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"TCS is a valued customer, supplier and strategic partner. ThroughMr. Ramadorai's leadership, TCS has maintained a focus on customersuccess and capturing market leadership through technology andinnovation. I congratulate TCS on their tremendous global growth,and I look forward to our continued partnership in the future."John Chambers,Chairman & CEO, Cisco Systems, Inc.From the 1980s TCS expanded aggressively as the average size ofdeals grew beyond 25-person years to over 100-person years. In1988, with improvements in telecommunication, TCS began to drivethe off-shore business by installing a water-cooled IBM 3090mainframe. An aggressive move for a company that decided toinvest Rs.10 crore on a single machine with substantial exportguarantees to the Government of India. The gamble paid off andeventually led to a complete redefinition of the business model thatled to the creation of today’s $60 billion Indian IT industry.With its business growing steadily in the 1980s, TCS became the hubfor inducting new technology knowledge to India as it startedcreating the eco-system for Indian IT professionals with focusedacademic – industry partnerships beginning with IIT Bombay and IITKanpur, followed by a slew of engineering colleges where coursedesign and faculty developmental programs were launched. By theend of the 1980s, a robust eco-system was in place to look after theeducation and research needs of the country’s IT professionals.In 1981, India’s first IT R&D division, the Tata Research Design andDevelopment Centre was set up at Pune by TCS. Simultaneously, TCSworked closely with the Indian Government on regulatory issues.Computers which were a scarce resource then, led to a focus onimprovement of processes to increase productivity. Quality becamea part of theTCS DNA and subsequently a calling card for the entire ITindustry in India. The relentless pursuit of excellence in quality soonbegan to draw the attention of customers and competitors alike andresults were there for all to see.Scale: 1990s-2004With the end of the century approaching and the impendingY2K problem looming ahead, TCS was becoming a ‘SoftwareFactory’ a development that helped it leapfrog into the globalorbit. TCS spread its foot-print world-wide by setting up globaldevelopment and near-shore delivery centres in Hungary,China,Uruguay,Brazil,Japan,USAandCanada.Bythe1990’sthedot com boom had the IT industry on steroids making it a highlylucrativesector.ThiswasaperiodofexponentialgrowthforTCS.Withenablersinplace for industrialisation of IT, a change of guard took place atTCS. As Mr Kohli’s pioneering and industry creation era came toan end, the mantle of leadership was passed on to Ramadoraiwho had the drive, rigour and passion to lead TCS through itsnextphaseofgrowth.Taking over as CEO in 1996, Ramadorai made organisational changesbeginning with a more empowered management style. Having grownfrom the ranks and served TCS in different departments, hisunderstanding of the organisation was deep and his vision was to takeTCS into the global top ten league of IT services companies.TCS Annual Report 2008-09 | 09