The TCS Story ... and Beyond : Review

When a man who has headed an organisation – and it happens to be India’s largest IT services provider – for 13 years writes a book, you feel compelled to read it to gain a better understanding of leadership and management strategies. The TCS Story ... and Beyond by S Ramadorai does not disappoint in this regard. Ramadorai, who was with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) for 40 years, has not only given an account of his personal journey and the strategy that TCS adopted but also provided a deep insight into the Indian IT industry, and the beginnings of the offshoring model that has made India’s software exports an over $60-billion industry, and TCS an over $8-billion company.

The TCS story is one of modern India’s great success stories. In this fascinating book, S. Ramadorai, one of the country’s most respected business leaders, recounts the steps to that extraordinary success. The inside story of one of India’s premier corporate institutions, this is also in part a history of the rapidly developing IT software and services industry in India, told from the perspective of an industry leader.

Ramadorai highlights how the Y2K problem created an enormous opportunity for the entire Indian IT industry to expand its client base. He explains how the company went about its vision of becoming a multi-billion dollar firm. In 2003, for instance, around 90 per cent of TCS’ revenues came from IT services. So the TCS core team drew a single bubble and added the text “IT Solutions and Services” on a PowerPoint slide. Five more bubbles followed on the PowerPoint slide: Global Consulting, Engineering and Industrial Services, Asset-based Offerings, Infrastructure Services and IT-enabled Services (or BPO). There we were with six neat bubbles on a PowerPoint slide. “We declared we would grow each of these into a $1 billion plus business,” Ramadorai writes.

Ramadorai also gives an interesting insight into the manpower angle, which is now the strength of the Indian IT industry. Today, TCS has over 200,000 employees (including subsidiaries). And in recent years, excluding the 2008-10 downturn, TCS has recruited about 30,000 people each year. “I am often asked how the induction and training of such a large number of new recruits happens. This is a skill that TCS has mastered, developing a very well-oiled system that transforms young adults into confident and competent professionals ready for a global career,” he writes.

Towards the end of the book Ramadorai has put in his thoughts on education in India and how vocational training has to be brought in and strengthened as that would open up more avenues of employment for the students passing out of the numerous schools and colleges. It would give a different means to livelihood to the millions who today strive to find a job and then try to find satisfaction with whatever job comes their way rather than being able to select a job as per their abilities and likes.

Behind the phenomenon called TCS lies a quest for excellence and an attention to detail—captured in the company’s motto ‘Experience Certainty’—that can benefit any organization. There is a great deal to be learnt from the TCS example, and Ramadorai outlines a vision for the future where the quality initiatives he undertook can be applied to a larger national framework. This is a book that every Indian who is committed to building a better and more productive future must read.