Imagine being a subsidiary of a $107 billion organization and contributing to about 70% of the group’s profit and 90% of the group’s revenue. Imagine creating such an impact that the group doubles its profit because of a subsidiary contributing higher dividends. That’s what Tata Consultancy Services, or fondly called TCS, means for Tata Sons.
TCS is an Indian multinational information technology services and consulting company headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. The company offers a range of IT services, outsourcing, and business solutions. It is the second-largest company in India by market capitalization. The company works in the segments of banking, financial services, and insurance; manufacturing; retail and distribution, and telecom.
The company is a part of India’s most respected brand and business conglomerate, Tata Group. In fact, Tata Group owns a 72.02% stake in TCS valued at Rs. 7.62 lakh crore. It has offices at 146 locations in 46 countries around the world as well as 147 delivery centers in 21 countries.
TCS builds bespoke teams around the domain and technology requirements drawn from its talent pool of over 453,540 global professionals including 36.4% women from 147 nationalities.
History
Tata Consultancy Services was launched as “Tata Computer Systems” as a division of Tata Sons on April 1, 1968, as a management and technology consultancy that would create a demand for downstream computer services. FC Kohli, a brilliant technocrat, was brought in from the Tata Electric Companies as a General Manager to run this startup.
In 1970, the company acquired an ICL 1903 that was originally imported by the Calcutta Electric Supply Company but had remained unused because the unions wouldn’t stand for it. However, as per the rules of the Government of India’s newly set up Department of Electronics, TCS had to commit to export twice the value of the imported computer over the next five years. This effectively oriented its view towards outside markets.
Therefore, it started building software for common processes like financial accounting, share registry work, sales analysis, inter-bank reconciliation, provident fund accounting et al, and operating that software on behalf of customers.
In 1971, TCS won the first overseas assignment from a middle-eastern power generation and distribution company for management consultancy services to organize their stores and build a computerized inventory control system.
In 1976, it crossed the $1 Million mark in export revenues, winning us the top exporter award from the Engineering Export Promotion Council in 1976-77.
In 1981, owing to FC Kohli’s farsighted vision for TCS, it led to the creation of the Tata Research and Design Development Centre (TRDDC) in Pune, India, marking the start of its signature focus on computer-aided software engineering i.e. a structured, tool-driven approach to software development using process automation.
In 1992, it set up the core trading platform for the newly created National Stock Exchange, which changed the way capital markets worked in India.
Finally, in 2000, the company unveiled a new $2 Million global e-business development facility at Mumbai. It aggressively pursued the e-business opportunity and grew it into a significant business over the next few years.
The company crossed the $1 Billion mark in annual revenue in 2003. This goal was achieved before time in 2009 when TCS finally broke into the ranks of the top 10 global IT service-providers in terms of revenue, profitability, number of people, and market capitalization.
Product and Services Portfolio
TCS and its subsidiaries provide a wide range of information technology-related products and services including application development, business process outsourcing, capacity planning, consulting, enterprise software, hardware sizing, payment processing, software management, and technology education services. The firm’s established software products are TCS BaNCS and TCS MasterCraft.
