India’s top software company Tata Consultancy Services delivered one of its best quarterly performances in nearly four years with strong growth in digital across all industry verticals and large transformational deal wins. The turnaround comes even as Rajesh Gopinathan completes just over a year as the Chief Executive Officer of the company. Gopinathan leads the firm at a time when the Indian IT services industry is facing technological disruption in addition to changing business models and political rhetoric in the US. BusinessLine met Gopinathan for the first time since he took over the reins of TCS to know his views on the changing landscape. Excerpts:

TCS has done very well this quarter. What has changed over the last one year?

The one big change we are seeing on our clients’ side is that we are moving beyond the first wave of digital adoption. Clients want to use digital technologies to make a bigger impact on their businesses. The other big change we are seeing in the market is that the traditional players, who may have been taken aback by the big bang technology adoption by pure play digital players in various sectors, are making a coming back by adopting the same technologies. On the TCS side, we have ramped up our capabilities. We have set up digital as a separate group. We have completely restructured our service delivery organisation. We have integrated our older service lines into an integrated operation called Cognitive Business Operations. We have created a Digital Transformation unit, integrated inside the service practice itself. Our Business 4.0 strategy, which is essentially giving an integrated solution to our clients, has gained momentum in a big way.

TCS is going through a transformation. Many technology companies’ transformation has been very painful with job losses and massive restructuring. How has it been for TCS?

Change is constant but our mantra has been to bring change along with stability. We are a very tight team which has helped us change even as keep our values intact. That has been the biggest differentiator. Also, many get enamoured by something new. You should know who you are as a company and what your strengths are. Contextual knowledge that we have is very precious. The question is how do you integrate that with new technologies to deliver value to clients.

Change in technology gives you the opportunity to participate in building platforms from scratch. But at a time when technology is changing fast, how do you keep ahead of the curve and at the same time balance the need to leverage existing strengths?

You need to invest in continuous learning. For example, last year we trained 2,50,000 people in TCS on new technologies. It comes from respecting what you have and embracing the new. No new technology can get scale unless there is talent pool for it.

As that digital pie grows for TCS, will it also lead to better margins?

Margin is about competitive differentiation. As long as you are offering something that is not easily replicated you can claim better margins. We have to keep moving ahead so that the competition cannot catch up with what we have to offer.

There has been a lot of worries over data breach. Could there be a backlash on business?

The solution is that we need more technology than less technology.

The data breach issue is more on the social media space. In the enterprise space, there is already huge amount of data sitting in silos and not being used. It may be sitting in a manner that it is not easily accessible.

Although we are not keeping our eyes closed on the social media opportunity, there is so much to be done in the enterprise space. We now have a product that allows our clients to give the option to their end-customer to choose what elements of their usage data they want to share and for how long. So rather than not pick up data from users due to privacy concerns, this allows you to be transparent about what data the users want to share. Users can also authorise what anyone can do with that data. We are doing this for a client but it can be replicated across a whole lot of areas. So the approach to data should not be — close your eyes and give everything — but it cannot be the other extreme of not giving any data.

There is a lot of noise coming from the US on H1B visas and outsourcing. Are you losing sleep on this issue?

I lose my sleep on many things but I don't think there will be any fundamental change in the way US does business.

But if there is any structural change, it will not just be disruptive for us but for the entire global economy. This is not about any one industry. We are participating very strongly in the US to build local talent because there is a huge gap between demand and supply. We are actively engaged with the local education system there to address this issue. That will take out some stress on this matter.

You took over the reins from Chandra. How is your leadership style compared to his?

That is a question for the future. We work very closely . There is lot more commonality in approach, styles are very similar but personalities are different.

Other than business what interests you? Chandra is known as the marathon man….

I will have to develop some of those interest.

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