Some commonly used financial and operational terms are explained in the Glossary below. These explanations are not intended to be technical definitions and if they are found to differ from those provided in the Company’s periodic, certified financial statements (not limited to Notes to Accounts), then the latter will prevail.
A collaborative approach for IT and business teams to develop software incrementally and faster. TCS has pioneered the Location Independent Agile™ model that allows for deployment at scale, and helps globally distributed organization execute large transformational programs quickly, while ensuring stability and quality.
AgilityDebt™ is a simple index developed by TCS, which uniquely indicates the burden carried by an organization that restricts its Agility. The index is arrived at based on a holistic Agile maturity assessment framework that measures the gap against required Agile talent, roles, team composition, delivery practices, Agile culture, Agile technology and DevOps enablers. TCS uses AgilityDebt™ to assess where the customer’s teams are in the Agile journey, find the bottlenecks, and accelerate their Agile transformations.
These are key enablers of TCS’ Location Independent Agile model, and represent the next generation work environment that facilitate greater collaboration among teams. It is characterized by partition-less open offices, informal seating, interactive surfaces for information capture, and modern collaboration devices for increased productivity.
TCS' proprietary approach and suite of intellectual property that enables retailers to seamlessly integrate and orchestrate data flows across the retail value chain, harnessing the power of analytics, AI and machine learning in the areas of personalization, pricing optimization, marketing, online search and commerce to unlock exponential business value.
An accounting concept similar to depreciation, but used to measure the consumption of intangible assets.
In the enterprise context, this is the discovery, interpretation, and communication of meaningful patterns in business data to predict and improve business performance.
A long-term contract which can guarantee regular payments.
Acronym for Asia Pacific
The process of exposing a discrete business function or data within an enterprise's systems through APIs.
Design, development, and deployment of custom software; ongoing support, upkeep, and enhancement of such software over its lifetime.
A set of easily accessible protocols for communication among various software components.
Technology that emulates human performance by learning, coming to its own conclusions, understanding complex content, engaging in natural dialogs with people, augmenting human effort or replacing people on execution of non-routine tasks. Also known as Cognitive Computing.
Acronym for Association of Southeast Asian Nations
A measure of the total assets for which a financial institution, typically a custodian bank, provides custodian services.
Measures what portion of the workforce left the organization (voluntarily and involuntarily) over the last 12 months (LTM).
Attrition (LTM) = Total number of departures in the LTM / closing headcount
Technology that superimposes a computer-generated image on a user's view of the real world to enrich the interaction.
The execution of work by machines in accordance with rules that have either been explicitly coded by a human or ‘learned’ by the machine through pattern recognition of data. Popular types include Robotic Process Automation and Cognitive Automation.
One hundredth of a percentage point, that is, 0.01 percent.
Acronym for Banking, Financial Services and Insurance
A high volume, high velocity, and/or high variety information asset that require new forms of processing to enable enhanced decision making, insight discovery, and process optimization.
A distributed database that maintains a continuously growing list of records, called blocks, secured from tampering and revision.
See Basis Point
TCS’ thought leadership framework that helps enterprises leverage technology to further their growth and transformation agenda. Successful Business 4.0 enterprises use technology to deliver mass personalization, leverage ecosystems, embrace risk and create exponential value. Such enterprises are agile, intelligent, automated and on the cloud.
Refers to the delivery of BPS over a cloud computing model. Whereas traditional BPS relies on labor arbitrage to reduce costs, BPaaS aggregates demand using the cloud, servicing multiple customers with a single instance, multi-tenant platform and shared services, thereby delivering significant operating efficiencies. The pricing model is usually outcome based.
Designing, enabling, and executing business operations including data management, analytics, interactions and experience management.
A corporate action in which a company returns excess cash to shareholders by buying back its shares from them and usually extinguishing those shares thereafter. The company’s equity share capital and the number of shares outstanding in the market correspondingly reduces.
Funds used by a company to acquire, upgrade, and maintain physical assets such as property, buildings, an industrial plant, technology, or equipment.
Cash comprises cash on hand and demand / time / fixed deposits. Cash equivalents are short-term, highly liquid investments that are readily convertible to known amounts of cash and which are subject to an insignificant risk of changes in value. Cash and cash equivalents are held for the purpose of meeting short-term cash commitments rather than for investment or other purposes.
Inflows and outflows of cash and cash equivalents.
Primarily derived from the principal revenue producing activities. Therefore, they generally result from the transactions and other events that enter into the determination of profit or loss.
Computer programs designed to simulate conversation with human users, especially over the internet. They are typically used in dialog systems for various practical purposes like customer service or information acquisition.
See Cloud Computing
The delivery of easily provisionable computing resources – servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics and more – over the internet, consumed on a pay-as-you-go basis.
