Tata Consultancy Services, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India: TCS Allocation Reimagination

Written answers to the questions

05 Auguts 2021

Total 350 words used.

TCS is a global IT services and consulting organization caters to 1000+ customers across the world. Allocation of associates to the customer projects is a key business activity in TCS. The allocation enables associates to capture hours against a particular customer project, which in turn leads to generation of customer invoices and revenue accruals for the firm. A consistent allocation throughout the month brings higher confidence level in revenue-projections and better management of resources.

CHALLENGES

1. There was no-single view on actual available talent at any given point in time across more than 50 operating countries. This makes it difficult to know in real time the actual number of associates available for allocation and number of associates getting un-allocated.

2. Hoarding of associates within accounts even after a project ends. This is done to reduce the lead time in onboarding and training new associates.

Solution:

TCS reimagined its allocation process to bring about the necessary changes in business and IT processes to ensure unallocated means deployable associates. The solution was conceived to look at the entire lifecycle, namely sales, ongoing, contract negotiation & renewal to identify the scopes of process improvement through automation. The salient features of this solution are detailed below:

1. Sales - Allow creation of work order(s) against an opportunity where TCS has submitted a proposal. Ensure automatic creation of allocation requests from the opportunity itself. This will help capturing resource requirements early and allocate resources during the sales stage itself.

2. Ongoing – A program automate the extension of allocation of associates in the existing work orders through a scheduled program which runs every day. Budget must be arranged within a day, failing which associate will become deployable. This helps ensure budget availability.

3. Contract-negotiation - Upon expiry of a contract, a program automatically extends the work-order (however no billing is allowed) and allocation for max 60 days. This ensures resource continuity and proper-visibility.

4. Contract-Renewal - A program has been developed which transfers the associate allocation, timesheet  or any asset allocation, security provisions, etc. from old to new contract seamlessly to reduce the manual effort.

Total 168 words used.

Quantitative benefits:

1. Till Dec 2021, the program has accomplished approximately 750,000+ allocation automatically, leading to a saving of USD 1.4 Million.

2. The unallocated Associated count has reduced from about 120,000 during a month before start of the program to close to 13,000 at the end of the program – which is 89% reduction.

Qualitative Benefits:

Some of the key benefits delivered can be articulated as:

1. Higher customer satisfaction by ensuring continuity of the same Associate

2. Reduced fulfillment time through better visibility of the resource availability across TCS

3. Increased employee satisfaction by reducing unallocated days which lead to poor deployment index

4. Better operations discipline and rigor through implementation of one day max unallocated target

5. Reduced overhead in allocation through automation of processes

6. Better grip on project profitability through moving unallocated pool from SG&A to project

7. Help TCS to adopt to the daily revenue recognition cycle with higher confidence level through reduction of daily time sheet leakage