TCS Organization Structure PDF
TCS Organization Structure PDF
HISTORY ........................................................................................................................................................ 2
ORGANISATIONAL DEVELOPMENT ............................................................................................................... 4
REALIGNMENT AND RESTRUCTURING AT TCS .............................................................................................. 5
SERVICES ....................................................................................................................................................... 7
ORGANIZATION AMBIENCE AND DÉCOR .................................................................................................... 12
VALUE CREATION MODEL FOR TCS ............................................................................................................. 14
THE SYSTEM CALLED ”TCS” ......................................................................................................................... 19
CHALLENGES FACED BY TCS ........................................................................................................................ 23
STAR MODEL OF ORGANIZATION DESIGN FRAMEWORK ........................................................................... 25
STRUCTURE ................................................................................................................................................. 27
TCS BUSINESSES .......................................................................................................................................... 31
Behavior and Formalization ........................................................................................................................ 32
COMPETENCIES ........................................................................................................................................... 33
Advantages and disadvantages of the structure at TCS ............................................................................. 37
CONTEXTUAL DIMENSIONS OF ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN ....................................................................... 39
SUGGESTED CHANGES IN ORGANIZATION DESIGN .................................................................................... 43
HISTORY
Tata Consultancy Services Limited (TCS) is a global IT services, business solutions and
outsourcing company headquartered in Mumbai, India. It is the largest provider of information
technology in Asia and second largest business process outsourcing services provider in India.
TCS has offices in over 47 countries with more than 142 branches across the globe, with over 65
offices outside India. TCS employs more than 18,000 consultants and serves hundreds of clients,
providing information technology and business consulting services to organizations in
government, business and industry around the world. TCS accounts for India‘s 20 per cent IT
exports. It is a subsidiary of textiles and manufacturing conglomerate Tata Group.
F.C KOHLI was the first general manager under whose leadership TCS pioneered its Indian
effort to create a globally recognizable brand for the Indian software industry in 1968. J.R.D
TaTa was the first chairman, followed by Pankaj Roy. During its initial years it tried building
strong links with academia underlined the intellectual underpinnings of the consulting business.
Professionalism was promoted through participation in the activities of professional societies,
peer recognition and in-house training.
One of TCS' first assignments was to provide punched cards services to a sister concern, Tata
Steel (then TISCO). It later got the country's first software project, the Inter-Branch
Reconciliation System (IBRS) for the Central Bank Of India. It also provided bureau services to
Unit Trust Of India thus becoming one of the first companies to offer BPO services.
Over the past decade, TCS has grown dramatically, doubling its revenues every two years, and is
on the verge of becoming a billion-dollar company.
1974. TCS's first international order came from Burroughs, one of the first business computer
manufacturers
In 1979, TCS delivered an electronic depository and trading system called SECOM for SIS
SegaInterSettle, Switzerland. TCS followed this up with System X for the Canadian Depository
System and also automated the Johannesburg Stock (JSE).
In 1981, TCS set up India's first software research and development centre, the Tata Research
Development and Design Center (TRDDC) in Pune. The first client-dedicated offshore
development center was set up for Compaq (then Tandem) in 1985.
In the early 1990s, the Indian IT outsourcing industry grew tremendously due to the Y2K bug
and the launch of a unified European currency, Euro. TCS pioneered the factory model for Y2K
conversion and developed software tools which automated the conversion process and enabled
third-party developers and clients to make use of it. In 1999, TCS saw outsourcing opportunity in
E-Commerce and related solutions and set up its E-Business division with ten people. By 2004,
E-Business was contributing half a billion dollars (US) to TCS.
On 9 August 2004, TCS became a publicly listed company, much later than its rivals, Infosys,
Wipro and Mahindra Satyam.
During 2005, TCS ventured into a new area for an Indian IT services company - Bioinformatics.
In 2008, the company went through an internal restructuring exercise that executives claim
would bring about agility to the organization.
In 2011, the company entered the Small and medium enterprises (SME) market with cloud-
based offerings.
ORGANISATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
At TCS, OD has contributed immensely towards redefining the organization‘s relationship to its
markets, key stake holders and environment. To add to this OD brought about a drastic change
on the cultural perspective.
In the years 1998-99, despite the fact that TCS had emerged as the largest Indian software
company it still suffered on its operational side.
The expertise was diffused and in order to meet the needs the employees were rotated
across domains and skills. A lot of emphasis was paid to the Voice of the Customer, in
comparison to the Voice of employee
Absence of a formal system where in the knowledge could be shared for ease of
replication across projects.
By 2002, the need to align with the market, customer and business requirements was felt at an
organizational level and hence a OD intervention was sought.
REALIGNMENT AND RESTRUCTURING AT TCS
As the market decides the strategy to be adopted, structure decides the form, technology decides
capacity and synergy in output comes from the culture, an organizational design is needed to
carry all these together in a holistic manner.
The business environment today is more dynamic than ever, with mergers and acquisitions,
consolidation and regulatory changes. To succeed, an enterprise needs to develop an ability to
sense these changes, and thus respond to them quickly and smartly. TCS' Business Intelligence
and Performance Management solution helps enterprises in fulfilling the aspirations of being
agile, adaptable and efficient.
TCS SOLAR Framework helps you optimize and monitor business processes on a granular level.
This could lead to at least 10% increase in operational efficiencies and up to 90% reduction in
cost for adapting to new regulatory compliance requirements.
With TCS SOLAR Framework, the enterprise can achieve the following:
As most organizations today value the merit of staying ―lean and fit,‖ they are increasingly
looking at outsourcing non-core operations. Adopting this approach allows them to focus on their
core competencies and respond with agility to the ever-changing market and business needs. At
TCS BPO, a strong understanding of industry-specific BPO services and cross-industry solutions
is provided with new business processes and innovative models that seamlessly align with the
business requirements.
It studies the business processes and identifies how they can provide innovative solutions
that will best fit the business needs and address the challenges the client organization may
face.
Boosting your bottom line through automation, productivity arbitrage and wage cost
arbitrage
Leveraging its existing talent pool and industry experience to become part of the client‘s
think tank.
Building agility across your organization through strategic initiatives that adapt to
accelerating market trends
Helping you reach out to clients through innovative go-to-market strategies
Reducing time-to-market by creating new go-to-market strategies.
The robust and mature processes coupled with technical and functional expertise in several
industry verticals have placed us at the forefront of providing best-in-class services for the
following industries:
platform based
services
transformational
outsourcing
TCS Connected Marketing Solutions aim to bridge marketing and IT, providing reality-based
innovations—delivered in partnership with our customers‘ marketing organization, leveraging
global best practices and deep domain expertise, thus enabling you to engage, measure and
optimize interactions with target audiences across all the touch points. The solutions allow for
enhanced marketing velocity, an overall increase in Return on Marketing Investment (RoMI) and
enable you to tap the evolving digital channels such as mobile and social media marketing. Our
solutions include consulting services, business solution frameworks and cloud-based platforms,
all of which are backed by strong domain and delivery expertise in areas including enterprise
marketing management, interactive marketing and marketing analytics.
CONSULTING
TCS Global Consulting delivers integrated, end-to-end IT solutions and services to help client
transform business in the right way. they leverage their unparalleled technology expertise and
deep industry knowledge to develop best-in-class, custom solutions that make your business
more efficient, agile and responsive to customer needs and market demands.
IT SERVICES
TCS delivers excellence and certainty across all of your enterprise‘s IT needs. Learn more about
the following areas:
MISSION OF TCS-
The annual report 2010-11 states the mission of the company as follows-
―TCS has built a global reputation for its ability to help customers achieve their business
objectives – by providing innovative, best-in-class consulting, IT and IT-enabled solutions and
services. TCS‘ core set of values underpin all activities in the Company and these include
leadership with trust, integrity, excellence, respect for the individual and learning/sharing.The
Company plans to further strengthen and consolidate its position in the global IT industry as an
integrated full services player with a global footprint interms of innovation, operations and
service delivery.‖
ORGANIZATION AMBIENCE AND DÉCOR
The organization and the office decor in TCS is modern at Noida sector 3 office. Starting from
the reception to the work stations has a modern look. The paintings and the displays with mission
and vision of the company enhances the employee relatedness with the company. The work
stations have a modern look with cubicles in which provide better utilization of space and also
add to the look and feel of the place. There are many conference rooms with stare of art facilities.
