In 2008-09, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) saw a 23 per cent growth in its topline, though impressive TCS was

far behind its competitors. Four years later, TCS has not only managed to hold its ground but also race ahead of its peers on various fronts. Over the past two years, TCS has managed to clock upwards of 27 per cent topline growth, while its profits have increased to 31 per cent in FY13 from 22 per cent in FY12. TCS began putting strategies and businesses in place to diversify its portfolio long before the global recession set in. Some of those strategies have come in handy in recent years. For instance, towards the end of 2008, the company decided to restructure itself into smaller units. Accordingly, 23 business units were created - each with its own CEO, business goals, profit & loss and HR department. Only eight senior executives were to report to the CEO directly. This revamp has allowed TCS to remain agile, make quick decisions and move forward with a clear strategic direction. There is no doubt that among its peers, TCS's presence in terms of service lines, portfolio of customers or geographical presence is much better. Along with that, it pursued growth, wherever that came from unlike its peers who were looking for higher-margin business. But, more importantly, what has worked for TCS is its consistent leadership. Winning plan According to CEO and managing director N Chandrasekaran . "We have a good strategy that has been clearly articulated, and is being carried forward and implemented. We have a full services portfolio operating across the entire value chain, with a diversified presence. All these past quarters, we have had broad-based growth. When you have such a growth engine, any sudden negative surprise can be managed well. For IT companies, there are three key determinants of growth. First is the strength of the sales process: TCS has a pretty aggressive sales team with the CEO himself leading the charge. Then there is the ability to execute projects and manage margins which decides whether clients prefer to work with the company or not. The company took a sizeable hit recently by reworking the pricing for some of its BFSI clients who had fallen on hard times due to the slowdown. TCS was flexible with clients when the industry was hit by recession. And lastly, the continuity of the top management. TCS found itself on stronger ground because it was able to address many risks in a better way than its peers. Many of its peers have heavy dependence or exposure to certain verticals and service lines, while crux of TCS's strategy was its diversified portfolio. It was the strength of its portfolio that kept it in good stead even when some of its clients decided to crimp their budgets, as the losses were somewhat offset by increased allocations by other clients. It is not the case with many other IT companies in the country. Its infrastructure management service (IMS) grew 47 per cent year-on-year in FY13, while the IT solutions and services grew upwards of 25 per cent in the same period. In the past few quarters, incremental growth has come from BPO and IMS.

Almost omnipresent: Having a larger geographical footprint is also helping TCS take wider steps in capturing market share. Its early investment on the Latin American market, through an acquisition, and a strong focus in India, have ensured it a large presence in the emerging markets. The emerging markets - India, Asia Pacific and the Middle East and Africa - account for 17.4 per cent of the company's revenue. For TCS, the whole world is a playing field. It has had a presence in Europe for the longest time and its recent acquisition of France-based Alti will strengthen its position further. More importantly, the company has also managed to create growth for its inorganic strategy. Some of its early acquisitions like Pearl for building a BPO platform strategy, eServe for end-to-end back-office process management in BFS, Comicrom to penetrate Latin America, are all significant contributors. One of its largest acquisition, Citigroup's captive BPO, has allowed it to create transaction processingoriented BPO. But in the humdrum of new businesses and processes, TCS has not lost sight of its bread-and-butter business (application development and maintenance). "There are two ways of growth. Either take a bet on the high- value business and let go of bread-and-butter business. Or you may focus on both. TCS chose the latter strategy. And this is working well for them," says an analyst.