Bs case study

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CASE STUDY FOR DESIGN OF STRATEGIC PLAN FOR AN IT MAJOR IN INDIA Presented by: - Mukta .S. Agarwal- PG-10-01 Sonam Kulkarni – PG-10-23 Malvika Virmani – PG-10-25 Shibani Menon – PG-10-26

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Transcript of Bs case study

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CASE STUDY FOR DESIGN OF STRATEGIC PLAN FOR AN IT MAJOR IN INDIA

Presented by: - Mukta .S. Agarwal- PG-10-01

Sonam Kulkarni – PG-10-23

Malvika Virmani – PG-10-25

Shibani Menon – PG-10-26

Nishita Paul – PG-10-37

Alisha Sanghvi – PG-10-41

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About Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)

Tata Consultancy Services is an IT services, consulting and business solutions organization that

delivers real results to global business, ensuring a level of certainty no other firm can match.

TCS offers a consulting-led, integrated portfolio of IT and IT-enabled infrastructure, engineering

and assurance services. This is delivered through its unique Global Network Delivery Model,

recognized as the benchmark of excellence in software development. A part of the Tata Group,

India’s largest industrial conglomerate, TCS has a global footprint and is listed on the National

Stock Exchange and Bombay Stock Exchange in India.

o IT Services

o Business Solutions

o Outsourcing

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1. Find out the top 10 global IT service providing companies today and TCS rank as

of date

According to Global Software Top 100 – Edition 2011

1. Microsoft

2. IBM

3. Oracle

4. SAP

5. Ericsson

6. HP

7. Symantec

8. Nintendo

9. Activision Blizzard

10. EMC

Rank of TCS has improved from 24 to 21 RTN Asia article on TCS, Infosys, Cognizant, Wipro and

HCL pulling away from the rest, improve global standing.

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2. What are the emerging technologies in IT and IS

Ans: User experience and interaction. New styles of user interaction will drive new usage

patterns, giving organizations opportunities to innovate how information and transactions are

delivered to customers and employees. This includes devices such as media tablets and 3D flat-

panel TVs and displays, and interaction styles such as gesture recognition and tangible user

interfaces.

Data-driven decisions: - The quantity and variety of digital data continue to explode, along with

the opportunities to analyze and gain insight from new sources such as location information

and social media. The techniques themselves, such as predictive analytics, are relatively well

established in many cases; the value resides in applying them in new applications such as social

analytics and sentiment analysis.

Cloud-computing implications: - The adoption and impact of cloud computing continues to

expand. In Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, cloud computing overall appears just topping

the peak, and private cloud computing is still rising. Cloud/Web platforms are featured, along

with mobile application stores, to acknowledge the growing interest in platforms for application

development and delivery. Gartner Hype Cycles provide a graphic representation of the

maturity and adoption of technologies and applications, and how they are potentially relevant

to solving real business problems and exploiting new opportunities. Each Hype Cycle drills down

into the five key phases of a technology’s life cycle.

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3. Changing customer expectations

In the software development business, the typical customer is usually a company looking for an

outsourcing vendor/partner. It’s not a specific individual who has expectations that need to be

managed in order to succeed. The “company” is a stakeholder list with a hierarchical structure

and internal corporate politics that need to be taken into account. For example, project

manager expectations differ from CIO and CEO expectations. People within the company have

different levels of influence that also need to be considered.

Managing customer expectations is a key to aligning IT with business

Understand Customer Expectations: - The organizations demonstrate a commitment to

understanding the customer's perspective. Most of the benchmarking partners send surveys to

customers who have complained recently to see how satisfied they were with how the

complaint was handled. Some call the customers to determine satisfaction. The organizations

supplement surveys of people who complain with routine and often extensive data collection

tools in order to understand their customers.

Manage Customer Expectations: - The organizations do not wait for complaints to come in the

door. They try to anticipate the needs and problems of customers and to set realistic

expectations through customer education and communication strategies. Using customer

feedback to understand customer expectations and needs, organizations educate their

customers and/or the public on what they can expect from their products and services and

what obligations and responsibilities their customers have.

Customer Expectations management process in IT Outsourcing

Analyze Identify your stakeholders from the customer side. List all the contacts you have and

those you want to acquire in future. List all the positions, based on the customer’s organization

chart, of your stakeholders and assign roles and influences. Identify your champions and those

that oppose you and understand their motives.

