Showing posts with label TCS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TCS. Show all posts

Thursday, December 17, 2009

,

TCS sole bidder for UK pension project

Tata Consultancy Services, India's largest software outsourcer, is the only firm left in the running for the contract to administer Britain's new national pension scheme, the Mint paper reported on Wednesday.

Other outsourcing firms withdrew during the "competitive dialogue" phase of bidding after deciding the project was not commercially viable, the report said.

"They are an exceptionally strong bidder and we are making excellent progress, but we need to conclude the procurement process appropriately and evaluate their proposals," Tim Jones, chief executive of Personal Accounts Delivery Authority (PADA), told the paper.

PADA will appoint a technology services vendor to manage the pension scheme. "We are keen to continue working with PADA to develop our proposed solution for the personal accounts scheme. This project will help millions of people save for their retirement and we are fully committed to it," TCS said when contacted for comment.

The paper did not say how much the contract was worth, and TCS did not disclose a value.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

, , , ,

TCS, Infy, Wipro, IBM to bid for Rs 2000 cr online FIR project

Vijay Kumar Singh hopes that by 2012, most of those he gets to see in person would be potential criminals.

Well, Singh happens to be a cop. And those whom he intends to spare from his appointment diary are the general public. Singh’s hopes are pinned on a new automated complaint filing and tracking system that the ministry of home affairs (MHA) plans to roll out across India, aimed at trimming the time the general public spends in doing the labyrinthine rounds of the good old police station.

At the Greater Kailash-1 police station in South Delhi, where Singh is the station house officer, the existing Zipnet search is pretty much an ornament. The system tracks from a set base of data, often outdated, and fails to read the latest inputs from other law enforcement agencies.

The new integrated system police officers like Singh are looking forward to will network initially 14,000 police stations across the country, and all the 6,000 higher offices in police hierarchy (like headquarters, range offices, zonal offices). It will bring the benefits of India Inc’s technology prowess to this British era institution, hopes Singh.

TCS' BaNCS ranked no 1 in China

The core banking solution of Tata Consultancy Services BaNCS has been ranked as the leading core banking solution in China based on its performance in 2008 by IDC, a global market research and analysis firm specialising in Information technology.

This was the third year in a row that TCS had been ranked at the top of solution providers for the financial services industry in China, an IDC release said on Monday.

"New customer wins on a periodic basis have been central to TCS' success as a leader in this region", Serena Shang, Senior Analyst, IDC China, said.

"TCS BaNCS' capability to scale and address a wide range of financial institutions coupled with their global track record is an attractive proposition. They can consolidate their initial learnings to make faster progress in perhaps one of the toughest markets in the world", she said.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

, , ,

Tata Comm, Infosys & four others in deal with US cos

Six Indian companies, including Tata Communications, Infosys Technologies and Apollo Hospitals, have signed separate collaboration agreements with US-based firms for joint business development at Washington on Monday.

The agreement signing ceremony, organised by industry body CII, coincides with the state visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to the US.

Data services provider Tata Communications has inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Tyco Electronics to work together in providing additional connectivity and transmission, using dark fibers on the submarine cable system.

Indian IT major Infosys Technologies has signed a multi-year enterprise agreement with Microsoft, to work together in areas like databases, besides infrastructure and application software.

Apollo Hospitals has signed an MoU with stem cell therapeutics company StemCyte to establish a cord blood bank facility at its Ahmedabad-based hospital.

Drugmaker Cadila has joined hands with biotech firm Novavax to support production of key vaccines in India, including the recently-developed H1N1 Pandemic Vaccine. Jubilant Organosys also entered into a joint venture with two US institutes — University of Alabama and Southern Research Institute.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

, , ,

TCS wants a global workforce

India's largest software services exporter, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), is aiming to move beyond its traditional Western market to serve new transnational companies in the emerging markets to become a truly global company.

"We want to become global not just in terms of sales but from a people perspective," TCS Head Natarajan Chandrasekaran told the Financial Times in an interview.

Multinationals in emerging markets now account for about one-fifth of the company's sales. TCS has operations in about 42 countries and about nine per cent of its workforce is foreign. At present, it contributes nearly 10 per cent of the revenue of the Tata conglomerate.

