'Every challenge is an opportunity'

BANGALORE: S Ramadorai, CEO and MD of the country's largest IT services company Tata Consultancy Services, retires on October 5, Monday. He took the mantle in 1996 when the 6,000-people company had earnings of about $100 million. He took TCS to $6 billion in revenues and 140,000 in people strength. Ramadorai shares some of the highlights of his career at TCS with TOI. Q: You are completing your tenure as CEO & MD of TCS and getting into a new role in brand building and leadership mentoring. What are the major milestones TCS achieved under your leadership? A: In the last over a decade, TCS has become a true global player with 142 offices across 42 countries and with over 800 clients, many of whom are Fortune 500 companies. We have successfully ventured into key markets in Latin America, China and Eastern Europe. My focus has always been on planning and directing technology development, building strong relationships with customers, stakeholders and academic institutions. Q: You grew TCS from a small domestic company to a multi-billion dollar global corporation. What are some of the most crucial challenges you faced during this journey? A: Global competition, client diversification, margin expansion and economic slowdown are the continuous challenges one faces. The key is to be innovative, willing to diversify and be adaptive to each situation. Investing and believing in your team and people is key. But the initial years were tough for us. There were a number of policies and government regulations that were not favourable. Everything was a process of convincing people, giving commitments that were very difficult to meet. But those were the ones that taught us how to do more with less. Our patience paid us good dividends. Q: TCS leads the Indian tech industry. But in terms of size and revenues, Infosys and Wipro are not too far behind. Do you see this as a threat and what is your strategy to remain ahead? A: TCS has always been the leader and will continue to sustain its growth. Given our large global footprint, including our investments in new growth markets and emerging markets like China, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Hungary and India, we believe we are well positioned for sustained growth globally. Also, our diverse service portfolio shows that there is tremendous headroom for growth among our existing global customers and new clients. Q: Industry peers like Wipro, HCL and Cognizant have been active in terms of inorganic growth, but TCS has not made any acquisitions, barring the Citi Global deal. Yet, you recently emphasised the importance of size and scale. What is your comment? A: For TCS, growth has always been largely organically driven. However, we have always said that we will look at acquisitions at a strategic level. And over the years, we have made several such moves, CMC (in India), FNS (a banking product company in Australia) and Comicrom (BPO in Chile). All these acquisitions have helped us fill gaps in our portfolio of services or allowed us to enter new markets quickly, like BPO in Latin America following our acquisition in Chile. We have a dedicated M&A team that continues to examine opportunities for M&A as they arise and we are always open to acquiring if a compelling reason is there. Q: Based on your vast experience, what message would you like to leave behind for the industry? A: The current economic tsunami has been among the toughest phases in my career. But I believe every challenge is an opportunity and trying times are a good time to learn and improve, reflect and ask fundamental questions like: Are you doing the right thing? Are you compromising to bring harm to the organization? Keep the mood and work upbeat. Fight the daunting times with frugality and rigour.

ICICI Pru pips SBI Life to become largest private insurer

NEW DELHI: Private insurer ICICI Prudential has pipped SBI Life to regain the top position among private players garnering new businesses Rs 1,725 crore in the first five months of the current fiscal.

SBI Life, promoted by the country's largest lender State Bank of India, earned first year premium worth Rs 1,704 crore in April-August period while ICICI Prudential collected Rs 1,725 crore in the same period, according to the IRDA data.

The ICICI Prudential's gain is mainly from the large premium the insurance firm managed to mop up in August. The company new business during the month stood at Rs 525 against SBI Life's Rs 306 crore.

SBI Life had taken over ICICI Prudential to become the largest private insurer in the first two months of FY'10. However, when compared to last year, ICICI Prudential's premium dipped by about 40 per cent. In the first five months of FY'09 its premium stood at Rs 2,818 crore.

SBI Life also saw its premium declining to Rs 1,703 crore in the first five months of this fiscal, compared to Rs 1,763 crore raised in the same period last fiscal.

Overall, the private life insurers registered a negative growth of about 15 per cent during April-August of the current fiscal. The 21 private life insurers managed to raise Rs 10,227 crore in the first five months of FY'10 against Rs 12,089 crore during the same period last year.

However, the life industry grew by 17 per cent in April -August of the current fiscal, with the life insurance companies' premium rising to Rs 31,039 crore against Rs 26,449 crore during the same period last year.

This was mainly due to the 45 per cent growth in new business registered by the country's largest insurer Life Insurance Corporation.

LIC's market share rose to 67 per cent in new business in the first five months of current fiscal from 54 per cent share during the corresponding period last year.It mopped up Rs 20,810 crore during April-August period of the current fiscal, compared with Rs 14,359 crore during the same period last year.

In August, the premium collection of the life insurance industry grew by around 44 per cent to Rs 9,044.18 crore against Rs 6,273.57 crore in the same period last year.

The private life insurance segment, however, witnessed a negative growth of around 8 per cent, while the LIC registered a whopping growth rate of 83 per cent in premium collection in August.

Commenting on the August figures, Reliance Life Insurance President Malay Ghosh said, "The new business numbers are showing growing trend each month which is a positive sign. We are sure that the private sector will be back on the growth path by the second half of the financial year."