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When you begin negotiations with your new customer, it’s easy to obtain detailed information.

At this stage, people are very open to expressing their expectations. The only thing you need to

do is ask. The service provider may identify contradictory expectations from different

stakeholders and these should be prioritized and examined closely.

Set After you’ve analyzed and clarified customer’s expectations, it’s time to align them with

yours by setting expectations for the services you will provide. You need to build the right

management hierarchy, and escalation and communication schemes to reflect the client’s

management. In addition, the project manager should align the team structure and team work,

prioritizing expected result areas and building the right Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC)

processes. When dealing with offshore outsourcing, you’ll need to identify cultural differences

and provide special training to better align teams and collaboration expectations.

All these critical steps and actions should be covered early on – during a stabilization and

collaboration phase. It’s best to take care of these requirements before the actual project

starts.

Manage When the project starts, you’ll need to manage expectations dynamically, because

they will change as the project moves from one stage to another. As you achieve results and

pass project milestones, you need to periodically check expectations and synchronize new

developments with new expected results and actions.

…And Analyze Again At some point you’ll need to analyze expectations again. You may have

several triggers that re-initiate the ANALYZE phase such as:

Organizational changes on either side of the table

Stakeholder lists may change

Completed milestones might trigger new analysis (i.e., contract re-negotiations, new service

releases, new opportunities, new product lines, etc.)

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Changing customer expectation in TCS

TCS’ telecom offerings and solutions help telecom companies respond better and faster to the

fast-changing business environment and growing opportunities.

Customer Relationship Management

Current Challenges: Aggressive competition for customers with many options. What TCS

provides: Solutions aimed at the most effective possible customer relationship and lifecycle

management that retain customers and keep costs down

Example: - TCS Creates Future-proof Customer Service Platform for Motorola

In today’s competitive business environment, the ability to deliver superior customer service

becomes imperative to stay ahead. Motorola’s Connected Home Business wished to upgrade its

existing customer management platform Amdocs CRM to a newer version, in order to maintain

its high standards of customer service.

Key Insight: How TCS partnered with Motorola to carry out the upgrade and helped with the

transition of the application to a future-proof customer service platform.

In today’s competitive business environment, superior customer service can act as a

differentiator. Motorola’s Connected Home Business, wished to upgrade its existing customer

management platform Amdocs CRM, to a newer version, in order to maintain its high standards

of customer service.

TCS partnered with Motorola to carry out the upgrade and transition of the application to a

new datacenter.

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4. Changing accounting norms and what kind of internal controls will IT solutions

need to be compliant to

Ans: Effect of accounting changes is relevant only to a company's financial statements and the

reporting of its net income or net loss. When a company changes or updates the accounting

principles it uses to calculate its income, this can affect the company's reported income in

previous reporting periods.

TCS continues to closely look at acquisitions that are strategic in nature. Through inorganic

means the company may look to strengthen gaps in its services portfolio, enter new

geographies or market segments as well as in-source domain and technology expertise.

TCS has established a unique Global Network Delivery Model TM (GNDMTM) that allows the

Company to deliver services to customers from multiple global locations in India, China, Europe,

North America and Latin America. The GNDM™ enables the Company’s delivery centers to

collaborate on projects and leverage all its assets in order to ensure ‘One Global Service

Standard’.

Like TCS all the companies today are focusing on expanding their presence around the world

and increasing their customer base. Change of the accounting standards from GAAP to IFRS was

essential. The reasons for the change are as follows:

GAAP and IFRS

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced it plans to switch U.S. companies

from generally accepted accounting principles (GAAPs) to international financial reporting

standards (IFRSs).

Switching to IFRS will help companies, investors, and the public globally compare their financial

statements easier. “By adopting IFRS, a business can present its financial statements on the

same basis as its foreign competitors, making comparisons easier” (American). If every country

has a different set of financial standards, while multinational companies exist in different

countries, it is difficult to compare how each company stands because there is no consistency.

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Consistency is a key factor in comparing statements. Without the one set of global standards, it

will be more difficult, if not impossible, to compare with their competitors due to extra finances

and time. With an international accounting standard in place it allows companies and

competitors to be able to compare with each other.

Consistency is not only important for comparability, but also for everyone to understand

financial statements internationally. International financial reporting standards make financial

statements easily understood.

Secondly, the United States is the only country that always does things differently. For example,

the United States does not use the metric system (i.e. meters, kilometers, etc.); instead we use

the customary system (i.e. inches, feet).

