CMC to change business composition
The Hindu, August 31, 2004

CMC, now part of TCS, is attempting a transformation from `ability to agility', reflecting the desire to shed the working culture and business approach of a public sector company to match the `agility' and business acumen of a private sector company, by retaining and leveraging its original `abilities', according to R. Ramanan, Managing Director and CEO, and S. Ramadorai, Chairman of CMC.

Addressing a press conference after CMC's annual general meeting here on Monday, Mr. Ramanan said the company's target for growth was to change business composition in favour of international business, and `cross selling' in Indian market. He hoped that international business would increase from 18 per cent of revenues now to 23 per cent. For the last quarter however it had grown by 27 per cent.

Mr. Ramanan said their target was "high tech solutions and high tech markets". They were finding international base for their solutions in railways systems, stock trading, and fingerprinting. "The ability and capability built by CMC for 28 years has to be taken to the market. One way of leveraging these is to take to the international market, which helps brand building and visibility", he said.

"We want to make sure the focus is on domestic and international, government and non-government, and on TCS and CMC synergies", he said adding CMC has synergies with TCS in business development, and processes, and is bringing in TCS practices, so that it can be more agile. Mr. Ramanan said CMC was now in a phase to grow again and 200-300 people would be added this year to its force of 3,100. The education wing was also `turning around', and growth can be seen in international and e-learning segments.

In reply to a question Mr. Ramadorai said there was no agenda to merge CMC with TCS. "At the same time I am not ruling it out," he said adding that "the two companies have independent board of directors and it is for them to look into this. TCS will at some stage definitely look at overseas listing".