Canteen area has a big sitting area which can accommodate 100 people as there are no different
timings for lunch hours and employees of all designations can go in at same hours. Also TCS has
invited proposals from renowned caterers like Sodexho, RKHS etc.
VALUE CREATION MODEL FOR TCS
learning
satisfaction
flexibility
teamwork
roi,profitability,gr
owth,expansion,st
rategic
marketing,retaine
d earnings.cash
There are certain features that are unique only to TCS that help the organization in creating
value. TCS serves large and fast-growing organizations who share a common set of objectives:
Global Network Delivery Model is the engine that allows TCS to provide reliable, scalable and
cost-effective delivery of services and solutions. This time-tested model has helped it to achieve
a client satisfaction rating of 89% for meeting quality expectations and an average project budget
variation of just 3%, both figures ranging far higher than industry standards.
With TCS' Global Network Delivery Model™, clients can choose a sourcing strategy best suited
to your most important business considerations, e.g., cost optimization, cultural alignment,
proximity of location, language capabilities or risk mitigation.
Be assured of the highest quality of service regardless of the mix of services, technologies and
locations.
Lower the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of Information Technology by managing different
service streams such as consulting, IT services, IT infrastructure services, etc. with the help of a
unified delivery framework.
global workforce
integrated
processes
multi-tiered
infrastructure
INNOVATION
A pioneer in software R&D, TCS has an innovative environment that offers you research-based
solutions in leading-edge technologies that will help you meet your IT expectations and support
business objectives.
Innovation Events: ―Innovation Days‖ help key customers and TCS researchers to collaborate
on research toward specific solutions. ―Innovations Forums‖ held annually in the UK and USA
serve as confluences of thought leaders and researchers from academia, start-ups and customers,
bringing value through shared experiences and offering a preview of technologies and solutions
of the coming decade.
Innovation Culture: Awards for young innovators, coding competitions, research workshops
and conferences where scientists of international repute participate and create a fertile
environment for TCSers, enabling them to think creatively around customer solutions.
Intellectual Property: TCS has created a strong IPR base and has stepped up investments in
building assets such as patents, copyrights and trademarks.
In the interest of better alignment, a need was felt to re-look at a few organizational processes
and systems, as for instance, the performance management and appraisal system at TCS. A
Teach-Train-Transfer workshop on Goal alignment was conducted, with help from expert OD
consultants to build the context, to think through goal setting at TCS with a systems perspective
to goal alignment & to explore means of institutionalizing goal-oriented performance
management within the organization.
The workshop further introduced the concept of the Personal Score Card, and clearly outlined
what would define goals, outputs, performance management, Economic Value adds & the ways
and means for facilitating goal alignment.
The Balanced Scorecard approach was proposed, introducing corporate
goals, which touched upon the following:
Voice of the Shareholder - Financial Goals e.g. Wealth creation
Vector of Technology – Technology Goals e.g. Quality, Cost,
Delivery dimensions
Voice of the Customer – Customer/ Market Goals e.g. Customer
Satisfaction
Voice of the Employee – Learning & Development e.g. Employee
Satisfaction
Identification of talent for higher responsibility was also seen as a key focus area, highlighting
the need to have a focused Career Planning and Mentoring process. The process of role
alignment was further thought through, as well as the need for assessment and coaching for role
transitions. Towards employee satisfaction and towards ensuring sustained availability of
sufficient managerial and leadership talent, the need to create succession plans at all levels and to
track and reward high fliers was brought out.
PROPEL-
PROPEL was introduced as a revolutionary intervention with the dual objectives of facilitating
the exchange of ideas and helping in immediate problem solving, while also encouraging
bonding and self-development among and within teams.
