Tarun Reflex

Sunday, September 14, 2008

TCS vs INFOSYS | An Honest Comparison

TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES

Experience Certainty.
“This is something that our clients already know; now we are letting the Cat out of the Bag”
Vision: “To be Global Top 10 by 2010″

INFOSYS TECHNOLOGIES LTD

Win in the Flat World.
“The competition has been leveled, the world is flat”

These are the two leading Indian IT companies that are set to lead the IT world globally. Both are basically “Computer Services Companies” even though they have their own Products like “Infy Finacle” and “TCS Quartz”.

Even though they compete in the same area, Even though they have many common clients,
Even though they do a lot of similar work, these two are totally different in the way they work, their policies, the way they see the clients/employees, the way they handle projects.

TCS is a 39 year old $4 billion company compared to Infosys which is 25 year old $3 billion company. Let’s compare from two perspectives:

1) Customer
2) Employee

1) Customer
As a Customer to these two companies, you won’t find much differences. Both deliver things on time, both deliver code of same quality etc. But TCS may be a bit cheaper than Infosys, but latter may guarantee more quality for that price.

2) Employee
As an Employee, one can see a lot of differences.

1) Work Pressure
This is the first and foremost thing an employee looks for. Here obviously TCS scores. You will rarely see people slogging in TCS whereas there is no Infy without Slogging. Of course this difference to certain extent comes from some extra quality things that are done at Infy, but still TCS do not mind saying “No” when it’s difficult. Infy manager rarely has the world “No” in their dictionary.

Note: No matter what facilities a company provides, if the workload is high, your life will be miserable.

2) Remuneration
Infy have a well defined compensation policy. They have increments every year and everything follows proper process. At the end, TCS guy too have the same salary, but there are no processes as such. One good thing about TCS is their Variable pay is less compared to infy i.e. TCS gives what they promises but Infy may not.

Infosys is a company that loves to make Employees pay tax. In a way, Infy is more patriotic.
TCS is more practical and loves to be in the side of employees.

3) Infrastructure
Well, this point, don’t even think of comparing. They are miles apart. Infosys has world class facilities which only a few companies can boast of. TCS infrastructure is pathetic say even it is Buildings, Computers, Internet, Transport or Food courts. Computers @ TCS are generations behind.

4) Security
Too much security” is an apt phrase for TCS. It is good from customer point of view, but very very bad from an Employee point of view. You need to get lot of permissions to login to a system and need a lot of access to make it working. Half your life will go in TCS raising tickets or you will become too lazy that you will stop using some of the facilities instead of raising tickets. Life is so much better at Infy where things are “Hare paced’ not “Tortoise paced” like TCS processes.

5) Work Culture
Infy has a lot of team building activities, cultural programs etc from the HR side where as a TCS guy will see an HR only when he is in bench. But sometimes the Infy activities end up treating a lot of pressure which finally ends up in dissatisfaction which was actually intented Employee satisfaction. But Infy do score here.

6) Ethics
Infy is really a company with a conscience. It is very transparent and manages things in a beautiful way. It is indeed the “BEST MANAGED COMPANY”. TCS has to go a long way in this to achieve this level of Transparency even though they are trying.

7) Initiatives
There are a lot of initiatives that happens in Infy like for example “The Ozone initiative”. It aims at reducing the paper usage. Infy will never use paper unless it’s very necessary. “Online” rules Infy.

In TCS, one can see paper paper every where. Even for a survey, they don’t have a proper “Survey” tool, which in turn leads them to the Manual paper survey which not only leads to inefficiency but also it wastes lot of paper, which in turn wood, which in turn trees, which in turns harms the Nature.

Btw, sometimes i do prefer certain things in Paper.

Then there are very active Bulletin Boards, Writer’s Forums etc in Infy which you will never find in any another company.

8) Brand Name
Infy shows the ordinary things as Extra ordinary. That is their way of Branding while TCS was not bothered about branding till now as they had a strong Backbone from “TATA”. Now they have realized the importance of branding and they have started a good campaign for better branding.

9) Code Quality Vs Documentation
Code Quality is the keyword of TCS while Infy will bore people with the word “Documentation”. Even though the word “Documentation” is boring, it is very important in the long run.

10) Average Age
Average age of employees in Infy is much less than that of TCS. TCS runs mainly with Experienced people where as Infy is a “Fresher” driven company making it more like college.

11) Processes
Too many Processes spoil the Code. This happens only in Infy.

Each company has its Prons and Cons. It’s the Employee who should decide what they want.

samsung

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2 Comments »

  1. Being from the IT industry myself, I wouldn’t really comment on your analysis as I feel issues like Processes, Code quality, initiative are too broad to be summed up in a line or two. A lot goes into each, specially if you are one of the industry leaders. But yes, can I just ask you if you’ve actually worked for both these companies or your report is based strictly on the basis of feedback from internet sources and may be some friends who might be working for either of these cos.

    Comment by Ashutosh Didwania — Monday, September 15, 2008 @ 1:45 pm | Reply

  2. Well, This comparison is drawn from out of information from internet,chats with friends in companies and from other reports published by various magazines. Feel free to voice any issue you think is presented here inappropriately. We would be happy to know your views.

    Comment by tarunreflex — Monday, September 15, 2008 @ 11:47 pm | Reply


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