Lastly, we must not forget that the markets and the economy of today are much more on a

global level and not a domestic level. With the U.S. switching over to IFRS from GAAP, it allows

our country (the United States) to become a part of that global economy.

IT companies can implement SAS 99.

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5. Need to offer value added management consulting solutions and package it with IT solutions

Ans: Currently, IT companies are focus more on IT audits are also known as "automated data

processing (ADP) audits" and "computer audits". They were formerly called "electronic data

processing (EDP) audits" but management consulting will help them in analyzing their

weaknesses and constraints which may lead to bottlenecks for the system and also help in

understanding their capabilities and convert them into opportunity.

Calculations such as finding the Human asset worth

Scrap value generated: Which will tell the management the inefficiency of their processes

Idle time:

Non-Value added activities: Which tell the management about resources and time being wasted

in activities which are not contributing to the revenue and are increasing the expenses of the

company.

Excess inventory in days: Lot of capital is blocked, interest is added, storing cost increases,

material may even get obsolete.

Debtors and creditors turnover ratios:

Raw materials consumption index: Informs you about the efficiency of the processes and

machines.

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6. What kind of IT computing scenario will prevail then and what security

provisions need to be incorporated?

Ans: The prevailing scenario would be of cloud computing. In order to ensure that data

is secure (that it cannot be accessed by unauthorized users or simply lost) and that data

privacy is maintained, cloud providers attend to the following areas:

Data protection To be considered protected, data from one customer must be properly

segregated from that of another; it must be stored securely when “at rest” and it must be able

to move securely from one location to another. Cloud providers have systems in place to

prevent data leaks or access by third parties. Proper separation of duties should ensure that

auditing and/or monitoring cannot be defeated, even by privileged users at the cloud provider.

Identity management Every enterprise will have its own identity management system to

control access to information and computing resources. Cloud providers either integrate the

customer’s identity management system into their own infrastructure,

using federation or SSO technology, or provide an identity management solution of their own.

Physical and personnel security Providers ensure that physical machines are adequately secure

and that access to these machines as well as all relevant customer data is not only restricted

but that access is documented.

Availability Cloud providers assure customers that they will have regular and predictable access

to their data and applications.

Application security Cloud providers ensure that applications available as a service via the

cloud are secure by implementing testing and acceptance procedures for outsourced or

packaged application code. It also requires application security measures (application-level

firewalls) are in place in the production environment.

Privacy Finally, providers ensure that all critical data (credit card numbers, for example)

are masked and that only authorized users have access to data in its entirety. Moreover, digital

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identities and credentials must be protected as should any data that the provider collects or

produces about customer activity in the cloud.

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7. What kind of core and distinctive competences will be required to be built and developed in order to achieve competitive advantage and what should be the IT strategy as per Michael Porters Competitive advantage i.e. Cost Advantage , Differentiation , Niche Market?

Outsourcing as means to competitive advantage Of late, IT departments have been under

huge pressure to deliver more business value by accelerating the delivery of new applications

and at the same time improving services levels of existing application for users. Organizations

are looking seriously at outsourcing as a strategy to reduce IT costs and secondly to enable in-

house IT team to focus on strategic new initiatives. There are also organizations which also have

benefited by transfusion of knowledge from outsourced vendor to in-house IT team.

Michael Porter’s Five Forces: - In the case of software outsourcing, for TCS there are few

important suppliers, because TCS’ inputs are standard commodities and there is little

opportunity for differentiation on the input side. The four forces that are most problematic are

the bargaining power of customers, the threat of new entrants, the threat of substitutes, and

the competitive rivalry with existing players. To examine each of these four forces in their turn

for software services outsourcing.

Software Services Concept, Technology determination and system architecture Engineering

Services, System Specification and design Applications programming and Quality Assurance

System integration in the context of competitive forces helps to explain why TCS built its

business around applications programming: given the problems of distance, and operating from

India, this was the easiest component of the business to build. In the early days of the software

exporting business, the software vendor market was dominated by a few large global suppliers

such as IBM. Indian firms were viewed as too small to matter for obtaining significant business.

In addition, they competed actively with each other at the low-end. The result was that TCS and

its Indian peers chose components of the business that were relatively low value-added and

relatively simple to do.

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TCS also faced a client market that was dominated by the large banks and insurance companies.

