TCS is one of the operative subsidiaries of one of India's largest and oldest conglomerate company, the Tata Group or Tata Sons Limited, which has interests in areas such as energy, telecommunications, financial services, manufacturing, chemicals, engineering, materials, government and healthcare.
History
It began as the "Tata Computer Centre", for the company Tata Group whose main business was to provide computer services to other group companies. F C Kohli was the first general manager. JRD Tata was the first chairman, followed by Nani Palkhivala.
One of TCS' first assignments was to provide punched card services to a sister concern, Tata Steel (then TISCO). It later bagged the country's first software project, the Inter-Branch Reconciliation System (IBRS) for the Central Bank of India. It also provided bureau services to Unit Trust of India, thus becoming one of the first companies to offer BPO services.
In the early 1970s, Tata Consultancy Services started exporting its services. The company pioneered the global delivery model for IT services with its first offshore client in 1974. TCS's first international order came from Burroughs, one of the first business computer manufacturers. TCS was assigned to write code for the Burroughs machines for several US-based clients. This experience also helped TCS bag its first onsite project - the Institutional Group & Information Company (IGIC), a data centre for ten banks, which catered to two million customers in the US, assigned TCS the task of maintaining and upgrading its computer systems.
In 1981, TCS set up India's first software research and development centre, the Tata Research Development and Design Center (TRDDC). The first client-dedicated offshore development center was set up for Compaq (then Tandem) in 1985.
In 1989, TCS delivered an electronic depository and trading system called SECOM for SIS Sega Inter Settle, Switzerland. It was by far the most complex project undertaken