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IT industry veteran and former CEO & Managing Director of Tech Mahindra, CP Gurnani, has reacted positively to the recent announcement by Tata Consultancy Services on laying off 12,000 workforce globally.
In an interview with CNBC-TV18, Gurnani said that until now, the Indian IT system was built on 'more headcount, more work' perspective. The companies aggressively hired thousands if engineers from campuses and a pipeline of fresh graduates feeding a pyramid-style delivery model.
However, Gurnani said the era is coming to an end. He quoted a dialogue from the Bollywood hit 'Sholay': “Kitne Aadmi The...?” and added, "Thank God that period will be over".
He said, "We all need to rewire ourselves toward output- and outcome-based models".
Gurnani's remark has come a day after IT services giant Tata Consultancy Services announced that it would be laying off 2% of its workforce, about 12,000 employees globally, in the current financial year.
IN an email to employees, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), K Krithivasan wrote, "TCS is on a journey to become a future-ready organization. This includes strategic initiatives on multiple fronts, including investing in new tech areas (AI and Data, Cybersecurity, Cloud, IoT, and Enterprise Solutions), entering new markets, deploying AI at scale for our clients and ourselves, deepening our partnerships, creating next-gen delivery and innovation infrastructure, and realigning our workforce mode".
The company added, " This will impact 2% of our global workforce, primarily in the middle and senior grades, over the course of the year".
TCS said that the move isn’t about AI replacing jobs, but rather a mismatch between the available skills and deployment feasibility.
"We understand that this is a challenging time for our colleagues who are likely to be affected. We thank them for their service and will be making efforts to provide them with appropriate benefits, outplacement, counselling and support as they transition to new opportunities," the email read.
As of June 30, 2025, TCS’s total headcount stood at 613,069, with an attrition rate of 13.8%, up year-on-year.