While it actively sought alliances with larger vendors as a competitive strategy, its most

successful strategy was to directly approach clients and accept the lower rates that its

competitive position necessitated. Looking ahead, TCS must continue to work to reduce the

bargaining power of customers by trying to move the purchase decision away from price. This

means that TCS must deliver more than undifferentiated programming by moving up the value

chain. Such a movement is difficult in software services because the customers have deep

domain expertise and almost invariably wish to retain the tasks grouped under strategic

consulting. Moreover, customers understand that if they outsource the strategic consulting,

then their bargaining power will be reduced. TCS must develop sufficient expertise so as to

make outsourcing these tasks a compelling value proposition. Of course, it is exactly in these

realms that the multinational outsourcing firms such as IBM, Accenture, and EDS are the most

ferocious competitors.

Forging alliances is often viewed as a good strategy to offset clients’ bargaining power.

However, building alliances with firms working in clients’ locations should be discounted as this

would further focus TCS in applications’ development. On the other hand, the acquisition of a

medium-sized American firm with strong client relationships and domain skills could provide an

attractive opportunity. Although costs per employee would rise, the rise would be small since

labor requirements are lower for higher value-added work. Meanwhile, the threat of new

entrants is declining rapidly as the larger firms have rapidly increased their size, market share,

and credibility with customers. However, although firms strive to reduce their direct

competition through product differentiation, in each market segment there continue to be

numerous players.

A key concern for TCS is competition from existing players as it has generated competition for

existing business and created significant pricing pressures. Globally, firms such as EDS have

positioned themselves as capable of undertaking large, “turnkey” projects in order to

differentiate themselves from competitors such as IBM and Accenture that focus on higher

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value-added work such as consulting. This suggests an organically-driven growth strategy for

TCS: that TCS continue to do the same kinds of work that it currently does, but try to capture a

greater portion of the value-addition by undertaking larger projects. Though it has already

demonstrated a capability in remote project management, it would be required to further

increase this capability. However, there are some risks to this strategy. TCS’ large size suggests

that it may have already maximized economies to scale in applications development. Adding

scope, however, offers the potential for large gains since it necessarily involves higher value-

added activities. In the early days, this was difficult, partly due to the technical difficulty in de-

integrating the value-chain beyond the modularization of applications programming. Over the

past few years, however, engineering services, systems design, and systems integration work

have increasingly been outsourced (within the U.S.), suggesting that, if the skills are at hand,

such work could be done in India. Most American providers of such services offer domain and

software skills. TCS already has the software skills to move into these areas. But domain skills

are a challenge. This is illustrated by TCS’s focus on a few industries, notably banking and

financial services. This reflects a general lack of domain expertise outside the financial services

sector in India. Put differently, India does not have global-class, nontechnical knowledge in

various other industries. As a result it is difficult to offer the full panoply of services a firm

would want when it considers outsourcing a software development activity. This may be being

rectified as the liberalization of the Indian economy since 1991 has led to the development of a

host of new industry capabilities, such as in insurance. This promises an expansion of domain-

specific skills in fields outside the traditional industries – but these will develop only gradually.

These facts indicate that it will be difficult for TCS as an organization based and staffed primarily

in India to change its revenue mix through organic growth. Acquiring Indian firms doing higher

value-added business is a possibility, but there are few such firms in the Indian business

environment. Essentially, the constraint that TCS faces is environmental rather than firm

specific. In most sectors, Indian business conditions are sufficiently dissimilar to overseas client

conditions that local domain expertise is of low relevance. The threat of substitutes in software

services does exist as technology tools to speed coding etc. However, at this time the threat of

substitutes seems rather remote.

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The IT strategy as per Michael Porters Competitive advantage i.e. Cost Advantage ,

Differentiation , Niche Market to be implemented by various IT firms can be described as

follows:

In summary, the answer to the question posed above is that TCS should grow in software

services through (1) Acquisition of a medium-sized American firm with strong client

relationships focusing on software-intensive areas complementary to TCS, such as system

design and systems integration in financial services; A natural direction is to move first into

areas adjacent to applications programming that require more IT-related skills and fewer

domain skills, such as system design and systems integration. There are several such firms in

the U.S. that could be attractive acquisition targets. However, managerial and cultural issues

could also play a significant role. (2) Organic growth through undertaking larger projects; (3)