VALUE CARDS
Value card for the relationship was fallout of the analysis of tensions existing in the four
dimensions as represented by Voice of Customer, Strategy, Employee and Technology. A tool
called ―Value Card‖ was used to analyze the problems faced by the relationship in relation to
these tensions and to arrive at workable solutions to the identified problems,within designated
timeframes.
THE SYSTEM CALLED ”TCS”
Output(tangibles):
Increased revenue
pat(profit after tax)
profitability
Services-
Business intelligence
Enterprise solutions
Assurance engineering
IT infrastructure services
BPO
Consultancy
Asset leveraged solutions
Eco sustainability services
Software products-which contribute almost 36% of the total revenue.
Med Mantra - TCS Hospital Management and Information Solution
Tata Accounts Receivable and Billing System (TARABS)
TCS Clin-e2e
TCS Silicone Ambulatory ECG Device and Solution
TCS Enterprise Integration and Control Environment Solution/ Energy and Utilities
TCS Bio-informatics Solution
VERICUT - Machine Simulation Software
Process clouds-TCS is offering solutions with relation to the cloud paradigm in the human
resource management, procurement, analytics as well as finance and accounting.
Output(intangibles)-
Technology
adoption,adaption
and innovation
Conservation of
Customer centric
energy
Talent diversity
Learning and
development
Leadership development
INPUTS
People resources-
TCS has a workforce of around 400,30% of which is comprised by women. The average age of a
TCS employee is 28yrs and the minimum experience is close to around two and a half years. The
attrition rate as calculated by the company is less than 12% for the year 2010.People from
diverse backgrounds work in the company.
CHALLENGES FACED BY TCS
1. ATTRITION: Attrition rate at TCS is at all time high of 16%. Talent retention is the
major challenge faced by TCS. The competitive advantage for a service organization is
from its employees. Losing its efficient employees to its competitors is major downfall
for TCS.
2. COMPETITION: Increased and aggressive competition is a major concern for TCS. A
key concern for TCS is competition from existing players as it has generated competition
for existing business and created significant pricing pressures.
3. REVENUE PRESSURE: To be the top IT Company in India, TCS has to beat the
growth of the other IT companies. This has lead TCS to focus on short term goals, rather
than pursuing long term strategy. TCS is focusing on getting the short term project, to
sustain its revenue and a lesser investment was done to satisfy the long term objective.
4. BARGAINING POWER OF CUSTOMERS: Increased bargaining power of the
consumers and shrinking margins is other challenge faced by TCS. There was pressure
from customers even for schedules for faster delivery.
5. LACK OF DOMAIN KNOWLEDGE: General lack of domain expertise outside the
financial services sector is a challenge. Employees are moved across domains and skills
due, which leads to absence of expertise in domain knowledge. This has also lead to
discontent among employees.
6. SECURITY THREATS to sensitive customer and business data. The challenge for TCS
is to ensure that the sensitive data is secure.
7. ENVIRONMENT: The problem with outsourcing in countries like United States of
America is posing a threat. In the recent times a bill has been passed in the state of New
Jersey that allows only the citizens or legal non-Americans to be given contracts. This
legislation has also affected some other states like Missouri, Connecticut, Wisconsin and
Maryland.
8. MAINTAINING ITS EXCELLENT PERFORMANCE STANDARDS:One of the
major challenges for the Indian information technology industry was to keep up with the
competition in the industry.
9. ECONOMIC CONDITIONS: An increasingly uncertain environment in US and
European economies is a matter of concern for TCS.
The organization design is a source to the challenges TCS faces today. The mechanistic structure
at TCS has restricted employees to exhibit their creativity. Lack of autonomy and control
amongst employees has caused lead to lower levels of intrinsic motivation on the job. This had
lead to lower satisfaction levels of employees at TCS which in turn has been leading to higher
attrition levels.
