As of 2021, it was ranked seventh on the
Fortune India 500 list.[15] In September 2021, TCS recorded a market capitalization of US$200 billion, making it the first Indian IT tech company to do so.[16][17][18][19][20] In 2016–2017, parent company
Tata Sons owned 72.05% of TCS[21] and more than 70% of Tata Sons'
dividends were generated by TCS.[22]
History
1968–2005
Tata Consultancy Services Limited, initially started as Tata Computer Systems, was founded in 1968 by a division of
Tata Sons Limited.[23] Its early contracts included
punched card services to sister company TISCO (now
Tata Steel), working on an Inter-Branch Reconciliation System for the
Central Bank of India,[24] and providing bureau services to
Unit Trust of India.
In 1975, TCS delivered an electronic depository and trading system called SECOM for
Swiss company SIS SegaInterSettle; it also developed System X for the Canadian Depository System and automated the
Johannesburg Stock Exchange.[25] TCS associated with a Swiss partner, TKS Teknosoft, which it later acquired.[26]
In 1980, TCS established India's first dedicated software research and development center, the Tata Research Development and Design Centre (TRDDC) in Pune.[27] In 1981, it established India's first client-dedicated
offshore development centre, set up for clients
Tandem.
In anticipation of the
Y2K bug and the launch of a unified European currency (
Euro), Tata Consultancy Services created the factory model for Y2K conversion and developed
software tools which automated the conversion process and enabled third-party developer and client implementation.[28] Towards the end of 1999, TCS decided to offer Decision Support System (DSS) in the domestic market under its Corporate Vice President and Transformation Head Subbu Iyer.[29] The company also registered its first tagline "Beyond the Obvious" in 1999.[30][31]
In 2005, TCS became the first India-based IT services company to enter the
bioinformatics market,[34] and in the same year TCS changed the tagline from "Beyond the Obvious" to "Experience Certainty".[35] In 2006, it designed an
ERP system for the
Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation.[36] By 2008, its e-business activities were generating over US$500 million in annual revenues.[37][38]
TCS entered the
small and medium enterprises market for the first time in 2011, with
cloud-based offerings.[39] On the last trading day of 2011, it overtook
RIL to achieve the highest market capitalization of any
India-based company.[40] In the 2011–12 fiscal year, TCS achieved annual revenues of over US$10 billion for the first time.[41]
In May 2013, TCS was awarded a six-year contract worth over ₹11 billion (US$140 million) to provide services to the Indian
Department of Posts.[42] In 2013, the firm moved from 13th position to 10th position in the League of top 10 global IT services companies[43] and in July 2014, it became the first
Indian company with over ₹5 trillion (equivalent to ₹8.0 trillion or US$100 billion in 2023) market capitalization.[44][45]
In January 2017, the company announced a partnership with Aurus, a payments technology company, to deliver payment solutions for retailers using TCS OmniStore, a first-of-its-kind unified store commerce platform.[47] In the same year, TCS China was associated as a joint venture with the Chinese government.[48]
In March 2018, Tata Sons sold stocks of TCS worth $1.25 billion in a bulk deal.[49]
TCS received the 2019 American Business Awards from Four Stevies.[50]
On 8 October 2020, TCS surpassed
Accenture in market capitalization to become the world's most valuable IT company with a market capitalization of $144.73 billion.[51] On 25 January 2021, TCS again surpassed
Accenture briefly in market capitalization to become the world's most-valuable IT company with a market cap of $170 billion.[52] The same day, TCS became India's most valuable company, surpassing
Reliance Industries with a market capitalization of ₹12.55 trillion (equivalent to ₹14 trillion or US$180 billion in 2023).[53] In 2021 Tata was also one of the largest job providers in India, hiring 43,000 individuals in H1 FY22.[54] In October 2021, N Ganapathy Subramaniam, the COO of TCS, stated that its platforms and products business is worth approximately $3 billion.[55] The company's platforms and products business includes TCS'
SaaS-based platforms, and according to Subramaniam, between October 2020 and October 2021, 95% of the deals won by TCS have been for its cloud platforms and SaaS platforms.[55] Also, in 2021 TCS got a millennial makeover. Under the leadership of Rajashree R, TCS Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), the company changed the tagline from "Experience Certainty" to "Building on Belief".[56]
Acquire blue-chip European customers like Ericsson, IKEA, Vattenfall, and Hutchison; SITAR was TCS’ exclusive partner in Sweden and a non-exclusive partner in Norway.
Acquire expertise in the Banking and Financial Services (BFS) domain.
Deutsche Bank restructures itself and sold its IT-subsidiary to TCS, which had already been their partner in IT services.
Prudential Financial sold its Irish subsidiary to TCS. Acquires expertise in the Banking and Financial Services (BFS) domain and established Global delivery center in Ireland.
