India's largest software exporter Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), vowing to be an early bird in terms of the tremendous opportunities in China, has established a Chinese headquarters.
"Anyone who wants to be a long-time player must come to this market early," S. Ramadorai, TCS's CEO, said yesterday after his company launched its first Chinese subsidiary.
Although he declined to reveal the investment in the wholly owned company, some industrial insiders pegged the initial amount at about US$200,000.
The company will set up a research and development facility in Shanghai Pudong Software Park to engage in high-end enterprise consulting services for multinationals.
Another research and development (R&D) centre in Hangzhou, capital of East China's Zhejiang Province, will be used to serve the needs of multinational customers including General Electric Medical Systems, which signed a systems integration contract with TCS worth about US$100 million.
"We hope we will have 100 to 150 employees in China in one year and almost all of them will be engineers," said Ramadorai.
TCS' Chinese subsidiary, named Tata Information Technology (Shanghai) Co Ltd, will focus on the finance, insurance, banking and telecom sectors, Ramadorai said.
In answer to fierce competition in the Chinese market for information technology consulting and systems integration, as well as cultural difficulties, the Shanghai company will seek alliances with local partners for easier and quicker access.
"After China's accession into the World Trade Organization, our software vendors must go overseas to tap international markets. The expertise of personnel from TCS, an export-oriented Indian software development company, will give us a lot of help," said Chen Ju, deputy general manager of Shanghai Pudong Software Park Co Ltd.
(China Daily June 19, 2002)
