By Shashank Shah
‘TCS was not sure which way to go when I took over,’ recalled Faqir Chand Kohli, former deputy chairman of TCS, about 1969, when he was brought into Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) on a year-lengthy deputation. With a workforce of 10 consultants and 200 operators, their key duty was to handle the punch card operations of TISCO (now Tata Steel). Kohli had joined the Tata Electric Companies (TEC, now Tata Power) in 1951. His rise at TEC was meteoric. In two decades, he rose from chief load dispatcher to deputy common manager.
In 1968, TCS and 3 other units have been incorporated as operating divisions of Tata Sons with 20 senior executives from numerous Tata firms. Kohli’s exposure to computing and commendable functionality in Tata Electric (the fourth utility corporation in the planet to use computing) was accountable for his pretty much forced deputation into TCS as GM by PM Agarwala, then director-in-charge of TCS. Resisting his transfer to TCS, Kohli is believed to have told JRD Tata, ‘I don’t know something about computer systems.’ To which JRD shot back, ‘Well, no one in India knows anything either.’ Kohli’s heart was in TEC he aspired to lead the corporation someday. However, possessing a process reduce out for him at TCS, he got into the act, pretty much instantaneously. With no trail to adhere to and no benchmark to emulate, TCS had to develop the marketplace from scratch. Its 1st breakthrough came via a contract from the Central Bank of India to automate its inter-branch reconciliation procedure. A noteworthy execution brought orders from 14 other banks. Projects from Unit Trust of India, Bombay Municipal Corporation and Delhi Transport Authority followed. By 1972, he had set the vision for TCS and requested Tata Sons management to permit him to return to his 1st love—TEC and electrical engineering. But they wanted him to remain with TCS. He obliged, and the rest is history. The Indian electrical industry’s loss was India’s embryonic IT industry’s acquire. The journey was far from smooth.
After nationalisation by the Indira Gandhi Government in 1969, enterprise from banks declined as the government did not want computer systems. It was about this time when Kohli got elected on the esteemed IEEE Board of Directors, headquartered in USA. Before leaving, he presented his issues just before JRD Tata regarding lack of enterprise possibilities for TCS in India and averred that it may have to be closed quickly. However, he utilised his frequent visits to IEEE, pretty much each quarter for two consecutive years (and at no expense to the Tatas, he emphasised), to discover enterprise prospects in USA. He would generally stop by Detroit, the headquarters of Burroughs Corporation (BC). At that time, Burroughs wanted healthcare application that would be packaged with their computer systems. Kohli convinced them that BC and TCS could perform with each other. BC was convinced, and the two signed India’s 1st IT outsourcing contract for $24,000. Surprisingly, TCS didn’t have a single Burroughs machine then. It was a giant leap of faith to provide the application package with out compatible hardware. But TCS went ahead and created the complete method on an readily available ICL computer system (acquired from Life Insurance Corporation when its communist unions had prevented its use perceiving a threat to jobs). TCS constructed an ingenious filter to transfer the method from ICL to a Burroughs computer system. BC was impressed. TCS had effectively completed its 1st application export project. In 1974, Kohli was produced the director-in-charge for TCS.
India had missed the industrial revolution (due to British Rule) and the microelectronics revolution (due to the socialist mindset of the post-independence governments). Kohli predicted for the duration of a function at the Computer Society of India in 1975 that India had one more revolution waiting for it—the IT revolution. He ensured that the chance was not missed. Later, he even advocated building suitable courses to create human sources for higher-finish chip design and style and testing. As a outcome, India became household to a thriving chip design and style and testing business.
Unlike most businesses which 1st establish themselves locally, and then go international, TCS mainly focused on the international marketplace from the starting. This was due to lack of sufficient demand in the domestic marketplace, poor computer system infrastructure and naive technological knowhow. Kohli blamed the lack of belief of Indira Gandhi, Morarji Desai and Charan Singh governments in computer system technologies for this. The situation enhanced only post-liberalisation for the duration of the Narasimha Rao government. From a macro viewpoint, the information gained by Indian developers via overseas IT projects for the duration of the 1970s and 1980s, brought tremendous learnings to India broadly benefitting the IT business.
In the 1970s, Kohli could foresee the decline of Burroughs enterprise and felt the need to have to acquaint his TCS group to IBM machines. Eventually, the group gained proficiency in application constructing on each frameworks and delivered big migration projects for international clientele. By late 1980s, the corporation was the biggest consultancy outfit in India, larger than the subsequent ten application businesses place with each other. It was operating on 500+ projects in 40 nations. Kohli’s spadework in travelling to the west and constructing connections made a brand name not only for TCS but for India. This recognition sooner or later opened doors for various Indians to perform abroad and set up businesses in Silicon Valley.
During a conversation at his workplace in May 2017, the nonagenarian Kohli, frequently referred to as ‘Bhishma Pitamah’ of India’s application business, shared insights into his six-decades lengthy association with the Tata Group. Hailing from Peshawar, Kohli completed his graduation in Physics from Punjab University in Lahore, and his master’s from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA. Despite an offer you to pursue PhD at MIT, he returned to India in 1950 to help his household who had relocated to Lucknow. ‘My family was in distress and I didn’t want to leave them alone,’ he admitted. Despite the trauma of migration, he was committed to contribute drastically to India’s future and not just make a living for himself. Underscoring his learnings at the Tata Group, he stated, ‘We are all working for the country. The profits are there, but the first step is to work and serve the people. If we do that, profits will come. Tata’s philosophy is to serve the folks. Otherwise how will a Parsi concern attract folks of all religions. Service of folks indicates concentrate on client, develop up your information, and aid the client to develop his clientele. In the procedure, do not neglect that I am finding out as a great deal as my client. Learning need to by no means cease.’
Often described as the Henry Ford of IT solutions, Kohli-led TCS moved application improvement from an artisan-like activity to an industrial assembly line of a application factory. By the time Kohli stepped down from executive duty at TCS in 1998, more than two lakh Indian programmers have been driving the international IT revolution. Not just that. In the 1990s, IT and computer system sciences became the No1 profession option for engineers in India. Of the million students that wrote the IIT-JEE each year, 50% joined the IT business. In a way, Kohli and the prime leadership at TCS can be credited for generating huge employment possibilities for Indian youth, an invaluable service to the nation. Kohli gave TCS a path, fought scepticism, and gained international assignments via individual credibility. Under his watchful guidance, TCS grew from 10 consultants in 1969 to 14,000 by the time he stepped down in the late 1990s. Two decades later, TCS is India’s biggest private-sector employer and the most beneficial IT corporation in the planet.
The write-up is primarily based on Shah’s book ‘The Tata Group’ published by Penguin Random House in 2018.
Author has been a going to scholar, Harvard Business School and Copenhagen Business School