Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) was founded almost 40 years ago, and in a way was responsible for kick-starting the virtually non-existent software industry in India. Today, TCS is at the forefront of the global IT industry, thanks to a pervasive culture of innovation. We took a peek into its various labs.

The innovation-fostering culture at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) seems like something out of Professor Clayton Christensen’s acclaimed books (The Innovator’s Dilemma, Innovator’s Solution and Seeing What’s Next). This should not be surprising—K Ananth Krishnan, TCS’ chief technology officer brings to our notice that Christensen is on the company’s board of directors, and the innovation guru of the organisation.

Where innovation rules

Innovation is the rule, rather than the exception at TCS. What’s more, each innovation is recognised and pooled, to be utilised and managed by a technology board, headed by the CTO. As Krishnan explains, there are three types of innovations happening at TCS. There are the technology innovations, which would typically be called ‘R&D’; there are service innovations that they call ‘practices’, and there are the business model innovations that can be classified as ‘corporate’ innovations. And in each of these, there are three levels of innovation that the teams are always working on. There are ‘derivative innovations’ that contribute to continuous improvement, i.e., better ways of doing things they already do. Then, there are ‘platform innovations’, which involve small steps, extending to adjacent opportunities. Finally, there are ‘radical innovations’ or what one would call disruptive developments.

An analysis of these types of innovations shows that most innovations (in terms of utility and number) do not necessarily come in the realm of futuristic research and development, but in an area that balances current technologies and future markets, covering radical and platform innovations in technology, practices and business models. These innovations also include a very important component—the ecosystem. TCS believes that innovation is not born only in-house, but by collaborating with an ecosystem comprising customers (most ideas are born when brainstorming with them), alliances (other technology firms like IBM, SAP, Microsoft, Oracle and HP that TCS works with), start-ups (the start-up benefits from TCS’ experience, while TCS benefits from the start-up’s know-how and R&D), academic institutions (obviously the mega-brains) and multi-lateral organisations (which inspire TCS to venture into unexplored areas). Together, they make up one happy, innovative family!

A tools foundry, founded at Pune

In 1981, TCS set up the first private software engineering R&D centre in India, the Tata Research Development and Design Centre (TRDDC) at Pune. The lab is still going strong today, working on several areas of research including algorithms, model-driven architecture, decision support and optimisation, minerals and materials.