Adding domain capabilities in step with the development of such skills in India. However, it

should not consider overseas strategic alliances in allied domains or overseas acquisitions that

provide new industry skills. (4) Firms should further move up the value chain by accumulating

knowledge about the industry segments for which they currently develop software. (5) Firms

need to invest a great deal in hiring, training and retaining their employees, in expanding

overseas and establishing subsidiaries in countries such as the US and Western Europe, as well

as in acquiring the technological and business expertise needed. These firms will also be able to

execute large, complex projects on their own with little or no supervision from US clients and

thereby establish a point of differentiation with respect to its sector peers. (6) Established firms

should try and acquire resources from other firms and provide IT services such as, consultancy

services and technical support at low cost compared to its sector peers. Also, in time, they may

even be able to anticipate the business needs of their clients and offer them solutions. These

firms can acquire other Indian software firms (or their assets), or employ the latter as

subcontractors. TCS is one such firm that follows this approach and has a cost advantage over

other companies like Infosys, Wipro, and Cognizant etc.

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8 Develop strategies and action plans for TCS to achieve their vision.

...Vision Statement of TCS

"TCS will be recognized and respected as professional, innovative, profitable information, and

knowledge based logistics/services enterprise. TCS embeds internet based technologies into its

internal operating structures and as business solutions for customers; with customer, employee

and shareholder interests at the core of its operations; demonstrating a clear concern for ethical

conduct and good corporate citizenship; with the objective of growing into a regional and global

player, with emphasis on the Middle East, Europe and North America".

Looking at TCS with respective to Indian market. As mentioned in its vision statement also that

their objective is to grow regional and globally as well. TCS and BPO sector

Unlike software services, TCS is a relatively small player in the BPO industry in India. The BPO

business is divided into broad segments: call center work (which includes a large component of

IT-intensive technical support work) and back-office work. TCS entered the business much later

than its traditional software rivals and initially focused primarily on call-center work.

Nevertheless, TCS has some advantages over others in the industry. The first is that it can use

its software business to improve its competitive position in the industry. Many of its software

clients might become BPO clients due to their familiarity with TCS and its credibility in doing

work overseas. On the other hand, the BPO business might affect TCS’ software business as

well.

These linkages are analyzed as follows: a) Retaining client relationships: BPs, unlike software

development, is transaction-oriented rather than project oriented.

Once a software project is completed, it is common for the client to put the next project up for

open bidding (despite a satisfactory experience). However, it is less likely that a client will

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switch its BP provider, as the migration process involves high initial costs and a long migration

cycle.

Hence, the software division may retain clients better if the firm also provides BP services.

b) Obtaining work linking software and BP: Some BPs, but not all, involves a considerable

amount of software work. For example, TCS might automate a client’s payroll system (a

software project) and then manage payroll processes as well (a BP). Thus, its BP capabilities

might allow it to earn higher value for a software project by offering to fulfill the service

outcome of the project. This is a successful model in the U.S.: large firms such as EDS offer such

integrated services.

c) Building domain expertise: Although TCS and other Indian firms currently do low-end, back-

office work, over time more high-end work and even transitioning to front-office work might be

possible. For example, a stock broking operation might begin by off shoring post-deal

settlement work, but then add automated trading and some of the more routine research

functions over time. Over longer periods of time, even more sophisticated work such as sales

call updates might be added. The advantage of BPO is that it lends itself to incremental

increases in the number of services provided, with small value-added slices being added to the

off shored work as the offshore operation gains in capability. This reflects the nature of BPs,

that they will typically either be provided by a single outsourced provider or done in-house. This

allows for the BP provider to build domain expertise that may then be leveraged to also climb

the software value chain. By contrast, a firm that only offers software services will find it

difficult to get clients to agree to add incremental work since there typically will already be

other firms fulfilling the clients’ needs in adjacent fields such as engineering services and

systems integration.

How will the BPO business be affected by the software business?

a) There are key operational areas in which the impact of software work on BP is low: (1) skills

sets needed for BPO at the operational level are different, requiring accountants, sales clerks,

telephone operators, and so on, rather than software engineers. (2) The clients, though they

might be in the same firm, are likely to be different, especially if the client-firm is large.

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Software services are normally marketed to the firm’s CIO or CTO, while BP services are

marketed to the firm’s operations departments, such as accounts and HR.

b) There are also areas of synergy. The greatest for TCS is its long-established domain expertise

in financial services that could help the firm obtains BPO work in the financial services industry.

