MUMBAI, DECEMBER 17, 2014:  

Tata Consultancy Services has set an ambitious target of clocking $1 billion in revenue from France within the next five years, the company told European analysts.

Krishnan Ramanujam, global head and vice-president of enterprise solutions, informed analysts that TCS aspires to be one of France’s top five IT service companies by 2019-20.

Alti acquisition

The company’s play in France has been significantly bolstered by its 2013 acquisition of local IT services firm Alti for ₹530 crore.

Dominique Raviart, analyst at advisory and research firm NelsonHall, tweeted: “Aggressive growth target for TCS in France: top 10 within three years, top 5 within five years reach ~$1bn in revenues!.” Further, the company is training offshore employees at Alliance Francaise centres in India for French language skills.

“Recruiting locally in France young graduates and sending for delivery training during 6-8 months in India,” Raviart said.

Excluding Alti, TCS France had reported revenue of ₹449 crore (about $75 million) for the fiscal gone by. For fiscal 2012, Alti had recorded turnover of €126 million ($157 million).

In fact, Europe has been one of TCS’ fastest growth markets in the last few years.

“Year-on-year growth for TCS was 50 per cent for Europe and rated No. 1 in customer satisfaction in particular in the Nordics,” Jessica Ekholm, Research Director at Gartner tweeted from the TCS analyst meet. TCS had generated 17.3 per cent of its revenue from Europe for the quarter ended September 30, 2014.

Bullish on Europe

In a recent communication to Indian analysts, TCS had said that it expects Europe to grow better than average for the quarter ending December 31 while ‘the UK remains weak due to seasonality and impact of insurance (slowdown).’ The opportunity to trim costs, especially in the current tight economic situation, seems to have compelled large enterprises in France, Germany and Switzerland to take a closer look at Indian IT companies instead of competing local firms that have dominated the landscape so far.

However, Indian companies often face trust issues with large customers in Continental Europe due to language and cultural differences.