Acronym for Communication, Media and Technology
The use of AI and machine learning to automate relatively more complex tasks that require reasoning capability and contextual awareness. TCS’ ignio™ a leading cognitive automation software product in the market today.
An integrated offering where TCS takes responsibility for the outcome of an entire slice of the customers’ operations including the business processes and the underlying IT infrastructure, and uses cognitive automation to transform that operational stack.
This is an extended, global innovation ecosystem curated by TCS, to harness the innovation efforts of start-ups and academia, and incorporate them into transformational solutions built by TCS for its customers.
The annual growth rate between any two points in time, assuming that it has been compounding during that period.
Part of the TCS ADD suite, CCT is an innovative software-as-a-service platform that enables life sciences companies to significantly transform patient engagement in clinical trials and improve adherence to protocols, as well as the efficiency and accountability of clinical trials.
The basis for restating the current period’s revenue growth after eliminating the impact of movements in exchange rates during the period.
This is tacit knowledge pertaining to, and specific to, the granular nuances of a customer’s business and IT landscape, acquired on the job over a period of time. TCS teams use their contextual knowledge to design technology solutions that are uniquely tailored for that customer, and therefore, a potential source of competitive differentiation.
Acronym for Consumer Packaged Goods
A back-end system that processes daily banking transactions and posts updates to accounts and other financial records; typically includes deposit, loan and credit processing capabilities, with interfaces to general ledger systems and reporting tools.
Modernization initiatives that target the one or more elements of the organization’s operations stack consisting of business processes, software systems and underlying infrastructure, usually to enable greater agility, scalability, resilience and a superior customer experience. These are typically large in scale and scope, and entail the integrated delivery of multiple capabilities.
Technologies, processes and practices designed to protect networks, computers, programs and data from attack, damage or unauthorized access.
A popular way of depicting the Trade Receivable relative to the company’s Revenue.
DSO = Trade Receivable * 365 / LTM Revenue
A method of allocating the cost of a tangible long-term asset over its useful life. It is a non-cash accounting entry found in the statement of profit and loss.
Represents a new way of working to rapidly deploy new releases of a software in production using high levels of automation and tooling. TCS recommends adoption of DevOps, along with Agile for speed to market.
Represents new age technologies such as Social Media, Mobility, Analytics, Big Data, Cloud, Artificial Intelligence and Internet of Things. Increasingly, with these technologies becoming mainstream, this word is becoming redundant.
A digital replica of a physical entity. For instance, a digital twin of a factory is a virtual model of the factory built using its data, process, people information. Impact of any change in a process in the real factory can be studied by simulating the change in the digital twin.
Also known as Change the Business (CTB) spend, it is that portion of the IT budget which is used to fund projects that are not, strictly speaking, essential for day to day operations, but are more transformational in nature. In uncertain economic times, when businesses are forced to cut spends in response to decline in income, discretionary spend is often the first to be scrutinized. However, what is considered discretionary is subjective and may differ considerably amongst businesses even within the same sector.
One form of distribution of profits earned by the Company and is usually declared as an amount per equity share held by the Shareholders. TCS has a policy of declaring quarterly interim dividends and the final dividend is approved by the shareholders in the Annual General Meeting.
The amount of that period's Net Income attributable to a single share after deducting any preference dividend and related taxes.
EPS = [Net profit attributable to Shareholders of the Company – Preference dividend, if any] / Weighted average number of equity shares outstanding during the period
Computing and storage that is located on servers on the edge of the network, in close proximity to the users, but not through an on-premise data center; usually reserved for low latency use cases.
The proportion of the Profit Before Tax that is provided towards income taxes.
ETR = Tax expense / Profit Before Tax
Consists of next generation product engineering, manufacturing operations transformation, services transformation, embedded software and Internet of Things.
The adoption of Agile methods across all the business functions of the enterprise, designed to empower employees, foster collaboration and drive a culture of continuous innovation at scale.
Enterprise Value (EV) is the total value of a business, calculated as the company’s market capitalization plus all debt (preferred shares, minority interest, etc), and after reducing all cash and cash equivalents.
The price that would be received to sell an asset or paid to transfer a liability in an orderly transaction between market participants at the measurement date.
Businesses that use technology to make financial services more efficient. Some fintech developments have improved traditional services, for example mobile banking apps, while others have revolutionized services such as pay per mile car insurance, or created new products, such as Bitcoin.
A form of services contracts where the vendor takes a turnkey responsibility for delivering a solution for a certain price and within a mutually agreed timeframe. The customer is billed on completion of key project milestones and related deliverables. This arrangement gives the vendor considerable flexibility in the staffing and execution of the project. On the other hand, it also means bearing the project risk.
A hedging instrument wherein two parties agree to buy or sell a particular asset (such as stock or currency) at a pre-determined rate (or Forward rate) on a specific future date.