Further, TCS’s credibility in software services should assist in securing BPO business from the

same firm. Also, the BP operations can leverage off a similar set of IT-infrastructure

management capabilities as are required for software services, such as remote project

management and network management.

c) Moving up the BP value-chain: to the extent that TCS has the capability of moving up the

software value-chain, this may assist in migrating up the BP value-chain.

Should TCS enter BPO and, if so, how:-

As noted for software outsourcing, TCS is not affected by the competitive position of suppliers

because its inputs are standard commodities with little scope for differentiation. The key

challenges remain the bargaining power of customers and the competitive rivalry with existing

players, although the threat of new entrants and substitutes is not negligible.

As noted in the case, TCS has hitherto made a few small investments in BPO, one as a joint

venture and a small airline-industry related acquisition. An outcome of the above analysis is

that, since software operations are to be TCS’s core business for several years to come and

since moving up the value chain is a desired goal, entering BPO is advantageous because it

could assist TCS in achieving its core goals. There are several disadvantages and TCS will have to

develop personnel and marketing teams that are appropriate for BPO.

It seems important for TCS to enter the BPO field. Ideally, TCS should build a BPO business that

can leverage off the software business, such as managing back-office processes in finance,

rather than in less-linked businesses such as call-centers. However, it may be impossible to

simply “cherry pick” the most desirable businesses where there are considerable synergies

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between software and BPO. Still building the business within TCS rather than through alliances

is the better strategy.

In the BPO realm there are similar difficulties for firms offering undifferentiated services such as

call centers or simple claims processing. Moreover, for many firms, activities such as claims

processing, mortgage application screening, data entry, or GIS data entry are only the most

routine activities in a larger business process. Frequently, the entire business process may not

be viewed as a core function, and therefore the firms are willing to outsource more of the

higher value-added activities in the business process. This willingness could permit the BPO firm

to capture a larger portion of the entire process and in the process more deeply enmesh the

customer in the relationship. This can serve to reduce the power of the customer AND reduce

the threat from rivals and new entrants. Moreover, unlike the more mature software industry,

the configuration of markets and the rivals is changing constantly. For example, IBM, which is

TCS’ ideal-typical rival (though much larger and more diversified), announced in April 2004 that

it was purchasing one of the premier independent Indian BPO firms, Daksh, for approximately

$150 million. The implication is that IBM will be a “new entrant” in the BPO business. Thus at

this point in the maturation of the BPO industry rivalry is likely to increase as global IT service

firms seek to integrate BPO into their overall offerings.

In the case of BPO, substitutes are definitely a possibility. In the case of call centers, voice

recognition software is constantly improving and there are products on the markets that can

operate effectively in highly defined situations. Though this software will surely improve, at this

time it appears as though it will be able to substitute for only some percentage of the total

number of calls. In the case of claims processing, mortgage scoring, etc., the use of eforms and

software-driven character recognition systems clearly will decrease the need for routine data

entry. However, auditing, monitoring, or editing functions require human judgment, but can

also be done in India. So, nonhuman substitute methods are being developed, but there are

opportunities to move further up the value chain where judgment is required.

In fact, interestingly enough, in the apparently low value-added BPO fields, movement up the

value chain may be easier than in software. The reasons for this are the complexity of business

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processes and the fact that firms outsourcing the process may not see the entire process as a

core competency.

This would make them willing to outsource the entire process, rather than trying to retain the

highest value-added portions for themselves. This suggests that TCS should consider making a

serious commitment to the BPO field soon.

Overseas acquisitions appeared to be the most appropriate route for TCS to build its software

business. The corresponding advantage of this strategy for BPO work is that it would provide

TCS with a base of clients. It might allow a more rapid ramp-up to doing higher-end work.

However, unlike software, a more cautious approach seems to be in order. TCS needs to first

increase its understanding of the business and create a process implementation capability of

sufficient scale prior to acquiring value-added overseas capabilities. A domestic acquisition is an

option, its advantage being a quick start and existing clients. However, TCS’s existing client-base

should make client acquisition relatively easy. Further, it is likely that its established project

management skills can be leveraged for rapid ramp-up. This should ameliorate the risk of being

left behind. For these reasons, TCS should grow organically rather than through acquisitions,

with a focus on those domains (primarily financial services, but also manufacturing and

telecommunications) in which it already has skills that have been used in its software services

work.

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