As part of its efforts to blend with the Canadian fabric, India's leading IT major Tata Consultancy Services recently opened an office in Vancouver that will focus on sales in the region and delivery of IT services to local companies.
Vancouver is TCS' fourth office in Canada. The others are in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. The company has more than 100 employees in Canada, which is expected to grow.
It has more than 8,000 employees spread over 54 offices in North America.
S Ramadorai, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, TCS, was Business India Businessman of the Year 2004.
He was in Toronto recently to mark the company's growing presence in Canada, and to address the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce on growing relations between India and Canada.
Ramadorai, who has spent more than 33 years with the company, stressed the benefits of technology.
"What technology essentially does is to enable businesses to perform better, provided businesses embrace technology and incorporate technology in real time. That's what institutions like us have done," he said. The TCS CEO spoke to Ajit Jain.
TCS has shown a growth despite the IT industry recording a significant downturn this year. To what would you attribute that?
The credit goes to people who make the organization. If we are going to be a team, a good leader is needed.
The leader motivates them and enables them to perform at their best. We take that very seriously.
We recruit the best. We provide them with the highest quality training, give them the tools and techniques they need to take care of our customers.
What TCS has done is to grow up with the industry. We do the work that must be done. Operationally we must know the business.
Operation is separate. Strategy is separate. We must practice what we preach. By operating in this manner, we have gained our customers' confidence.
Your Canadian operations began seven years ago, although you have been in the US since 1979. Does it indicate a lack of interest in Canada?
It is absolutely not a lack of interest. We felt we could serve the Canadian market from the US, using our existing operations.
But as the number of our Canadian customers grew, we realized we could serve them far better by having a physical presence in Canada.
We have four offices here. We look forward to opening a center of excellence in Toronto in a few months.
Has your thinking about the Canadian market changed?
Naturally, as we become more embedded in the Canadian market, we are learning more and adapting to the challenges and opportunities it presents.
We are looking at all aspects of the market, including multinational corporations, as well as the IT talent coming out of the country.
Ramalinga Raju, CEO, Satyam Computer, recently spoke of near-sourcing in the context of the controversy over outsourcing in the US.
We don't choose to enter a market because something is not working. We enter a market as we fundamentally believe in the possibilities and capabilities within it.
We believe in contributing to a market with collaboration and cooperation.
We collaborated with the University of Waterloo in 1980 as we felt we could jointly learn something and build something.
The same thinking applied when we opened an office in Toronto, our first Canadian operation.
In Vancouver we are building the IT future together with the local business community as not only will it provide tremendous benefit, but it is at the core of our business values.
TCS has contributed to the Canadian market with products and services from around the globe, such as with technologies in telecommunications based on entertainment, an area in which the country has done a lot of work and can be leveraged by other countries.
What's the size of your portfolio in Canada?
We have four offices here and will open a center of excellence in Toronto early this year. With more than 100 employees and 20 customers, our revenues are running at approximately 10 percent of those of the US.
What is the Canadian market's potential?
Education is an area where India and Canada can participate together.
There are a number of ways to leverage the expertise India has with the skilled workforce Canada is producing.
We should acknowledge these opportunities together. That is the role of the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce, academia to academia connections, science and technology connection, and the like.
Could you name a couple of outstanding innovations from TCS?
Without question I would say our Integrated Quality Management System. There is tremendous complexity that comes with building a large-scale system.
I would also endorse our Customer Banking System. In telecommunications, we will introduce one of the first systems to include some of the architectural work in space.
We have very high design competency for aircraft manufacturers or for turbine manufacturers other than complexity and quality and scale.
What advice will you give new businesses?
Learn, learn and learn. Learning doesn't have artificial barriers. Stretch yourself and change should be seamless. Embrace change, as we call it. We can go anywhere we want.
Do you still have collaborations with educational and other institutions?
Yes, we have collaborations with organizations in several ways such as a student exchange program with Simon Fraser University.
We collaborate on research projects, provide sabbatical opportunities for faculty or professors.
Opportunity is in the commercial sense an output-input relationship. We have enabled businesses to perform better provided the business embraces technology and incorporates technology in real time.
That is what institutions like us have done for young professionals.
They are selected from the best institutions. We train them in technology environment so that they absorb the technology fully and apply it to businesses.
This cycle must go on at the speed at which you can absorb technology. That is what differentiates one organization from the other.
If there is one thing young people need to do, it is do better than you did yesterday.
Business operates at the speed at which you can run after learning, and learning never stops.
All of us will become obsolete and irrelevant if people do not embrace learning. People relate to what the market forces are and enable institutions to do things differently everyday on an ongoing basis.
More from rediff