The Tata Group's bets on Electric Vehicles, 5G equipment manufacturing and its super app will generate more business opportunities for its software firm TCS, a top executive said.
TCS chief operating officer N Ganapathy Subramaniam said in a recent interaction with Moneycontrol that the company works with Tata Motors on electric vehicles and other group firms including Tata Steel and Tata Digital, which acquired companies such as BigBasket, 1MG and is now working on a super app.
On Tata Digital, Subramaniam said: "We are part and parcel of the entire super app development. We are also working very closely with a number of other initiatives. Even in terms of all the mergers that were happening within the group, a lot of these things are, this is very much part of it (the work we are doing with Tata Digital). For example, Big Basket and 1MG have come in and we need to bring them together,” he added.
The Tata Group has huge ambitions in the e-commerce space, which is currently dominated by Amazon, and Walmart-owned Flipkart, with Reliance Industries also expanding aggressively through JioMart.
It is building a super app under Tata Digital, with plans to add categories such as groceries, health, education, entertainment, electronics, fashion, travel, beauty and lifestyle. It also plans to leverage the strength of group companies such as Titan, Voltas, Trent, Tata Consumer Products, Tata Motors, Vistara, Tata AIG, Tata Capital and Taj Hotels, offering users an array of services in one app.
However, TCS is unlikely to be the only vendor. “Like any other firm, they will have a multi-vendor strategy. And all I can say is we are strong partners,” he said.
The other focus area is 5G. With Tata’s recent investment in Tejas, TCS is sure to play a role in implementation.
“I think that the group has always entered into businesses, when they felt that India needs (it) like Tata Steel, Tata Motors, which were all born like that. What I understand is that the group also chose to get into this telecom space primarily because the country needs it, and then the government pushes in terms of the number and the opportunity to work with Indian telcos like Airtel and BSNL. It's a huge opportunity. So TCS will be a system integrator,” Subramaniam said.
The company can help in the implementation and integration of 4G or 5G equipment for the telcos like Airtel, BSNL, like it does it overseas. “We will be looking forward to participating in some of these projects,” he added.
Electric vehicle segment is no doubt where the traction is and TCS is actively taking part in this as well. It is working with the group companies Tata Motors and Jaguar Land Rover, and also its other customers such as Fiat Chrysler.
“I can't say that we are the number one partner for everybody, because there are multiple approaches that they have. One is to develop themselves, with partners like us. The other is to develop OEMs, in which case, we'll have to go after and work with OEMs. So in either of these cases, I think we are well positioned. We think that particular piece of business is growing nicely for us,” Subramaniam said.
As this is a major focus area for most car manufacturers, it is a fairly significant market, which is expected to expand to trucks, he said.
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