Besides diversifying its client base, TCS is pursuing an "integrated full service" business model to garner higher revenue.

Under this model, TCS would design, develop and manage a given client's software as well as maintain its hardware systems and handle its business processes.

After years of double-digit - sometimes even triple-digit-growth, India' outsourcing companies got battered pursuant to the global economic slowdown as their largest clients, the global financial services groups, faltered under the pressure.

Accordingly, TCS' Chandrasekaran told FT that the company has to restore growth first as the past six quarters were challenging as revenue grew just 7 per cent for the year ended March, down more than 30 per cent previously.

However, Chandrasekaran was optimistic about a recovery and said that whether the global recovery is "V-shaped, W-shaped or 'square root'-shaped", clients will look to the offshore outsourcing industry to cut costs.

The Indian Information Technology industry including -- TCS and its peers such as Infosys Technologies and Wipro -- played a major part in "the country's transformation from ox-cart economy to fast-growing, sophisticated Asian giant."

The IT industry generated $47 billion in exports in the fiscal year ending in March and claims it has created nearly half of India's urban jobs directly and indirectly.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

,

TCS’ passport project misses 3rd deadline

The Indian government's ambitious 'Passport Seva' project, which seeks to give out passports in three days, has missed another deadline - Friday, the 13th of November.

This will be the third time the external affairs ministry's project -- a major e-governance initiative -- will not meet its launch date. Officials are blaming software glitches for the delay.

The first deadline was in June, then October, before the revised date of November 13 was arrived at. The pilot project was to take off in Bangalore.

Minister of State of External Affairs Shashi Tharoor had said in a tweet dated October 30 that the project "should be rolled out next month after some technological snags delayed it".

According to officials, the physical infrastructure is ready. This includes a user-friendly building with swanky interiors, 25 counters and electronic token boards.

"The software which will be the basis for the new system is still having too much problem," said an official.

Information Technology major Tata Consultancy Services is in charge of implementing the project after it signed the contract in October 2008. The project is reportedly worth over Rs 1,000 crore.

The pilot project would have seen 'Passport Seva' centres in Bangalore and later in Hubli and Mangalore, also in Karnataka, followed by Chandigarh, Ludhiana in Punjab and Ambala in Haryana.

A mini centre will also be opened in Gulbarga (Karnataka) as an addition in the pilot project. The project is to run for two months. According to informed sources, the software is giving basic problems like flawed printing of passports. "There was a problem in audit trail," said an official.

In all the passport offices in the country and missions abroad, the ministry looks after the process of passport services, while the software is provided by the state-run National Informatics Centre.

"As far as software goes, we did not have any problem over the years," said a senior foreign ministry official. But one key problem with the TCS has been lack of domain knowledge.

The Department of Information Technology's Standarization Testing and Quality Certification (STQC) has done three rounds of testing on the software. But all of them have found hundreds of bugs which are being slowly rooted out.

"We will have another round of STQC testing before we decide on the future course," he said. The ministry has issued a letter to TCS invoking the penalty clause in the master services agreement -- after failing to start the pilot project in October.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

, , ,

TCS employing local talent in U.S.

To expand its U.S. operation, TCS (Tata Consultancy Services) plans to hire 1,000 local workers at its new facility near Cincinnati, Ohio, by the end of 2010, reports DNA.

The company opened a $20 million delivery and software development centre in Milford, Cincinnati in Ohio, in March last year - in a bid to win federal contracts and be closer to the headquarters of its U.S. clients. Suryakant, President of TCS North America said, "The Cincinnati region is a great place for U.S. to recruit local talent to meet the demands of our customers as they grow out of the downturn."

The ohio facility is also aimed at securing what some major Indian service providrs are chasing - defence and avionics work. TCS is reportedly in talks with Boeing and Lockheed Martin for defence and aerospace contracts. This work can only be done by American citizens or green card holders.

Recently, the company bagged projects related to unemployment insurance for the states of Nebraska, New Mexico and Mississippi. "The U.S. by far our largest market and the seven hills park facility in Ohio plays an integral role in our strategy of putting our customers first," said Suryakant.

