are not surprised that it is down, and it's a good thing.

[Shradha Agrawal, Analyst of IT and Textile]

Yes. And sustainability?

[Rohitash Gupta, Chief Financial Officer]

PD?

[Priyadarshan D. Mundhra, Co]

Yes. I think we've lost her, but I guess the question was about future trajectory of attrition. Look, I think it's very hard to predict that. But if I were to go purely by gut feel, I think the sense is that the high that we saw in the last 2, 3 months, that was a local high and we do expect it to moderate a little bit going forward. I think it's also worth keeping in mind that as our peers -- the larger companies in the industry have adapted to stronger demand, they have also made adjustments in their starting model in terms of hiring lots of trainees and creating a larger pool of skilled manpower on the bench. And so at some point, I think the competitive hiring, the lateral hiring that's taking -- that has taken place in the industry will also slow down because they have the new resources to draw on. So for a variety of reasons, I think we feel, yes, attrition will moderate a little bit, but hard to predict exactly where it stabilizes.

[Operator]

The next question comes from the line of Hitesh Arora.

[Hitesh Arora, Vice President]

One of the questions was answered on roll-off, so that was one of my questions, but let me ask one more. There was a question for the previous participant, I think that was missed. Do you expect Q4 generally being better than Q3 has been understood. Would you expect the trend to continue in the coming quarter as well?

[Rohitash Gupta, Chief Financial Officer]

PD, I think you answered it, but you can probably...

[Priyadarshan D. Mundhra, Co]

Look, I think...

[Hitesh Arora, Vice President]

What did I miss it? Sorry, if I missed it.

[Priyadarshan D. Mundhra, Co]

Sorry, Hitesh I'll say this. To my knowledge, there is no seasonality in our business. So I think if you look back the last 10, 15 years, it's not that systematically one quarter is stronger or another quarter is weaker. And even if that happens, it's purely by coincidence, not by any repeatable factor in our demand environment. So I think there's -- I don't know if Q4 will be better or worse than Q3. But as we shared earlier in the call, the demand environment continues to be supportive. So we would hope for a good showing end in Q4. That's all I can say.

[Operator]

We have a follow-on from the line of V.P. Rajesh.

[V.P. Rajesh, Managing Partner & Portfolio Manager]

Yes. My question was what you guys are seeing on the captive side. Are you seeing them expanding their businesses in India or other low-cost locations? And how does that change the competitive dynamics?

[Rohitash Gupta, Chief Financial Officer]

Anjan, why don't you take that?

[Anjan Malik, Co]

I think we feel like there's really not sufficient data to make long sweeping generalizations. However, if you look at just the last 2 years, we have seen fewer transitions to captive or at least a slower rate than has been pre-pandemic. We've also seen more work coming to third-party vendors than we have seen in the past. And I guess for the first time, we also saw work moving from captive to vendor. Certainly, in areas like in the market space, that's definitely true. We've also seen it, for example, in some parts of our customer services business. So while that has happened, we're not sure if this is an enduring trend or if it's just a reaction to short-term supply pressures in local markets because, obviously, the speed of attrition in all supply markets have increased dramatically, and our clients tend to be set up for lower attrition rates than the vendor models are typically. So short to medium term, we've seen demand away from captives. But medium to long term, we're not sure that there's a change in trend.

[V.P. Rajesh, Managing Partner & Portfolio Manager]

Okay. That's very helpful. My other question is on the M&A side. So what are you guys thinking now in terms of the areas or sector or geographic location for the next deal?

[Rohitash Gupta, Chief Financial Officer]

PD?

[Priyadarshan D. Mundhra, Co]

Sure. To be very honest, I don't think we can be that prescriptive. Our approach on the M&A front has always been to sort of keep an open mind and look at all the opportunities that get shown to us and then sort of look at each one on its own merits because each company is different, right? So again, as you explained in the past, I think, for us, the revenue demographics of the company are really important in making that determination of it because our business is all about building long tenure, deep relationships with large corporates. And we feel more comfortable with companies that have a similar customer base and sort of similar annuity streams of revenues like we do because we feel we understand at least that dynamic a little bit better.So I think it's more about that, the revenue demographics of the company, the nature of client relationships, the opportunity to build large and enduring client accounts that attracts us. And we are flexible, I think, in terms of location, et cetera. So as of now, we keep looking at new opportunities. And if you find the right one, I think we recognize that inorganic growth is an important contributor to growth in our industry. So we keep looking on that basis.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] We have a follow-up from the line of Sandeep Shah.