The functional structure and the hierarchal structure don‘t support team work. Lack of cross
functional teams at TCS also discourages generation of new ideas. TCS hasn‘t been able to focus
on R&D due to the mechanistic structure, as a result TCS is still struck with the same kind of
work it has been doing. A key concern for TCS is competition from existing players as it has
generated competition for existing business and created significant pricing pressures.
Mechanistic structure has made the organization rigid and is discouraging TCS to foray into
taking up high value projects. The structure has been preventing TCS to adapt to the changing
environmental needs. Globally, firms such as EDS have positioned themselves as capable of
undertaking large, product development projects in order to differentiate themselves from
competitors such as Cognizant and Accenture that focus on higher value-added work such as
consulting.
STAR MODEL OF ORGANIZATION DESIGN FRAMEWORK
DESIGN ELEMENTS
STRATEGY: The Company‘s strategy specifies the goals and objectives to be achieved as well
as the values and missions to be pursued. It sets out the basic direction of the company. TCS
follows a cost leader strategy. The focus for TCS is to attain competitive advantage is to reduce
the per employee cost and attain economies of scale. This is the reason TCS doesn‘t lay much
importance to R&D.
STRUCTURE: The structure of the organization determines the placement of power and
authority in the organization. TCS has a mechanistic structure wherein the there is a formal
structure and control is imposed on employees. Rules, procedures and a hierarchy of authority
help in getting work done in time and with minimum cost. TCS has a matrix structure where is
departments exists based on specialization. Decision making is centralized.
PROCESSES: TCS has vertical processes. The needs of different departments are centrally
collected, and priorities are decided for the budgeting and allocation of the resources to capital,
research and development, training, and so on. Communication tends to follow formal channels
and employees are given specific job descriptions delineating their roles and responsibilities.
Coordination is maintained through the chain of command.
Vertical processes
PEOPLE: People in star model depict the human resource policies of recruiting, selection,
rotation, training, and development. Human resource policies when in the appropriate
combination produce the talent required by the strategy and structure of the organization,
generating the skills and mind-sets necessary to implement the chosen strategy. The employees
in a service organization are the biggest source of competitive advantage. There is continuous
investment in learning, and an active sharing of knowledge with the aim to convert learning into
action.
REWARDS: The purpose of the reward system is to align the goals of the employee with the
goals of the organization. It provides motivation and incentive for the completion of the strategic
direction. The organization‘s reward system defines policies regulating salaries, promotions,
bonuses, profit sharing, stock options, and so forth. Reward structure at TCS is primarily focused
on individual performances. Team rewards is not a part of the compensation.
STRUCTURE
The organization structure adapted by TCS is mechanistic in nature. A mechanistic organization
is characterized by the following structural factors:
COO AND
EXECUTIVE
OFFICER
HEAD
EXECUTIVE
GOVERNMENT
ASSISTANT
ISU
HEAD-GLOBAL
CHEIF TECHNICAL
PRESALES HEAD-PMO
ARCHITECT/HEAD
SUPPORT
HEAD BUSINESS
FINANCE
HEAD PROCESS
HEAD HR
RESOURCE
MANAGEMNT
LEAD
The figure above depicts the organization structure of TCS. which clearly demonstrates it
has many layers of hierarchy and decision making is centralized. While in an organic
structure it‘s a flat organization.
CENTRALIZATION VS DECENTRALIZATION:
TCS as an organization is decentralized as there are many functional groups and the main
head/corporate office does not have the entire ownership of various processes. When it comes to
different functional the process is centralized within this functional. For example Recruitment,
L&D and MATC are centralized. For process standardization, TCS used industry standards to
define the fundamental governance processes for centralized services to be implemented across
locations.
As the organization was going through a transformation, clients want a step-by-step solution to
minimize the impact of change. To deliver quick results, the ERP function was chosen to pilot
the implementation of the governance model to deliver centralized services.