Currently, TCS employs 15,000 people in the U.S. The company has been shipping quite a bit of work to U.S, ignoring India's popular IT hubs.

Saturday, November 7, 2009

TCS scales up US Delivery Centre

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has announced that it has scaled up its North America Domestic Delivery Center, TCS Seven Hills Park, to 300 associates.

TCS Seven Hills Park is also the location of TCS' new North American Training Center. Over the last several months, more than 225 associates have joined the company from top universities throughout the country and completed a six weeks training program at the center as part of TCS' Initial Learning Program (ILP).

Located in the Cincinnati suburb of Milford, Ohio, the center sits on 223 acres of wooded land and includes 196 thousand square feet of office space.

Seven Hills Park provides a wide range of IT solutions, consulting, business process outsourcing and engineering services across industries including BFSI, manufacturing, retail, life science and healthcare.

Ohio Governor Ted Strickland commented: "Fostering job creation is vital to a strong economic recovery for Ohio. Companies like Tata Consultancy Services are tapping into our highly talented workforce and world class educational institutions to grow their business while providing high skilled jobs for Ohioans. This is the type of investment and long term commitment that will ensure Ohio's place as an economic leader."

N Chandrasekaran, CEO and MD of TCS, said: "The United States is by far our largest market and Seven Hills Park plays an integral role in our strategy of putting our customers first. As part of our Global Network Delivery Model(TM), Seven Hills Park helps TCS deliver on our promise of providing reliable, scalable, cost-effective delivery of IT services and solutions."

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

, , ,

TCS, Wipro eye $400 mn Target outsourcing deal

India’s top tech firms Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Wipro and several others are pursuing Target’s captive technology centre for a potential acquisition, in what could be a transaction bundled with a long-term outsourcing contract worth $300-400 million. America’s second-biggest discount retailer Target has around 1,500 staff employed at its Bangalore centre, currently doing software development and maintenance work.

“We have been in discussions with them for the past few months and the dialogue is still open,” a senior executive at one of the tech firms exploring this transaction told ET on conditions of anonymity. “There is no conclusion yet about how this transaction can be structured, and it’s very early days,” he added. Both TCS and Wipro count Target as one of their top retail customers.

Some of the world’s top retailers, including UK’s Tesco and America’s speciality retailer Home Depot, have been outsourcing projects to Indian third-party service providers, including TCS and Infosys, apart from their own captive centres in order to support their existing IT systems and also develop newer applications. Tesco, for instance, saves over $100 million every year by outsourcing its IT projects to India, and primarily drives projects from its own captive in Bangalore.

“Target’s India centre could be doing at least $100 million worth of projects (revenues) every year,” another person familiar with the retailer’s India operations told ET on conditions of anonymity. Officials at Target did not reply to an email query sent by ET. TCS, Infosys and Wipro also declined to comment. Few years ago, many retailers started with an Indian captive operation as there were not many service providers who could understand their core operations better. Target entered India in 2004 through a JV with ANSRSource, a Texas-based BPO outsourcing company.

“There is a certain equity in building up the operations (captive) initially, but over the course of time, there is the objective of monetising the operations,” said Avinash Vashistha, CEO, Tholons, an offshore advisory firm.

“Once a particular process becomes commoditised, then any adding of additional resources is not justified as it adds up to the costs.”

TCS, one of Target’s Indian suppliers, supports the retailer’s operations from its delivery centres in Uruguay and Chile, apart from India. Target, which competes with Walmart Stores, reported quarterly revenues of $14.6 billion for the second quarter ended August this year.

Over the past few months, many companies have sold their technology captives in India. Divesting non-core captive operations is a strategy adopted by banks such as Citigroup and UBS for focusing better on their core operations, and also gain better outsourcing rates by bundling such transactions with a multi-year contract.

