Tech Mahindra to aid Airbus in designing its cabin and cargo holds

Indian IT services firm Tech Mahindra on Thursday said that it has signed a multi-year contract with aircraft maker Airbus to help the company with design engineering capabilities for its cabin and cargo holds.

It further said that the deal was one of the first to come under the company's strategy to capitalise on the air travel business.

“This is a step towards further nurturing this key relationship (with Airbus) and supporting it in consolidating their global supplier base while driving business efficiencies and competencies in this process. This will strengthen our aerospace engineering portfolio, especially in areas like cabin engineering and customer services,” Karthikeyan Natarajan, global head of engineering and Internet of Things (IoT), Tech Mahindra, said.

This initiative falls under the company's TechMNxt charter, which has been set up to take advantage of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, IoT, robotics and blockchain.

This week, the company had said that it has agreed to acquire Canada-headquartered IT consultancy Objectwise Consulting Group for 2.75 million Canadian dollars (around Rs 14.33 crore).

In a stock-exchange filing, Tech Mahindra said the acquisition would provide it access to Objectwise’s capabilities in the implementation and support of PEGA software, a business process management tool.  

In the first week of this month, the company said that it was opening a new technology centre in Missouri, US that will leverage new-generation technologies apart from creating local employment opportunities. 

Last month, the company said that it was deepening its partnership with network services provider Cisco to drive outcomes around automation, analytics and security.

The company had also signed a deal worth Rs 300 crore with the Indian navy for developing and issuing secure access cards as part of the Armed Forces Secure Access Card project in May. 

In May, the company had also reported a 7.4% drop in net profit for the March 2019 quarter to Rs 1,132 crore from Rs 1,222 crore a year earlier.

Quarterly revenue grew 10.4% to Rs 8,892 crore from Rs 8,055 crore, the Pune-based IT firm said.

The company has also seen a decline in net profit as well as revenue on a sequential basis. Its net profit was Rs 1,203 crore for the December 2018 quarter while its revenue stood at Rs 8,944 crore.

For the full year ended March, Tech Mahindra reported a 13.1% growth in net profit to Rs 4,298 crore from Rs 3,800 crore. Revenue grew 12.9% to Rs 34,742 crore from Rs 30,773 crore.