Brief History of TCS, Infosys, and HDFC Bank!

Famous as the Indian MNC, Tata Consultancy Services is one of the major IT giants in India. It has a history spanning widely for 30 plus years. TCS is one of the largest private sector employers in India. This can be seen in the fact that TCS has about 3,00,000 employees.

Read on for the IT giant’s successful story:

The beginning: The word ‘Consultancy’ means providing services to customers. This service need not necessarily be software-related. This was the idea behind the inception of TCS, way back in the late 1960s. It was started as a consulting agency providing punched card services to its sister concern TISCO, which is now popularly known as Tata Steel. It was only a small division of Tata Sons Limited. From the punched-card systems, they further moved on to provide electronic depository and trading systems for their clients in Switzerland.

The Expansion: The major leap took place in 1981, when the management of TCS decided to open up software consultancy services. They opened a dedicated software and research development center in Pune. From then on, the Indian IT outsourcing business for TCS grew rapidly in size and operations. The major jump also occurred due to the Y2K bug and the launch of a unified European currency Euro. The Y2K bug relates to the problematic issue of shortening a four-digit year to two digits due to which many computers failed to work correctly in the year 2000. TCS was the first to develop a factory model for Y2K conversion.

From a single office in Pune, TCS now has 230 offices across 46 countries and 147 delivery centers in 21 countries giving a very high global presence. The company is also the third largest IT employer after the US-based IBM and Hewlett Packard.

Stock Listing: Starting 2000, the company expanded rapidly and in 2004, the company became a publicly-listed company. TCS made an initial public offer in July 2004, post which its shares were listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and the National Stock Exchange (NSE) on August 25, 2004. The company’s shares had a listing price of Rs 849 per share. Today, it is one of the most influential stocks in the Indian stock markets.

Acquisitions: TCS’s expansionist spree began 2001 with the acquisition of CMC Limited. After this, TCS expanded rapidly by acquiring about 13 companies all within a decade. Its latest acquisition is Alti SA, which gave TCS access to blue-chip French and European clients in the banking, luxury, manufacturing and utilities sectors.

Awards and recognitions: It is not for nothing that TCS is known as the top Indian multinational company. It has received many awards and won recognitions in the past few years are ample to justify its quality. TCS ranked first for customer satisfaction in the UK. TCS also got the ‘Business Standard's Company of the Year’ award in 2012. Following this, in the year 2014, it received the best service provider for manufacturing in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) by International Data Corporation.

TCS operations: TCS has its hands widely spread across. One of its key business operations is in the area of BPS (Business Process Services) and Innovative Labs. TCS is the third largest India-based IT outsourcing company, which accounted for 12.5% of TCS’s total revenue. Its Innovative Labs are counted to be one of the best in the world. All in all, it has 19 innovation labs across three countries. It has partnered with big names like Collabnet, Cassatt, academic institutions such as IITs, Stanford, MIT and venture capitalists like Sequoia and Kleiner Perkins for its Innovation Labs.

A look at the management: A successful company like TCS needs a strong management to function efficiently in all its core areas. The TCS team is headed by Natarajan Chandrasekaran (‘Chandra’), its the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director. He is supported by two key officers – Chief Financial Officer Rajesh Gopinathan; Head of Global Human Resources Ajoyendra Mukherjee. They are responsible for moving TCS in the path

Multinational Corporation, business consulting, software engineering, outsourcing!! These were lesser known terms in the Indian social circles earlier. But in the mid-1980s, a company called Infosys changed the way the world looked at us. Soon, India started to be looked upon as a major IT hub.

Read on to know more about this IT giant:

The Beginning: The Company was started with a small office in Pune in 1981. Resigning from Patni Computer Systems, six engineers—Narayan Murthy, Nandan Nilekani, N. S. Raghavan, S. Gopalakrishnan, S. D. Shibulal, K. Dinesh and Ashok Arora—started Infosys foundation in a small registered office with a capital of Rs 10,000. The company got its first big contract from a client in New York, Data Basic Corporation. From then on, there has been no looking back.

The Expansion: Two years since the time of its inception in 1981, there was a major expansion plan. The founder of the company, Mr. Narayana Murthy, moved the company’s operation from Pune to Bangalore, the IT hub of India. From then on, in a decade’s time, the company expanded widely, both geographically and in its operations. The company opened offices and development centers in Fermont, UK, Toronto and Mangalore.

Infosys now has a global presence with 72 offices and 94 development centers, spanning across United States, India, China, Australia, Japan, Middle East, and Europe.

Starting with a small capital, the company is now in a position to proudly declare that its revenue crossed over Rs 50,000 crore in a span of just 30 years.