An upfront payment also helps them unlock value from non-core assets. Citibank sold its Indian back-office business to TCS for around $505 million in October last year, and Citi Technology Services for around $127 million to Wipro in December last year. Both these transactions came with assured outsourcing business of around $3 billion together for these vendors.
, ,

TCS bags multi-million Cardiff deal

India's Tata Consultancy Services' contract with Cardiff City Council for technology services is a multi-million dollar deal that will run over 15 years, a company source said on Tuesday.

Under the deal signed last week, Tata Consultancy will provide a host of IT services for faster and efficient delivery of services in Cardiff.

Tata Consultancy and its rivals such as Infosys Technologies and Wipro are aggressively vying for deals in markets such as Europe and Asia Pacific to cut their dependence on the US, which brings in more than half the sector's revenue.

According to Ovum's Straight Talk service, the deal is reportedly worth £150 million, spanning 15-years.

Under the deal, TCS will help drive the council's mission-critical Strategic Transformational Change Programme.

Tata Consultancy, a part of the diversified Tata Group that spans commodities autos and services businesses, last month beat forecasts with a 29 percent rise in quarterly net profit helped by demand from recession-hit financial customers.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

,

TCS: 40% growth tough to sustain

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) said its deal pipeline for Asia-Pacific has improved in the past two months led by financial services and revenue could grow at a double-digit pace this year.

But the growth in business will still lag the 40 per cent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) seen in the past five years before the current financial year, Girija Pande, the Asia-Pacific head of India's top IT services company by sales said.

"Pipelines are improving, we think green shoots are now getting leaves," Pande said. "Will it come back and reach the 40 per cent revenue growth that we have in the past? I doubt it will. 40 per cent growth is not easy to maintain, but that's the CAGR we have, but certainly it will be double digit growth," he added.

Pande said the financial services firms are driving the deal pipeline for the Mumbai-based TCS, part of Tata Group that spans commodities, autos, and business services.

He reiterated that Tata Consultancy, which provides services such as consulting, system integration and manages call centres, is aiming to raise its headcount in China to 5,000 people in the next five years, up from more than 1,000 now.

Monday, October 26, 2009

,

TCS plans to bid with CMC for Rs 5K cr UID projects

As India’s top tech firms prepare to bid for projects worth almost Rs 5,000 crore to set up the country’s unique citizen database, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) plans to bid jointly for this opportunity along with CMC, a government-focused subsidiary it acquired some eight years ago.

The world’s biggest citizen database being set up by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) will rely heavily on biometric and fingerprint information of the country’s 1.2 billion citizens, and would seek solution providers who can bring relevant expertise.

“Whether we bid as a consortium or not will largely depend on the conditions specified in the RFP (request for proposal). If they want a single point of contact, then CMC will act as a sub-contractor to TCS,” said CMC, CEO and MD R Ramanan.

On its part, TCS has been leveraging CMC’s relationships with different government agencies and departments in order to create a competitive government business, bigger than domestic rivals Wipro and Infosys. For instance, TCS worked together with CMC on winning the Rs 1,000 crore e-passport project awarded last year.

“For some of these projects, an existing capability and understanding brought by the age-old CMC helps them do better,” said a senior executive at one of the rival firms which had bid for the passport project.

“Training is one of the biggest bottlenecks in any government project-and this is where CMC proves an asset to TCS,” he added.

Experts such as Alok Shende, principal analyst of Ascentius Consulting say that CMC does provide TCS an edge over others.

Monday, October 19, 2009

,

TCS wins $63 mn deal from MP govt

Tata Consultancy Services, India's top software firm, has been selected as the lowest bidder for a Rs 2.93 billion ($63 million) project in the state of Madhya Pradesh, an official with the state power utility said.

"For the IT implementation work, Tata Consultancy Services has been selected as the L-1 (lowest bidder)," S A Ansari, Chief Engineer (IT) of the MP.
Madhya Kshetra Vidyut Vitran Company Ltd, told Reuters over telephone from the city of Bhopal.

The project will be formally awarded after approval from the board of directors of the state's distribution utilities, and will be completed in 18 months, he said.

A spokesman for TCS confirmed the company had bid for a project in the state, but declined to give further details.

The project is part of a central government-funded power reforms programme to use information technology to cap electricity distribution losses in the country.