Different sectors and companies use the centralized approach. The centralized approaches have
several limitations like an enormous amount of knowledge would be required to be able to deal
effectively with user information requests that cover variety of tasks. A centralized system
constitutes:
A processing bottleneck
A single point of failure
DEPARTMENTS IN TCS:
The divisions in TCS are referred to as ISUs or Industry Solution Units. Different ISUs are
mentioned below:
Manufacturing
Hi-Tech
BFS
NGM-India
Retail
Travel, Transportation and Hospitality
TCS BUSINESSES
Services:
IT Services
IT Infrastructure Services
Enterprise Solutions
Consulting
Business Process Outsourcing
Platform BPO Solutions
Business Intelligence & Performance Management
Engineering & Industrial Services
iON – Small and Medium Business
Connected Marketing Solutions
Mobility Solutions and Services
Software:
TCS BaNCS
TCS Technology Products
Integration Mechanism:
To improve the collaboration between the Industry Solutions Units (ISUs) and Horizontal
Service Delivery Units (HSDUs) and to enhance the efficiency of sales and delivery functions,
the Contract Management System (CMS) and the Project Accounting (PA) modules have been
updated. The changes enable involvement of the HSDUs right from the beginning that is from
the contract and the WON-creation stages of an engagement, to bring in early visibility and
ownership. The HSDUs included are Infrastructure Technology Infrastructure Services (IT IS),
Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), Engineering and Industrial Services (EIS), Assurance
Services, and Global Consulting Practice (GCP).
BEHAVIOR AND FORMALIZATION
The behavior in the organization is standard but not very standard and there is some room for
flexibility and adjustment plays an important role in coordinating people and activities.
People: The standard working hours for the organization is 9 hours from 9 A.M. to 6 P.M. and a
proper time swipe- in and swipe- out is maintained through swipe cards. Also officially there is
no provision of flexi hours within the organization. However, in exceptional cases some amount
of flexibility is allowed by the line managers and HR so as to accommodate the employees.
Activities: The activities carried out are very standard and has very low level of flexibility. Some
of the examples are compensation, recruitment and appraisal systems.
The degree of formalization is not very high in day to day activities and oral communication and
written communication when these communications are internal. However, when the interactions
are with client all communications are formal to a very large extent. The rules and regulations
are to be followed with certain degree of flexibility in working hours and application of leaves.
COMPETENCIES
Core competencies are particular strengths relative to other organizations in the industry which
provide the fundamental basis for the provision of added value. It is communication, an
involvement and a deep commitment to working across organizational boundaries.
A core competency can take various forms, including technical/subject matter know-how, a
reliable process and/or close relationships with customers and suppliers. It may also include
product development or culture, such as employee dedication, best Human Resource
Management (HRM), good market coverage etc.
The most important competency of tcs which help it in gaining competetive advantage is through
the use of their TCS innovation labs and co-innovation network,their collaborative r&d and
innovation engine that works to successfully exploit and commercialize new ideas,technologies
and best practices. TCS Innovation Labs provide environments in which new domain solutions
can be developed, incubated, and piloted using the latest technologies in a cost-effective
environment before enterprise-wide deployment. They give TCS customers ‗on-demand‘ access
to innovation and creativity with a team comprising of domain experts, business process
analysts, technology specialists, and an R&D team.
Another important competency of tcs is its Global Network Delivery Model™ which has
helped it to gain client satisfaction rating of 89%. It is the engine that allows them to
provide reliable, scalable and cost-effective delivery of services and solutions.
Global Workforce
Highly effective and scalable talent management: recruiting, staffing, training and
retention
Integrated Processes
CMMI Level 5 quality processes
World-class security procedures
Project Management processes and tools (iQMS, etc.)
Multi-Tiered Infrastructure
Multi-continental and interconnected global development center network (local,
regional, global model) to allow for better risk management and follow-the-sun
coverage
State of the art telecommunications network
Global collaboration tools
Another chief competency of tcs is its solution accelerators. Some examples of how TCS'
Solution Accelerators help clients realize tangible benefits:
TCS BaNCS is a comprehensive portfolio of solutions for the financial services industry
that provides enterprises with greater operational control, reliable technology support,
continuous process improvements and enhanced speed to market.
TCS SOLAR Framework is a service-oriented framework that helps us strategize and
deliver Business Intelligence and Performance Management solutions.
