REFILE-TCS says needs more time to gauge spending recovery

(Refiles to clarify TCS provides call center analytics)

* Too early to tell if IT spending is back

* Organic growth preferred route for TCS

* Will consider strategic acquisitions

By Ritsuko Ando and Anupreeta Das

NEW YORK, Sept 24 (Reuters) - The new head of India's top outsourcing firm, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS.BO), said on Thursday that it would take another few months to tell whether business spending was recovering, as customers were still working on their IT budgets for 2010.

"We'll have to wait for the next three months. All the customers are going through their cycles now," N. Chandrasekaran, who takes over as chief executive when S. Ramadorai retires on Oct. 5, told Reuters in an interview.

TCS, which provides consulting, system integration and call center analytics, competes with India's Infosys Technologies Ltd (INFY.BO) and Wipro Ltd (WIPR.BO) as well as big global players such as IBM (IBM.N), Hewlett-Packard Co (HPQ.N) and Accenture (ACN.N) which offer similar services to multinational corporate clients.

Ramadorai, in the same interview, said the company was seeing more stability but that a more substantial recovery would take time.

"When is there going to be growth? I think it's going to take a while," he said.

Despite the cautious outlook and a recently announced plan by Dell Inc (DELL.O) to buy technology services company Perot Systems (PER.N) [ID:nN21265091], Chandrasekaran said he did not see a need for TCS to consolidate through mergers and acquisitions.

"It's not a question of ... getting squeezed" by U.S. companies beefing up their services offerings, Chandrasekaran, currently chief operating officer, said.

"There is a lot of room for organic growth. We're expanding our footprint, we're expanding our portfolio of services that we offer," he said. But he added that TCS would consider acquisitions that bolster the company's portfolio of services.

He also said the company plans to add 1,000 jobs in the United States in the next year to boost its presence in a market TCS sees recovering ahead of other regions like Europe. The company currently has around 13,000 workers in the U.S. (Reporting by Anupreeta Das and Ritsuko Ando; editing by Phil Berlowitz)