TCS posts Rs.13.5 Billion second quarter net profit

Software major Tata Consultancy Services has posted a net profit of Rs.13.5 billion ($300 million) for the quarter ended Sep 30, as compared to Rs.11.7 billion ($260 million) in the corresponding period last fiscal, it said Friday.

The company's total income increased to Rs.57.2 billion ($1.27 billion) for the quarter under review from Rs.55.2 billion ($1.23 billion) in the second quarter last fiscal, TCS said in a regulatory statement.

The group's consolidated net profit rose to Rs.16.4 billion ($364 million) during the quarter, from Rs.12.7 billion ($282 million) in the like period last year.

Similarly, total consolidated income increased from Rs.67.8 billion ($1.5 billion) for the quarter ended Sep 30 last year to Rs.74.3 billion ($1.65 billion) in the second quarter this year.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

,

TCS to be fined for passport project delay

India's top IT services firm by sales, Tata Consultancy Services, has been reportedly asked by the government to pay penalty for missing the second deadline in implementing Passport Seva Project.

TCS was to set up seven pilot Passport Seva Kendras (PSK) in Chandigarh and Bangalore by October 1.

According to a report, the government has sent a notice to the company asking it to pay Rs 2 lakh as penalty for every week of delay in project.

The ministry of external affairs' (MEA) Passport Seva Project is estimated to cost over Rs 100 crore. But even after a year since the government signed an agreement with TCS to issue passports within three days, the project is yet to take off.

After missing its first deadline in June, TCS had announced that the pilot project in Bangalore and Chandigarh would start in October.

However, recent reports revealed that the main reason for delay is that TCS had not got its software ready. There have been too many errors in the software which is currently in testing phase.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

,

TCS to up China manpower four times

Tata Consultancy Services Ltd plans to more than quadruple its work force in China over the next five years, says a WSJ report. Quoting a senior company official, the news report says that the country's top software exporter plans to increase its China staff to 5,000 by 2014 from 1,100 currently.

The official said that Chinese companies are now more open to outsourcing and many of them will be looking for support in information technology outsourcing services as they globalise.

TCS reportedly entered the Chinese market in 2002. The company holds approximately 66% stake in a joint venture company named TCS China,
which it formed with three Chinese companies in 2006. Software giant Microsoft joined the JV in 2008 with a share of 8.7%.

TCS's clients in China include several of the country's big names in the financial world, like Bank of China, Ping An Insurance (Group), Huaxia Bank and China Foreign Exchange Trade System, a unit of People's Bank of China. TCS's multinational clients in the country included Motorola Inc and Johnson Controls.

TCS has four global delivery centers in China, including Beijing, Hangzhou, Shanghai and Tianjin. The company's sales office is located at Shenzhen.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

, , , , ,

Variable, pay hike make a comeback this Diwali

Salary-earners are seeing their pinched pockets bulging, as companies are untying their purse strings. Top IT companies such as TCS and Infosys are leading a revival of employee-centric HR policies in India Inc marked by high variable payouts, double-digit salary hikes and promotions, less than a year after the global meltdown forced them to slash salaries and freeze hiring.

Buoyed by signs of faster-than-expected economic recovery from India and elsewhere and a jump in demand, a clutch of companies across sectors including carmakers Maruti Suzuki, Tata Motors and Hyundai Motors are busy paying out variable bonuses ahead of Diwali.

Some others, like top white goods maker LG Electronics, biotech firm Avesthagen, consumer products company Dabur and private insurer Bharti AXA Life Insurance are rewarding select employees with salary hikes and promotions.

India Inc has turned its focus back on its people power as companies are looking to expand, encouraged by improved demand and enquiries, BSE Sensex more than doubling in just six months, and signs of faster-than-expected global recovery that made the International Monetary Fund up its forecast for world economic growth in 2010 to 3.1% from 2.5% predicted in July.

This is in stark contrast to just a year ago when the global recession that felled several global financial giants including Lehman Brothers hit India, forcing companies to shelve expansion plans, downsize operations, cut salaries and freeze recruitment.