TCS Code Generator Framework (TCS MasterCraft) provides an integrated environment
along with a product or application development life cycle. With a significant reuse of
codes, it speeds up new application development, legacy system integration, and/or the
enhancement process.
Human resource is foundation to any successful business. Intellectual power is very important
competency of tcs which has contributed marginally in its success. TCS has a team of over
70,000 professionals, representing one of the strongest human resource pools in the world. The
company has skills and expertise across the entire spectrum of technologies and industries. Its
locally-recruited employees provide an understanding of the business environment .The
company‘s continuous and rigorous training programs enable it to deliver best-in-class services
to the customers. This is reflected by the fact that 95 per cent of its business comes from satisfied
customers who reward it with repeat business.
TCS is known for its human resource practices in India as well as globally. In the EU, it
continues to be the employer of choice and has the lowes tattrition rate of 9.9 per cent.The
company laysemphasis on the overall development of its employees and also offers multi-lingual
capability training modules.TCS enables its employees to meet their career objectives through
rotation across projects, functions and locations globally.It also helps employees in building new
skills and competencies, and promotes knowledge sharingand team building.
ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF THE STRUCTURE AT TCS
The main advantage of a mechanistic structure is its ability to achieve efficiency. Therefore, in
organizations that are trying to maximize efficiency and minimize costs, mechanistic structures
provide advantages. The source of competitive advantage for TCS lies on achieving operational
efficiency. TCS follows a cost leader strategy. TCS is a cost leader in the IT business which
helps it to bag projects and thwart competition from players like Accenture, HP, Cognizant etc.
The projects undertaken by TCS don‘t feature product development. The projects are lower
down the value chain and involve building IT systems for the clients. Clients outsource low risk-
low cost projects to Indian IT companies where as the foreign IT firms tend to get projects which
are high value-high cost ones. The focus for TCS to attain competitive advantage is to reduce the
per employee cost and attain economies of scale. These are the reasons that TCS follows a
mechanistic structure. The fact that TCS continues to do the same kinds of work that it currently
does justifies the mechanistic structure.
1. The formal structure and control imposed on employees allows TCS to conform to
clients' requirements and various compliances.
2. There is immense time and margin pressure from clients. Rules, procedures and a
hierarchy of authority help in getting work done in time.
3. Communication tends to follow formal channels and employees are given specific job
descriptions delineating their roles and responsibilities. This helps in establishing
accountability for every employee.
4. The mechanistic structure helps in avoiding role ambiguity, and uncertainty among
employees.
5. Due to the mechanistic structure, coordination is maintained through the chain of
command.
6. The quality of product is ensured , as work is assigned to individuals according to their
specialization.
1. Mechanistic organizations are often rigid and resist change, making them unsuitable for
innovativeness and taking quick action.
2. Mechanistic structure inhibits entrepreneurial action and discouraging the use of
individual initiative on the part of employees.
3. The structure limits individual autonomy and self-determination, which will likely lead to
lower levels of intrinsic motivation on the job. This had lead to lower satisfaction levels
of employees at TCS which in turn has been leading to higher attrition levels.
4. Highly mechanized organizations operating in rapidly changing environments run the risk
of becoming obsolete as competitors sacrifice maximum efficiency in exchange for
flexibility to tackle new environmental conditions. IT business is saturated with players
who work on same kind of business model as TCS has.
CONTEXTUAL DIMENSIONS OF ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN
size
organisational
culture
technology
contextual
dimensions
goals and
strategy environment
SIZE-
The total strength of the organization is around 214,770 while the size of the development center
at noida that we visited has a strength of around 1000, out of which 30% are females. TCS is one
of the largest private sector employers in India with a core strength 214,770 individuals.TCS has
turned into the second-largest employer among listed companies after Coal India Limited. But
the biggest employer in the country is Indian Railways with 16 lakhs employees. TCS's BPO arm
had revenues of $925 million in the year that ended in March 2011, and has 34,000
employees.TCS has one of the lowest attrition rates in the Indian IT industry.