For e.g. TCS enters into a forward contract to sell USD 1 million after 3 months @ ₹72. Irrespective of the prevailing USD-INR spot rate, TCS will be obliged to sell USD 1 million @ ₹72 at the end of 3 months.
A kind of intellectual property, consisting of software which provides generic functionality for a certain business use case, and which is customized for a specific customer’s needs with additional code. Use of such pre-built code reduces time to market and results in more stable, reliable solutions.
Represents the cash a company generates through its operations, less the capital expenditure.
Free cash flow = Cash flow from operating activities – Capital expenditure
A temporary cessation of work without pay for the employees, usually implemented by organizations facing under difficult economic conditions, and in lieu of laying off employees.
The process of adding games or game-like elements to any activity in order to enrich experiences and encourage user participation.
Acronym for General Data Protection Regulation, a European Union regulation for data protection and privacy.
An enterprise IT infrastructure model that combines private clouds, public clouds and on premise data centers, to meet the compute and storage needs of the business.
Focused workshops with a TCS customer where researchers and business leaders from both organizations participate to explore emerging technologies for specific customer problems.
TCS’ thought leadership event that is held in North America, UK, Latin America and Japan. It brings together researchers from academia, innovators from the start-up ecosystem, technology watchers, futurists and customers to brainstorm around emerging technologies.
Growth in revenue due to mergers, acquisitions or takeovers, rather than due to an increase in the company's own business activity.
A network of interconnected machines or devices embedded with sensors, software, network connectivity, and necessary electronics to generate and share run-time data that can be studied and used to monitor or control remotely, predict failure, and optimize the design of those machines / devices.
Funds that are highly liquid in nature and can be readily converted into cash.
Invested funds = Cash and Cash Equivalents + Investments + Deposits with banks + Inter-corporate deposits
An asset that is the result of a creative design or idea, such as patents, copyrights, reusable code, software products and platforms, and gives the owner exclusive rights over its usage, such that no one can copy or reuse the creation without the owner's permission.
Allows for a two-way flow of information through an interface between the user and the technology; the user usually communicates a request for data or action to the technology with the technology returning the requested data or result of the action back to the user.
A reduction in the workforce due to the employer’s decision to terminate employment, instead of the employees’ decision to leave.
At TCS, this refers to the Chief Executive Officer, Managing Director, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer, and the Company Secretary. Please refer to the Company's policy on KMP: http://www.tcs.com/ir-corporate-governance
Acronym for Latin America
A method to orchestrate globally distributed stakeholders and talent into Agile teams for improved speed to market in large transformational programs. It comprises processes, structure, and the technology that allows enterprises to overcome location constraints and embrace Agile methods on a global scale.
A model that integrates analytics, AI and automation deep within the enterprise to redefine how humans and machines work together and to effectively deliver superior outcomes.
A type of artificial intelligence that provides computers with the ability to learn behaviors without being explicitly programmed.
This is the practice of outsourcing to one service provider, also knowns as the Managed Services Provider (MSP), the end-to-end responsibility for providing, or orchestrating the provision through third party providers of, services around a range of processes and functions, in order to improve efficiency, service quality, agility and scalability.
Service providers with the sole, end-to-end responsibility of providing Managed Services.
The total market value of a company's total outstanding equity shares at a point in time.
Market Cap = Last Trading Price * Total number of outstanding shares
Acronym for Middle East and Africa
Acronym for Machine First Delivery Model
The most basic version of a new product, with the bare minimum functionality, which can be released to the users at the earliest, to be augmented with incremental features and functionality over subsequent iterative cycles. MVPs can be used by teams to learn about user behavior and validate the product value with minimum investment.
Information, convenience, and social media all combined together, and made available across a variety of screen sizes and hand-held devices.
The share of the net worth attributable to non-controlling shareholders of the subsidiaries.
Also known as Run the Business (RTB) spend, is that portion of the IT budget that covers the basic IT activities required to keep a business running. Even in tough economic times, non-discretionary spend remains relatively unaffected.
A hedging instrument that offers the buyer the right to buy or sell the underlying asset (such as stocks or currency) on a future date, at a specified price, for small upfront fee called options premium.
Eg: TCS purchases an options contract to sell USD 1mn @ ` 77/$ after 3 months, paying an option premium of `1 million. With this, TCS will have the right to sell USD 1mn at an exchange rate of `77, even if the prevailing market rate at the end of three months is, say `75. On the other hand, if the market rate is higher, say `79, then TCS can choose to let the options contract lapse and instead sell at the market rate.
The revenue growth a company can achieve by increasing its existing business activity. This does not include growth attributable to takeovers, acquisitions or mergers.
Segmentation and responding to individual transactions, customized for a single customer in a single instance.
