Picture above: Rozman speaking at the Seminar.
It is not only the audience in Argentina who are puzzled by the unexpected Rozman-TCS combination. Clients in Latin America, US, Europe and the emerging markets are also taken aback when Rozman markets TCS services to them. He reels off the history and reputation of TCS and Tata Group with passion and pride. His opening line is ¨somos el grupo mas importante de la India - We are the most important group of India¨. Rozman is a regular speaker on India and IT at the international and regional business conferences in Latin America.
Rozman joined TCS in 2001 and started the company´s operations in Uruguay in 2002 with 15 staff. Today the company employs 800 Uruguyans and plans to expand and double the strength in the next few years. The Uruguay Center of TCS provides offshore IT services to US, Europe and Latin America. Being a small country, Uruguyan IT human resources are obviously limited. To meet this challenge, TCS has started a Regional Training Center in Montevideo for Uruguyans and Latin Americans. This has already trained over 500 professionals and the target is 3000 within the next two years.
Picture above: from left to right, Rozman, Ramadorai CEO of TCS, Rattan Tata and Battle President of Uruguay.
Rozman´s conquest of Latin America lead to his promotion in January 2008 from Head of Iberoamerica to the next level of Executive Vice President for Emerging Markets. As part of TCS’ Executive Leadership team, he is responsible for leading the company’s strategy to enter new markets and other strategic corporate initiatives.
Rozman is undoubtedly the secret behind the success of TCS in Latin America. I remember when I was Consul General in Sao Paulo, TCS was struggling to enter Latin America through Brazil. The Indian representative of TCS who was working on the Latin America entry strategy in SaoPaulo was frustrated that despite the impeccable reputation and competitive pricing the Latin Americans did not take TCS seriously. The Latin American clients were willing to pay more to North American IT companies who would in turn outsource the job to India. It was Rozman, with his multicultural skills, who changed their mindset and made them feel confident and comfortable in dealing directly with Indian IT companies. Rozman´s Latino charm, understanding of Indian culture and American style of aggressive marketing paid off. It was only after his success in opening Latin America for TCS that other Indian IT companies including Infosys, WIPRO have started entering this region. But the business of other Indian IT companies is a very small fraction of the turnover of TCS in the region even now.
Rozman has used diplomacy too. He has succeeded in convincing Ramadorai, the CEO of TCS to become the Honorary Consul of Uruguay in Mumbai. I guess the patriotism of Rozman is also behind the success of a Uruguyan architect Carlos Ott who got a contract to build the 250 million dollar IT complex of TCS in Chennai. It will be one of the largest IT complexes in the world with 30,000 staff .
The TCS success in Latin America has pioneered a new 12/ 12 business model for Indian IT companies for delivery of offshore services to North American clients. Twelve hours of service from Latin America ( the same time zone as that of North America) and twelve hours from India. This is better than the 24/7 model in which Indians dont get time to sleep. In the 12/12 model. the Indians get time to sleep while the Latin Americans work !
1 comment:
Sir,
I am a regular visitor of your blog. Please let me know if I can get a chance to talk to you sir?
Thanks
Veerappan. PL
Chennai
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