A complete organisational revamp initiated two years ago has helped the city-based CSS Corp, a technology company owned by Swiss PE firm Partners Group, to improve its performance. In the last one year, the quarterly run-rate has improved by about 25 per cent, said the company’s CEO, Manish Tandon.

“We are seeing results of the revamp with quarterly run-rate of about $40 million. Every quarter, we added 4-5 per cent sequentially. The growth was not sudden and attributed to one or two clients but was gradual over the last few quarters,” said Tandon who joined CSS three years ago after nearly 20 years at Infosys.

The company, which has around 4,000 employees in Chennai out of a total global workforce of around 7,100, has been witnessing 4-5 per cent revenue increase quarter-on-quarter, he told BusinessLine .

While growth for CSS was flat, Tandon said he had to rejuvenate the entire organisation and reposition the company. “Today, we are not an IT or BPO company but a new age IT service company. Give us any problem, we will lead with technology and people rather than the other way around. This was a big change for the company,” he said.

The entire sales and marketing organisation was revamped, and employee culture, mindset and training had to be worked on with technology changes. New revenue model was based on outcome. Most of the clients are now on annuity rather than time and material. This helps in a sustainable business. CSS mainly focuses on sectors like technology, media and telecom apart from digital business, he said.

Open to accquisition

Tandon said the company was open to acquisition to help growth, and is willing to shell out $20 million to $100 million. “We will look at a company that is into product development or testing. We have enough cash, and are fairly profitable. We are backed by the Partners Group, and if a need comes to inject equity, it can always be done,” he said.

For the year ending March 31, 2020, the company is likely to report revenue of nearly $160 million as against $139 million in the last year. “Organically, we will reach around $200 million in a couple of years. However, if an acquisition is done, achieving that will be much quicker,” he said.

He said the company has added nearly 1,500 people in this financial year in India, Philippines and Costa Rica.

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