“In the past 15 months, HR heads were not at all bothered about attrition. But now that several sectors are bouncing back to normalcy, poaching might see a rise. Hence, companies want to secure their talent pool with mid-term hikes and promotions,” said P Dwarkanath, Max India group director (human capital) and a former president of the National HRD Network.

The drive to please employees is most visible in the country’s $60-billion technology services sector that is seeing more business trickling in.

Worst-hit sectors may give hikes

"It is a people-driven industry. At a time when the sector is witnessing positive signs of recovery, such announcements become even more relevant for both the company and employees. This would not only help companies in retaining their existing talent, but attracting new talent as well," said Joy Nandi, client partner, global technology practice, with Delhi-based headhunting firm Korn/Ferry International.

Tata Consultancy Services, the largest IT exporter, for example, has restored variable pay it had cut earlier this year due to a drastic demand slump.

Its main rival Infosys Technologies plans to give higher variable pay for the second quarter, besides declaring salary hikes and promotions across levels in October.

The firm will increase the variable component of employee salary if its overall performance is up in the second quarter, said a company executive requesting anonymity. Infosys will announce its Q2 results on October 9.
TCS did not pay variables in the January-March quarter due to overall decline in performance, while Infosys cut its variable pay by up to 55% in the first quarter. The average variable component in both firms is 30% of an employee's total salary.

The third largest player, Wipro, did not cut any variable pay and will continue to give variable linked with performance, a company executive said. Earlier this month, Mahindra Satyam (erstwhile Satyam Computer Services) announced restoration of variable pay of its 28,000 employees. Satyam had held back variable payouts from April to trim costs as revenues were under pressure.

Zensar Technologies, which employs more than 5,000 people, has hiked salaries by 6.5% on an average on a selective basis, besides paying full variable to 95% of its employees, its CEO Ganesh Natarajan said. With the recovery in economy activating the job markets again, companies in other sectors too are promoting key performers and doling out 8-12% mid-year salary hikes.

Avesthagen, for example, is promoting employees "who have worked overtime during the recession and were loyal to us", according to Villoo Morawala-Patell, its founder and CMD. Similarly, LG Electronics has just promoted a select bunch of employees in the general manager level and gave them a mid-term hike, according to Y V Verma, its HR director. Bharti AXA Life Insurance's HR director Priya Ranjan said the insurer will hand out about 15% hike to some 20-odd employees later this month.

Also, several companies that had last year migrated from half-yearly appraisal cycle to one-year cycle due to the slowdown are returning to six-month appraisal cycle. "For companies who had given measly hikes or cut salaries, a mid-term appraisal provides an opportunity for salary correction," said E Balaji, CEO of executive search firm Ma Foi Management Consultants.

HR circles say the trend is seen in some of the erstwhile worst-hit sectors like real estate, stockbroking and mutual funds. Brokerage firm Angel Broking recently gave 8% hike to its top 5% talent base of 6,200 people.
DLF, the country's largest real estate firm, said it was yet to decide on a mid-term appraisal, while Kolkata-based Ambuja Realty chairman Harsh Neotia said the firm was evaluating it.

Dabur India, which had already hiked salaries in April and July this year, plans to undertake another round of salary correction in January next year. It will undertake mid-term appraisals this month, according to HR head A Sudhakar.

Tyremaker Ceat too plans to go in for mid-term appraisal confirming the fact that companies are no longer fighting shy when it comes to pay packets.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

, ,

TCS, Infosys set to gain from RBS' technology splurge

Indian tech vendors are set to gain from around $9.5 billion technology spend planned by the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) over the next five years, as up to $2-billion worth of back office and application development, maintenance projects could be outsourced to the Indian offshore suppliers including Infosys and TCS apart from the bank’s own IT captives in India.

RBS, which is owned 70% by the British government, aims to save around $4 billion in operational costs by 2011 by outsourcing non-core IT activities, integrating different technology banking systems and ensuring better focus on marketing initiatives. In a presentation made to Bank of America-Merrill Lynch investors last week, RBS chief executive Stephen Hester said that the bank has actually underspent on technology during past few years.

“Both in absolute ratio terms relative to our competitors, we have underspent on technology and we have also spent more of it of running the bank — dealing with lots of different systems inherited from past acquisitions — than changing the bank,” Mr Hester said.