CULTURE-the culture at TCS can be explained with the following diagram:-
focus on
developing leaders
fully satisfy
and generate
increasing value for
TCS identifying your
competencies as
well of your team
culture
customers and mates
other stakeholders
managing
customer
relationshiips
WORK CULTURE-
personally communicating
encouraging, supporting and aligning the organisation’s the organisation’s mission,
acting upon the findings of structure to support delivery vision, values, policy and
learning activities; of its policy and strategy; strategy, plans, objectives
and targets to people;
Visionary Leadership
Customer-driven Excellence
Organizational and Personal Learning
Valuing Employees and Partners
Agility
Focus on the Future
Managing for Innovation
Management by Fact
Social Responsibility
Focus on Results and Creating Value
Systems Perspective
POLICY-
CODE OF CONDUCT
ENVIRONMENT
SUPPLIERS-
Academic Institutes are Key partners who help the organization with human capital and
technology updates.
Partnering is ensured through MOU, curricula design and creation of centers of
excellence. Communication is managed through Academic Liaison Manger, Academic
Portal, Senior management meetings with heads of institutes and other ongoing meetings
Suppliers include hardware/software suppliers, business associates, travel agents, airlines
and VSNL.
Suppliers relationships are managed through MOU or service contract and major the
requirements are timeliness of service and cost.
INDUSTRY-
Key local competitors are – Infosys Technologies, Wipro Technologies and Satyam
Computer Services – TCS revenue is highest of all.
STRATEGY:
IT business in India is saturated with players which follow a cost leader strategy. The
increasing margin and time pressure from clients warrants that TCS shifts its strategy
from that of a cost leader to differentiator. This would help TCS to target projects which
are high on value chain.
Lack of a structured approach to evaluate, imbibe and disseminate the best practices.
Though the short-term horizons have been addressed the organizational strategic
objectives in the long term have not been much taken care of.
STRUCTURE:
TCS needs to have organically driven structure which would foster collaboration and
team work. Cross functional teams are necessary to deliver products which are above the
value chain. The environment is highly uncertain, unstable or subject to vary rapid
changes in market conditions. There is a need that personnel are empowered to make
decisions and resolve problems themselves.
REWARDS:
The reward system must be congruent with the structure and processes to influence the
strategic direction. Reward systems are effective only when they form a consistent
package in combination with the other design choices. The reward system at TCS has to
change from individual to team based. Incentive for the employees to perform as a team
needs to be there for delivering superior products.
Lack of alignment in the results of the performance analysis with business results and
objectives.
The performance projections for measures and indicators have not been fully evolved, the
absence of these measures. This hampering the goal setting process .
PROCESSES:
TCS needs to have horizontal processes, also known as lateral processes. It is designed
around the workflow, such as new product development or fulfillment of a customer
order.TCS should build a culture of encouraging thinking &creating forums for dialogue,
while encouraging leadership at all levels as the attributes of Customer Satisfaction
measurement show some degree of variance to that of the stated customer‘s key
expectations.
. Risk taking, expressing differences and constantly generating new knowledge should be
encouraged among the employees.
The lack of integration of process improvement initiatives such as PROPEL, PEEP etc.,
which influence the associate, work environment.
The absence of a well-defined approach to evaluate the cost effectiveness of digitization
process.
Monitoring and tracking of customer satisfaction metrics is done only at individual
customer levels. Monitoring at corporate level will help in improving its overall building
processes analysis thereby giving it a competitive advantage .
Lateral Processes
PEOPLE:
Human resource policies also build the organizational capabilities to execute the strategic
directions. The employee needs to be given autonomy and control over their work which
would help in encouraging creativity. Valuing of employees should be institutionalized
through establishing processes that enable and enhance individual performance.
The productivity levels of people is lower than that of its competitors majors so
improving an employee‘s realization would enable it to achieve its stated vision
.
REFERENCES
1. www.TCS.com
2. http://www.wikipedia.org/
3. TCS Ultimatix
4. Organiization Theory Change and Design- Richard L. Daft