TCS BPS (Business Process Services) is the third-largest India-based IT
outsourcing company (after
Capgemini).[106] The BPS division had revenues of US$1.44 billion in FY 2012–13, which was 12.5% of the total revenue of TCS.[107][108] TCS BPS has more than 45,000 employees who serve over 225 million customers across 11 countries. The rate of attrition in the BPS division during the financial year 2012–13 was 19.5%.[109] The firm has also opened a business process outsourcing facility in the Philippines.[110]
TCS established India's first software research centre, the Tata Research Development and Design Centre, in
Pune, in 1981. TRDDC undertakes research in
software engineering,
process engineering,
bioinformatics, and systems research. Researchers at TRDDC also developed MasterCraft (now a suite of digitization and optimization tools),[117] a
Model-driven Development software that can automatically create codes based on a model of a software, and rewrite the codes based on the users' needs.[118] The research at TRDDC has also resulted in the development of Sujal, a low-cost water purifier, that can be manufactured using locally available resources. TCS deployed thousands of these filters in the
Indian Ocean tsunami disaster of 2004 as part of its relief activities.[119] This product has been marketed in
India as
Tata Swach, a low-cost water purifier.[120]
Innovation labs
In 2007, TCS launched its co-innovation network, a network of innovation labs, start-up alliances, university research departments, and venture capitalists.[121][122] In addition, TCS has 19 innovation labs based in three countries.[123] TCS' partners include
Collabnet and
Cassatt, and academic institutions such as
IITs,
Stanford,
MIT, and
Carnegie Mellon, and venture capitalists like
Sequoia and
Kleiner Perkins.[124]
Employees
TCS is one of the largest
private-sector employers in
India,[125] and the fourth-largest employer among listed
Indian companies (after
Indian Railways,
Indian Army, and
India Post).[126] TCS has crossed more than 600,000 employees as of 8 July 2022.[127][128][129][130][131] The number of non-
Indian nationals was 21,282 as of 31 March 2013 (7.7%).[127][132] The employee costs for the FY 2012–13 were US$4.38 billion, which was approx. 38% of the total revenue of the company for that period.[133] In the fiscal year 2012–13, TCS recruited a total of 69,728 new staff, of whom 59,276 were based in
India and 10,452 were based in the rest of the world.[127] In the same period, the rate of attrition was 10.6%.[127] The average age of a TCS employee is 28 years.[127] The employee utilization rate, excluding trainees, for the FY 2012–13 was 82%.[127]
TCS was the fifth-largest United States visa recipient in 2008 (after
Infosys,
CTS,
Wipro, and
Mahindra Satyam).[134][135][136] In 2012, the
Tata Group companies, including TCS, were the second-largest recipient of H-1B visas.[137][138]
Subramaniam Ramadorai, the former CEO of TCS, has authored an autobiographical book about his experiences in the company called The TCS Story...and Beyond.[139]
Former CEOs of TCS
F. C. Kohli, co-founder and first CEO and MD of TCS from 1968 to 1996, known as "Father of Indian IT Industry"
Subramaniam Ramadorai, CEO and MD of TCS from 1996 to 2009, and Vice - Chairman till 6 October 2014
On 14 February 2006, US
law firmLieff Cabraser filed a nationwide
class action lawsuit against
Tata.[150] In July 2013, judge
Claudia Wilken of the
US District Court, Northern District of California in
Oakland, California, granted final approval to the settlement of the lawsuit on behalf of all non-US citizens employed by TCS within the state of California from 14 February 2002 to 30 June 2005. The workers claimed that they were forced to sign over their federal and state tax refunds to their employer, as well as stating their Indian salaries were wrongfully deducted from their US pay.[151]
On 22 February 2013, the company agreed to settle for a sum of ₹1.62 billion (equivalent to ₹2.8 billion or US$34 million in 2023), this class-action suit filed in a United States court on payment to employees on deputation.[127]
A US grand jury has slapped two companies of
India's
Tata Group – Tata Consultancy Services and Tata America International Corp – with a US$940 million fine in a trade secret lawsuit filed against them. Epic Systems had accused TCS and Tata America International Corp, in a lawsuit filed in October 2014 in
US District Court in Madison, which was amended in January and December 2015, of "brazenly stealing the trade secrets, confidential information, documents and data" belonging to Epic.[152] This Epic Systems lawsuit against TCS was completed in November 2023 with TCS agreeing to pay US$125M.[153]
In 2019, an employee filed a complaint with the
Kancheepuram labour court[154] alleging that Tata Consultancy Services' internal complaints committee mishandled[155] a
sexual harassment case, and the case was approved. Over four years later the worker's case has not progressed, with the worker accusing the company of holding up investigations.[156] Over the years she has also reported unexplained transfers[157] and other alleged workplace retribution, including in performance reviews.[158]
On 20 October 2023, Tata failed to deliver digital exams to candidates applying to the
University of Oxford. Some sources state that due to inadequate preparation, a technical glitch caused the exams to be delayed by more than 2 hours, and even completely cancelled in some cases.[159][160][161]