By Eric Auchard
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. (TCS.BO: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), India's largest software services company, is gearing up to sell software delivered in the form of an online service to small businesses under its own brand name, its chief executive said on Monday.
Chief Executive Subramaniam Ramadorai told the Reuters Global Technology Media and Telecoms Summit that his company is looking to deliver a complete suite of software tools to small business users under the Tata brand in coming years.
TCS, which develops and maintains software for multinational customers that have outsourced the business, has said it is looking to move out from behind the scenes as a back-office supplier to gain credit for the growing role it plays in the global software market.
Software delivered as an online service has been popularized by Salesforce.com (CRM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), with big name companies such as Google Inc. (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and SAP AG (SAPG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) looking to elbow in on what many see as a major market shift away from traditional packaged software sales.
TCS has no plans to go head-to-head with Salesforce or Microsoft or SAP, he said. In fact, the company has had partnerships with all three companies.
Ramadorai said Tata plans to work with technology providers like Microsoft and SAP, as well as open source software approaches, to stitch together a suite of software for small- and medium-sized businesses.
"I don't think there is any single answer as to what works," Ramadorai told the Reuters conference in New York.
Ramadorai plans to deliver online software to specific industry segments, similar to how it currently segments its global outsourcing business by industries like financial services, retail, pharmaceuticals, he said. This so-called vertical strategy contrasts with the horizontal one employed by mass-market software makers like Microsoft.
"One thing that is clear is what we are not going to do," he said. "We are not a horizontal player. That is why technology partners make sense."
The company has been testing in a southern Indian state its plan for delivering a software platform for small businesses.
Look for it to build up the business across India before taking it global over a three-to-five year timeframe, he said.
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