[Sandeep Shah, Director of Research]

Just wanted to understand the entry into Australia market, how big could be the opportunity as a whole?

[Rohitash Gupta, Chief Financial Officer]

Anjan?

[Anjan Malik, Co]

Yes. I mean, I think I wouldn't characterize it as the setting up of our subsidiary as sweeping me as a grand entry into Australia. I mean, I think the Australian market continues to be small and somewhat inward facing. We're setting up that more as a facilitator to help us service of our existing business and just look for incremental growth opportunity. I think it's just more of a logistical ease than the business opportunity, we think.

[Sandeep Shah, Director of Research]

And just in terms of the -- post this buyback, the capital allocation policy changes or generally, there are no M&A cash return payout ratio will continue to remain healthy as a whole. And our intent is more to do buybacks rather than [indiscernible].

[Rohitash Gupta, Chief Financial Officer]

So Sandeep, that's accurate that our capital allocation in our annual report suffusively, that will remain constant. Obviously, there can be one-off M&As in a particular year, which can delay that kind of payout to shareholders. Having said that, as you know, there is always a 12 months, 13 months effective moratorium period within which you can't do such events. And by then, hopefully, we will have better clarity on if any suitable acquisition opportunity is there in the horizon or not and then we can execute on our stated intent.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] We have a question from the line of Abhishek Shindadkar.

[Unknown Analyst]

Congrats on a great quarter. Just going back to the earlier question of captives. Just wanted to understand that how easy difficult for -- it would be for clients to move work which you are getting right now to captives. What would be the lead times for you in such an environment? Just trying to understand it from a durability of the demand perspective.

[Anjan Malik, Co]

Do you mean work away from us or work towards us?

[Unknown Analyst]

Work away from you to captives, which you're getting right now.

[Anjan Malik, Co]

Look, our clients tend to be multibillion dollar revenue companies with matching market capitalization. So with enough intent and enough energy, they can do whatever they want. And I think if they really wanted to take something back in, it will typically be because of either a compliance or a regulatory reason or because a certain amount of capacity has been developed in the captive through automation. In those instances, they may be able to justify spending whatever it takes or, in fact, justify not spending that much at all big stuff in-house. So I think that if people wanted to move stuff in, it could be done within a space of 18 months to 36 months in any given scenario. So nothing ultimately sacrificed. However, as I've said, that's not the trend that we've been seeing. We've actually been seeing the opposite.The question we have to ask is that what is the ability for the captives to hire to the scale that they want in the speed that they're looking at to do and then also to do this and also what is the incentive to effectively move from low cost to low cost when you've got a fast inflation curve for the cost of talent.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] We have a question from the line of Anubhav Mukherjee.

[Unknown Analyst]

Yes. Congrats on a good quarter. So a lot of IT services companies are saying that this is the strongest demand environment we are seeing in over a decade or so -- and they are also committing to this being a very secular trend that will hold for like next 2 to 3 years. So would you like say the same for yourself, like, do you think like this is the strongest environment that you have maybe seen in a couple of years. What's your view on that?

[Priyadarshan D. Mundhra, Co]

Rohitash, should I take that?

[Rohitash Gupta, Chief Financial Officer]

Yes, please.

