Abstract

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is the biggest and oldest IT Consultancy Services firm in India, established in 1968, with FY2014 revenue of US$13.4 billion and over 300,000 employees. Worldwide, it is listed in the 10th position of IT service companies by revenue, other major players being IBM, HP, Accenture and Fujitsu. Realizing the potential of Japanese IT market which is second largest worldwide and valued at over $125 billion, TCS established a fully owned subsidiary in Japan early on in 1987 itself. However various cultural, geographical and language barriers has prevented TCS from duplicating its tremendous success in western markets. Competition from Chinese companies, who are more familiar with the country seems to be a losing battle and new entrants from Vietnam were catching up. In this scenario, in 2014, one of the major conglomerates in Japan, Mitsubishi Corporation put forward an offer for a Joint Venture to be established between the two firms. The case looks at this offer from Mitsubishi from the viewpoint of the CEO of TCS, Mr.Chandra. The core decision to be taken is whether to continue in Japanese market by itself or to align with Mitsubishi, one of the major players in Japanese business. Aligning with Mitsubishi could ensure better market penetration but it will mean surrendering the autonomy and profitability that TCS currently enjoyed. Mr. Chandra has to decide whether the proposed alliance is a merger of equals or more a sale of the Japanese branch of the Indian IT firm to a strong suitor. Another option for consideration of TCS is to acquire another medium sized Japanese company which can provide local expertize, at the same time maintaining the ownership advantage.

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