When compared to other rival banks, RBS has indeed spent less on technology. Between 2005 and 2007, IT spend accounted for 7.2% of RBS’ revenues, when compared with 8.7% of technology spend by its regional peers. According to the European Banking IT Cost Benchmarking study published last year, IT spend accounted for 12.8% of RBS’ total expenses during 2005-07 , lower than the 16.4% allocated by its peers.

Indian tech like Infosys and TCS see newer opportunities of integration projects, system maintenance and back office outsourcing emerge as RBS takes a hard look at its existing processes for efficiency gains. RBS also works with CSC and Sapient, and may retain them for onsite projects, experts told ET on conditions of anonymity. An RBS spokeswoman did not reply to an email query sent by ET on Tuesday. Indian technology vendors would not offer any comments as they are maintaining a silent period before announcing their financial results later this month.

TCS wants mega deals

Tata Consultancy Services, India's top software exporter, will pursue larger deals and leverage its full service offerings, it’s newly appointed chief executive and managing director said on Tuesday.

"We will certainly leverage our full service offerings and go for larger deals, where we can help out clients," N Chandrasekaran said.

N Chandrasekaran takes over as the new CEO and MD of the company from S Ramadorai whose term came to an end on August 8, but was given an extension till (October 5). He was appointed as TCS CEO and MD for a period of five years from August 9, 2004, to August 8, 2009.

Last week, the company said that it was seeing some signs of a recovery in the demand for outsourcing, especially from the banking, financial services and insurance sectors that account for 43 percent of its business.

India's top IT services firm by sales expects a recovery in the global banking sector to boost its revenues this year.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Change of guard at TCS today

Natarajan Chandrasekaran (called Chandra by colleagues and friends) will take charge as the managing director and chief executive officer (MD & CEO) of India’s largest information technology services provider, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), from S Ramadorai tomorrow. He’s the third in the line of TCS’ CEOs, after F C Kohli and Ramadorai.

Eighteen months earlier, speculation began to do the rounds on who would succeed Ramadorai. The latter had been the public face of TCS for several years, but was turning 65 in 2009. This is the retirement age for all Tata chief executives. A successor had to be found well in time. Several names began to do the rounds, but research analysts who believed that TCS also stood for ‘Take Chandra Seriously’ were not off the mark.

“One good thing about the Tata Group and TCS in particular is the smooth process of change. When Ramadorai took over from Kohli, it was the same and he managed to take the company to newer heights. In a way, the culture is well set for growth of TCS. Chandra will follow the same culture. One other thing about TCS is that the company is very well-governed by its board of directors. The CEO has to follow guidelines. I think Chandra will work towards taking the company to much larger heights,” said Deven Choksey of KR Choksey Securities.

Atul Mehra, MD and Co-CEO of JM Financial, concurs: “Chandrasekaran has been a part of the senior management for a long time and working with Ramadorai for over a decade. In that sense, we do not see a major change in strategy or approach, and see a continued focus on the processes and delivery.”

The company’s chief operating officer and executive director till date, Chandrasekaran began to interact with the media more than a year earlier. And Ramadorai, who will become vice-chairman of the company, told Business Standard in an ealier interview that, “I spotted him (Chandrasekaran) way back in 1996, and knew that he had the potential. Leadership decisions are not taken by flipping a coin.” Ramadorai said he was particularly attracted by his (Chandra) “young, energetic and confident personality”.

Chandrasekaran joined TCS on January 27, 1987, after graduating from the Regional Engineering College, Trichy. He started in Mumbai and did stints in California, Stockholm and Britain. In 1993, he moved to the US, where he built a team from scratch, getting deeply involved in customer management, too. He grew a telecom company into one of TCS’ top five global customers.

Chandrasekaran cut his teeth as a programme director, where he had considerable scope to navigate the business in the direction it is now following. After this, for two full years, 1997 to 1999, he worked as Ramadorai’s executive assistant. It was here, many insiders say, that Chandrasekaran was silently groomed under Ramadorai’s watchful eyes.