A group of technologies that are used as a base upon which other applications, processes or technologies are developed. Useful for optimizing costs and efforts, and eliminating iterative tasks to drive strategic business initiatives.
A category of cloud computing that provides a platform and environment to allow developers to build applications and services over the internet. PaaS services are hosted in the cloud and accessed by users simply via their web browser.
The price charged to the customer for a billable effort, turnkey project or a certain process outcome, depending on the nature of the contract. Some use this term interchangeably (and somewhat inaccurately) with the average revenue realized by the company per utilized effort on an aggregate basis. See Realization.
Refers to a model of cloud computing where IT infrastructure, in terms of compute and storage resources, are provisioned for the dedicated use of a single organization.
In the technology context, refers to a packaged software program that is made available to multiple customers either on a license basis, or on a subscription basis, to enable the execution of certain common tasks or processes or business functions in a standardized way. This is the opposite of bespoke or custom software which is built to specifications to meet a customer’s unique needs.
A computing service model used for the provisioning of storage and computational services to the general public over the internet. Public cloud facilitates access to IT resources on a ‘pay as you go’ billing model.
Acronym for Research & Innovation
The revenue received by the company per utilized effort. Pricing varies by service and by market. Consequently, there can be changes in realization compared to a prior period, due to changes in the underlying business or geographic mix during the period. This does not necessarily mean that like-to-like pricing has changed. Also, realization doesn’t take into account the costs and therefore, higher realization is not necessarily more profitable.
Any transaction between a company and its related party involving transfer of services, resources or any obligation, regardless of whether a price is charged.
Please refer to the Company's policy on Related Party Transactions: http://www.tcs.com/ir-corporate-governance.
The income earned by the Company from operations by providing IT and consulting services, software licenses, and hardware equipment to customers.
Acronym for Request for Proposal, meaning a document that solicits proposal, often made through a bidding process, by an entity interested in procurement of IT services, to potential service providers to submit business proposals. An RFP is floated early in the procurement cycle and requested information may include basic corporate information and history, financial information, technical capability and estimated completion period, and customer references.
The use of software tools to automate high-volume, repeatable tasks that previously required humans to perform. RPA is best suited for relatively simple and stable processes. Dynamic changes in the environment require ongoing upkeep of the robots, diluting the economic benefit of the automation. Increasingly, customers are preferring cognitive automation over RPA.
TCS’ innovative operating model rolled out in response to the COVID-19 disruption. It is a fully location agnostic extension of the Location Independent Agile model, enabling employees to work remotely, while retaining the same high rigor in project management, governance and security. The fully distributed nature of this model is better suited to ensure business continuity. It leverages TCS’ prior investments and incorporates the learnings and best practices around network management, standard service delivery environment, digitized governance processes, heavy use of collaborative and cloud based technologies and an internal SOC benchmarked to the best in the industry.
The rationalization of IT architectures through consolidation of systems and elimination of redundant systems and layers. The primary purpose is to shrink the IT footprint and make operations leaner and more efficient.
Non-competitive agreements that allow a single vendor to fulfill the needs of the contractual requirements. These types of contracts can be won when the competitor set narrows down significantly and comes down to a single vendor discussion, given the nature of the client’s solution requirements.
In India, these are designated areas in which business and trade laws are different from the rest of the country, with various benefits and tax breaks to promote exports, attract investments, and create local jobs.
An acronym for education in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math.
See Time and Materials Contract
A brand promise that represents the way TCS channels its domain knowledge and organizational units – business and technology services, industry solutions units, and the research and innovation organization – into internal and external co-innovation programs.
Physical spaces where TCS Pace can be experienced. These spaces are close to academic and start-up hubs, and enclose innovation showcases, Agile workspaces and think spaces. They encourage brainstorming, design thinking and collaborative innovation with internal and external partners.
A form of services contract where the customer is billed for the effort (in hours, days, weeks, etc.) logged by the project team members. Project risk is borne by the customer. This contrasts with Fixed Price Contracts.
An aggregation of the value of all the contracts signed during a period and a useful indicator of demand, and near term business visibility.
For invoices raised in line with agreed milestones for services yet to be delivered. In other words, it is the amount that has been invoiced although the underlying effort is yet to be expended.
See Virtual Reality
Artificial, computer-generated simulation or recreation of a real-life environment or situation. It engages users by offering simulated reality experiences firsthand, primarily by stimulating their vision and hearing.
The abstraction of IT resources – like a server, client, storage or network – that masks the physical nature and boundaries of those resources from the users of those resources.
Refers to reduction in workforce resulting from employees willingly leaving the organization to pursue other opportunities, spend time with family, or for some other personal reason.
Extended reality, an umbrella term that covers augmented reality, virtual reality and mixed reality.
Year-on-Year