CM: In what ways do you think that Indian consultancies offer different approaches to working in this industry? Kant: I think that in many ways the Indian model really has revolutionized the services business. It has changed the way people look at the services business. . . . What has happened is that we have brought a certain freshness to the business. The freshness is in terms of the way we work with the customer. The freshness is in the way we ask, "Are you looking for your success or are you looking at the success of the customer?" The success of the customer is in thinking, "I have been given this work and I have to ensure that this work is for the benefit of the customer, and it makes the customer successful." For some of the customers that we saw, this was really a fresh thing. They saw that now they could indeed hold their budgets in check. They were more certain about when the work was going to finish. And they were more certain about going to their own business customers and telling them "Yes, this will be delivered to you." CM: Consultants have played an important role in the implementation of new technology for decades. What has TCS's contribution been? Kant: What we brought to the whole thing was what I just said: We finish the work on time, finish within budget, so the customers are more certain. We brought the whole equation of certainty to the business.
CM: And customers grasped the cost effectiveness of TCS's approach? Kant: The customers could see that what they were looking for was not that expensive. It was not that difficult. And we had a single-minded devotion to the success of the customer. . . . As we talk to customers who have been working with us for some time, we ask them to articulate or attest to what we have brought to them, and this is what they tell us.
CM: So do you think that you've raised the bar as far as accountability in the consulting services goes? Kant: I would say so, yes. Again, when the customer says, "You know, this needs to be done." And we say, "Yes, this work will be done in this period of time," we are accountable to do that. We value the whole idea that work is done with a fixed price and fixed schedule. We encouraged that more and more in the market, and people saw that. If I can come back to you and say, "This is going to cost you this much and it's going to take this much time," it kind of gives you a kind of empowerment that was, you know, not there earlier. Now you can say, "Yes, I know that I have better control over my business — my work — as a customer. Now this work will be finished in this period of time." So you can look at where the allocations of your own people are, you look at the allocation of your budgets and the allocation of other resources.
CM: The Indian approach to globalization appears to be somewhat different from Western approaches . . . Kant: You're right. Our approach is not the replacement of some resources by other resources. There's a lot more to it. There's a lot more to this, which brings in innovation — innovation in the sense that whatever I'm doing today, tomorrow I'm going to provide you something better than this. So you have a right to ask me to provide better services next year.
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CM: As you grow into other countries, how do you integrate the different cultures that are becoming a part of the TCS family?
Kant: We're trying to raise the intellectual capital in the countries where we work. And in Uruguay, in China, we were the first company that got to the level of CM level 5. That itself shows that wherever we are, we are not taking out something, we are giving it, because the intellectual capital — the assets — is really what runs the business, and we try to always raise the level.CM: The author Tom Friedman recently wrote an article about your new site in Uruguay. One of the things he touched upon is the challenge TCS faces there in terms of managing different cultures. He mentions that one difficulty is in that Latin culture is traditionally not hierarchical, unlike Indian culture, which is . . . Kant: Well, that's here in the U.S., also. I mean, the culture is not hierarchical that much, right? If you look at TCS, it has a balance within it, globally.
So, wherever we feel that we need to be flat, we are completely flat. Where we think that we need some checks and balances, that some controls would help, we have those controls implemented in terms of a certain structure. Being in so many countries and working with customers — which are Fortune customers, which are global customers — helps us to bring out the best in ourselves. We look at their approaches and then use them for ourselves. We don't have a monopoly on wisdom.
CM: As you expand, what kinds of qualities do you look for in the people you recruit? Kant: One of the things we ask ourselves when we recruit people is, "What is the propensity to learn?" We talk to people and we look at how they have adapted to different situations; we ask how they have changed according to the introduction of new technologies, new methodologies. Because, you know, this field is one where you will see more and more changes coming. And if you don't change in this field, in 18 months you can become completely obsolete.
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