TCS Joins Prestigious Circle of MIT Research Patrons

By siliconindia   |   Wednesday, 10 November 2004, 20:30 IST
Printer Print Email Email
BOSTON: Strengthening ties with the world's leading academic institutions, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), a leading IT services firm and pioneer of the global delivery model, today announced an alliance with the MIT Sloan Center for Information Systems Research (CISR). As a Research Patron of CISR at MIT's Sloan School of Management, TCS joins other global leaders in shaping the center's research on information technology, outsourcing and alternative business models. As the pioneer of the global delivery model now deployed by 80 percent of Fortune 1000 companies (according to Gartner Research), TCS' alliance with CISR was a natural step for the firm. Business topics to be explored by CISR and TCS, as part of the Research Patron program, include assessment of the performance of alternative business models, the management of next wave outsourcing, measurement of IT-driven risk, the management of IT architecture for business value and the role of the IT unit in leading change. "These topics are at the heart of our business offerings and are of paramount importance to our customers," said Arup Gupta, president of TCS America. "In this way, our customers are the ultimate beneficiaries of our relationship with MIT. Having a seat at the table with such an esteemed group of researchers is one more way TCS puts our customers at the forefront of IT developments." "We are pleased that TCS has become a research patron of CISR, our first in India. TCS joins the thirty-seven other corporations that support CISR, strengthening our resources for research and dissemination on topics of keen interest to business leaders, including the governance of IT, enterprise architecture, IT investment, IT-related risk management, and the execution of IT-related projects with high business impact," said Peter Weill, Director of CISR. "The marriage of academic research with commercial R&D is critical in the IT industry," said Vipul Shah, Manager Research & Development. "Our relationship with academia is symbiotic -- our university partners benefit from TCS' industry leadership and the depth and breadth of our software development expertise, and we benefit from the fruits of academic research on a broad array of projects." TCS has a long history of partnership with the academic community and maintains relationships with a number of leading U.S. research universities, including Carnegie Mellon, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of California, Riverside. The firm's annual contribution to research and development at American universities exceeds $1.5 million, and includes the provisioning of faculty and research grants, manpower, professorship, laboratory facilities and membership to research forums. TCS continues to demonstrate the importance it places on corporate citizenship through its university contributions, and believes the firm benefits from engaging with such universities as a forum for recruiting the best and brightest IT professionals throughout the United States. Other Research Patrons of the CISR at Sloan include IBM, Microsoft, HP, Gartner Group, BT and Diamond Cluster.