Seeta Hariharan to lead TCS' new Digital Software & Solutions Group Organizations in key sectors like Retail, Banking & Financial and Communications are finding themselves faced with a daunting task: adapt to the new digital environment or risk losing relevancy (and customers with it). Enter Tata Consulting Services' new Digital Software & Solutions Group, headed by TCS'er Seeta Hariharan, which offers expertise in delivering fully integrated, tailor-made solutions for clients as they find their way through this new business reality. Hariharan sat down with Consulting to talk pain points and solutions, and how a successful digital strategy can help drive serious revenue across multiple verticals.
Consulting: How did DS&S come to be?
Hariharan: I've been with TCS for 14 months. We've been in the professional services space for a very long time. We closed the last fiscal year with $11.6 billion in revenue. Our operating margins are greater than 29 percent. We have 300,000 employees. When I met with [TCS CEO Natarajan Chandrasekaran] last year, he talked about nonlinear growth being very important to him. He said "I want to grow TCS to $20 to $25 billion in revenue."
Growing it linearly is one aspect of the business, but I also need to grow nonlinearly. I joined TCS to figure out what nonlinear means to TCS. I went back to him with a proposal two weeks later after I had spoken to my peers and leadership team. The proposal was to build a new business focused on software and solutions.
Consulting: How does DS&S help clients drive value for clients?
Hariharan: This particular business is focused on driving revenues for TCS through the license sale of software and solutions. As I look at the digital transformation happening within the IT industry, consulting is a key part of how we provide value to our clients as we try to sell our software and solutions, consulting has to be the tip of the arrow to drive engagement with clients. Enterprises will see a tremendous amount of cost savings, which they can invest in initiatives that will give them revenue upticks.
One of the key conversation starters for me when I go to customers is to help them understand where they are today in the digital transformation maturity and what can they transform themselves into? What sort of benefits they can reap out on it as they embark on the transformation journey, whether it's cost-savings or upticks. The ability for us to help the clients in understanding what are some of the near-term actions they should take and what would drive the maximum bang for the buck for them. For my group just to cater for that, we are developing return on investment tools for each of the industries we're focusing on.
Consulting: What are some of the biggest challenges clients are facing in this new digital realm?
Hariharan: Eighty-five percent of the world's data has been created in the last 2.5 years. So the digital transformation has taken many of the clients across all verticals by surprise. This is more an imperative for our clients, not a choice. They know they need to address this transformation in the next 2-2.5 years. The clients also know they have to look at the technologies that are driving the transformation together, not in isolation. Mobility, social, big data and cloud. Clients need to get their heads around what impact do these technologies have on their operations in terms of how they allow their promotions and offers, the decisions they make on what products to build, optimizing operations and most importantly, getting to understand their customers better.
That's one aspect that's daunting to clients. In addition to that, if you look at some of the verticals there's a new set of competition. When I look at banking, digital wallets is causing disintermediation of their consumers. If I look at telecom, over-the-top companies, whether it's Google, Apple, Amazon; Verizon needs to think about what is the competition from some of these over-the-top service providers. When I think about retail, there are new entrants like Cisco with their Smart & Connected Communities. So as each vertical is trying to address this digital transformation, they're also faced with new competition.
Consulting: What are some of your customers' biggest unmet needs these days?
Hariharan: If we look at digital transformation today, the players are coming at it from two different angles: companies that are addressing the digital transformation from a technology viewpoint, they go to customers and say I have all the technology blocks that I can integrate and put together that suits your environment. The second category addressing digital transformation is niche players. They specifically address certain pain points in certain verticals. For example, there are niche players that address profitability analysis, that address customer segmentation, that address campaign or churn management for one or more verticals. If you look at an enterprise that is faced with this challenge of addressing the digital transformation, if they go with the technology providers, the end result is they have to understand the latest technology platforms; they have to integrate it in a way that suits their environment.
So it costs money as well as time to market. When you go to niche players, they have a full solution but it's a point product solution addressing a very specific problem of digital transformation. So there's a gap in the marketplace. That gap is a fully integrated solution that is tailored to challenges of specific industries. Telecom as an example, some of the challenges a service provider faces are very different from what a retail customer would face versus what a banking and financial customer would face. There's a gap in the marketplace to have a fully integrated solution tuned to a particular industry's vertical. That's the gap my group addresses.
Consulting: How has this digital shift disrupted the various sectors you work with?
Hariharan: When we think about retail, adaptive pricing, promotions and brand merchandising is quite different today with the digital transformation. In telecom's case, it's reducing churn and understanding customers better. Telecom I would say has a very unique opportunity. Communications is the backbone that enables multiple industry verticals. They're saying because of the communications infrastructure, I can deliver smarter transportation to my customers.
I can participate in smarter energy and utilities. I can participate in healthcare. Telecom service providers because of the digital transformation I believe they have a unique opportunity they can capitalize on if they move fast. I really believe each of the industries we are targeting have tremendous challenges but also tremendous opportunity ahead of them to drive operational efficiencies within their own enterprise or revenue uptick opportunities.
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