[Priyadarshan D. Mundhra, Co]

So Anubhav, I think on a backward-looking basis, if I look at the absolute dollar amounts of revenue that we've added organically over the past 4 quarters, I think it's accurate to say it's the most in any 4-quarter period in our history. So obviously, it has been a very strong demand environment even in our business for the last 5 to 6 quarters. If I look forward now and say, is this a secular trend? Will this continue for 3 years, 5 years, whatever it is? I would say we don't have enough information to answer that.The only perspective I can add is if I look at the growth that we've enjoyed over the last few quarters, -- it doesn't feel like that there is any on yield or something very one-off about that growth. That growth has come across a spectrum of a number of deals across multiple clients in all of our 3 or 4 businesses. So in that sense, it's not super concentrated and it's a function of a reasonably healthy demand across the board. And again, just tying back to our opening remarks, we feel at least as of now, those demand conditions are continuing. And for the near future at least, we think that the demand will stay hopefully. Beyond that, it's hard to say in our business. I think to say that for the next 2 or 3 years, we'll continue seeing the same growth, I think, is we will have enough information to make that assumption.

[Unknown Analyst]

And another question, like your top 10 accounts also seem to be doing very -- at a very healthy pace. So can you give some qualitative aspect on like how you are seeing like your top clients grew? Are you seeing some of the like next level of like top 5 to 10 clients becoming significantly larger. Some view on that will be useful?

[Priyadarshan D. Mundhra, Co]

Rohitash?

[Rohitash Gupta, Chief Financial Officer]

So Anubhav, let me just put context to it. So basically, the Y-o-Y line chart that you see in one of our slide presentation material is basically top 10 of a particular period compared to top 10 of corresponding period last year, right? And because Personiv acquisition happened and they have their own client concentration, December quarter revenue in 2020 was for a very small part period of 7, 8 days. And this quarter, it's obviously the full quarter revenue from those big clients or Personiv. So that's one big change because of which those numbers look abnormally high on a Y-o-Y basis.Having said that, even if you exclude the acquired clients and look at only at the remaining of the native top 10 clients. I think your point is right directionally, that growth has been strong. It is somewhat lower than the company trajectory but it is much better than what we have seen over the last 3 to 4 years in aggregate, where top 10 clients -- native clients have been declining, if you remember till FY'20, right? So from that, we have moved to a decent secular single-digit growth trajectory on a -- at least on a quarterly basis. And PD, would you like to talk about any direction for future?

[Priyadarshan D. Mundhra, Co]

No, Rohitash, I think you've covered it. Nothing more to add to that.

[Operator]

We have a follow-on from the line of Abhishek Shindadkar.

[Unknown Analyst]

Just a question for PD and maybe Anjan also. How would you compare the current demand versus what you saw post-GFC? Any color in terms of client interventions, the velocity of spending? And again also alluded to the fact that capital markets business is seeing higher adoption towards offshoring again. Any color would be really helpful.

[Priyadarshan D. Mundhra, Co]

Anjan, why don't you take that?

[Anjan Malik, Co]

Abhishek, I would say I'd love to be able to answer that on a comparable, but it's kind of hard because we were -- when we listed in 2007, we were a tenth of the size that we are in revenue terms right now. So what felt like tremendous demand back then may not feel like a tremendous amount of demand right now. That's first of all. I do think that we did -- if you consider this whole thing like a side where he does feel like we cluster to you're on the high end of the spectrum in terms of demand. And if you look back at history -- right of GFC, that felt like the high end of the demand because we certainly had a period in the middle, as you know, where we felt like demand was languishing or at least whatever demand we're getting was being offset by losses. So this environment does feel different from that.Now as I've said for many reasons, we've explained why we think that is. We've also explained that we don't see any necessary reason for it to change. We continue to see supply side constraints, which we feel is ultimately one of the drivers of why demand computes to be high for people like us. We don't see any immediate change in the future for that. So I guess that means that we should expect to see demand continue. But we gave up the business of trying to predict the future. So we going to guess what's going to happen next.

[Operator]

That was the last question. I hand it back to PD for his closing comments. PD?

[Priyadarshan D. Mundhra, Co]

Yes. Thank you, everyone, for taking the time to join our Q3 call. We look forward to connecting again with our full year results. And as I alluded to earlier, we'll try and sort of use that opportunity to perhaps share a little bit more tangibly some of the initiatives that we've been working on. So we look forward to that opportunity to connect with you then. Thank you.

[Rohitash Gupta, Chief Financial Officer]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thanks, everyone, and have a good evening. Bye.