Stock Listing: The company issued its first IPO or Initial Public offering for stock listing in February 1993 with an offer price of Rs 95 per share, against book value of Rs 20 per share. With the company’s expansion, the share prices ascended vertically reaching new heights every year. At one point of time, the share price surged to Rs 8,100 making it the costliest share on the market at the time.

Major Acquisitions: With major enlargement plans, Infosys acquired Australia-based IT service provider Expert Information Services in 2003. Following this, Infosys BPO acquired Atlanta-based McCamish Systems in 2009. Recently, it also acquired Australia-based Portland Group, provider of strategic sourcing and category management services, and the Zurich-based Lodestone Holding AG. Its most recent announcement is the acquisition of the US automation technology company Panaya for around $200 million. It is now looking to invest in start-up companies in India.

Awards and recognitions: With soaring new heights year on year, the Infosys foundation has many accolades that it has won over years. Infosys was ranked 19th on the world's most innovative companies listed by Forbes. Infosys was in the list of top twenty green companies in Newsweek's Green Rankings for 2012. It was also voted India's most admired company in the Wall Street Journal Asia 2010.

Infosys is also one of the world’s largest employees in software engineering field in India. Being a women-friendly software industry, it has about 34.7% of women employee world-wide.

Financial accolades: Infosys, starting as a company with a capital of $250, has now grown to become a company earning $8.71-billion in revenues (Rs 54,000 crore) and $2 billion (Rs 12,400 crore) in profits (as of March 2015). It earned Rs 30,000 crore in revenues in 2010. In terms of networth, the company is worth around $8.7 billion.

A look at the management: The founder of Infosys foundation, Narayan Murthy headed the board of directors as the CEO of Infosys from 1981 to 2002. He retired from the post of CEO and made his contributions as a member of the board from then on. From 2014 onwards, the Infosys foundation is headed by its CEO Vishal Sikka. He is assisted by the Chief Operating Officer Pravin Roa. The board has independent directors like: Carol M. Browner, Roopa Kudva, Ravi Venkatesan, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Prof. Jeffrey Sean Lehman and R Seshasayee. The founding members continue to hold majority stake in the company.

The beginning: HDFC Bank is a public company which operates from Mumbai, Maharashtra. The bank came to be incorporated on August 30, 1994. It was promoted by its then parent company Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC). It mainly offers banking and financial services.

Stock Listing: HDFC Bank issued its Initial Public Offer or IPO in July 1995. It finally started trading on the BSE and NSE from December 1995. HDFC Bank also has its American Depositary Shares listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and Global Depository Receipts (GDRs) listed on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange. The company’s shareholding is split between its promoter group (HDFC), the FIIs (Foreign Institutional Investors), individual shareholders and other corporate bodies. Foreign investors hold the most shares amount to 34% of the total shareholding, followed by HDFC, which holds about 23% stake in the bank.

Operations and key facts: The bank operates with around 3,000 branches in over 2,000 cities all over India. HDFC Bank too ventured into online banking and ATM services. It currently operates around 11,000 ATMs.

Keeping up with the global presence and leading competition from other banks, HDFC also has come up with overseas branches. It operates in Bahrain and Hong Kong.

HDFC Bank specializes in banking services and provides:

• Small and medium size finances: It specializes in financing small and medium business units and industries; providing business finances, trade services and helping in opening accounts and deposits.
• It also services the NRI community by offering similar services.
• Wholesale banking; by providing banking facilities for Corporates, Financial Institutions and Trusts. It also provides a range of commercial and transactional banking services.
• The bank also provides services such as Investment Banking and other services to the Government sector.

Subsidiaries: HDFC bank has two main subsidiaries:

1. HDB Financial Services Limited (HDBFS), a non-banking finance company (NBFC), lends loans to individuals and corporates alike. It finances micro, small and medium business units.
2. HDFC Securities Limited (HSL), which engages in stock brokering, is touted to be one of the best electronic brokerage companies in India.

Accolades: Not just recognition as one of the largest providers of finance in India, the awards and recognitions that HDFC bank has won in the past few years are ample to justify that it is one of the best banking services companies.

• HDFC Bank was the first bank in India to launch an International debit card in association with VISA.
• The Bank is also one of the leading players in the ‘merchant acquiring’ business with over 240,000 point-of-sale (POS) terminals for debit / credit cards acceptance at merchant establishments.
• In 2013, it received the Best Bank award in the Large Banks category.
• HDFC is listed Fab 50 Companies List for the 7th year by Forbes.
• In 2012, HDFC bank received the ET Awards for Corporate Excellence - Company of the Year 2012.
• It also received the Excellence in Financial Reporting by the Economic Times group.

Management: The Company is led by Aditya Puri, a professional banker with over 25 years of experience in this sector. The Bank's Board of Directors is composed of eminent individuals with a wealth of experience in public policy, administration, industry and commercial banking. Senior executives representing HDFC are also on the board.