Job Title: Programmer Analyst
Location: India
Submitted on: 23-May-05
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| Programmer Analyst |
To start with, I am proud to be a TCSer. As everyone knows, the company
is governed by its ethics and TATA culture, like
anyother TATA group company. It's been more than 2 years since I joined
this company as a fresher and there has been no
serious regrets, other than some tense moments due to work pressure. An
employee of any Indian S/W services company for that
matter, will have the same kind of work/delivery pressure. Let me
discuss every point about TCS in detail, which people see
as cons. Before that, let me discuss about those things that are good
in TCS -
1) Feel of working with the Industry leader - My honest feeling when I
think about working with TCS is that I am working in a
company, which is #1 in Asia in S/W services. What more would you ask
for? Is this not a recognition for you?
2) Frequent onsite assignments - No other company in the world offers
you to serve the clients at various parts of the globe
as TCS does. In India, TCS means Onsite. Meaning, young recruits get to
travel to onsite sooner than in any other company. In
my case, it took exactly 2 years, but on an average, guys with 18
months of experience venture out to travel abroad. This
doesn't stop here. Once one returns back home after the depuatation
period, he can keep counting of his next onsite trip
within a year.
3) Strong Vision - Top 10 by 2010 - Ask any TCSer as what is his moto,
he will for sure say this - "Top 10 by 2010". It
personally gives you a feel of greatness. The company is really keen in
achieving it, and is fiercefully competing with its
global industrial peers like IBMs, Accentures and Capgeminis..
3) The Brand Image - One of the companies of multi billion dollar TATA
conglomerate and is considered as the princess of the
TATA group companies.
4) Performance Based Compensation - Though there are some controversies
among the employees on this topic, I personally feel,
if you deserve it you get it. If you prove yourselves with commitment,
hardwork, innovation you will surely get a good
performance rating, which directly affects your compensation. In my
case in the past two years, I was twice appraised as 4
out of 5 scale, which I feel, I deserve.
5) Feel of working in a society conscious company - Many social
responsibility initiatives to do good to the society are in
place and are very well functional. I don't know how corporate looks at
these, may be as a brand building strategy, but for
me, as I was directly involved in one such initiative, felt emotional.
6) Career Growth - If you have a definite growth plan and if you
seriously work on it, no one stops you from achieving it in
TCS. Infact, young leaders are sorted after. You join as a programmer
trainee and your next level after becoming a programmer
analyst is IT Analyst. Earlier it was like, after being a programmer
analyst for 2 years, by default you become an IT
analyst. But now the process is made stringent - only top performers
get promoted in 2 years while others get in 3 years of
service, which insiders (even me) feel as non employee-friendly policy.
7) Job rotation - There is always an oppurtunity to work in different
industrial sectors like Telecom, BFSI, Retail, etc. If
you feel like bored of working in one domain for more than a year or
two, you can very well opt to hop to another domain. I
started my career being in Telecom and I'm now in Finance. Basically, I
am a mechanical engineer, where there is an option
always open for me to choose Engineering Services domain.
Now let me discuss about those points that some outsiders/insiders feel
as cons.
1) Low compensation - In this competitive world, no company would take
chances in losing its employees by providing low
compensation. But still some feel that the perks are low. There is a
reason for that. As I have already quoted, TCS is
governed by ethics and is more Government friendly than any other
company. If you compare the pay structure of an employee of
TCS with that of any other Indian s/w company, the taxable income
portion is substantially high for TCS. So, one should
understand that the cost of an employee for TCS is same as that for any
other company, but all the difference is in 'take
home'. Having said this, I too have many a times felt bad about this to
see that a considerable portion of my salary go as
Tax. But it is my thought that you could very well compensate for this
loss, when you come for onsite assignment, where you
are paid in dollars and pounds. More the number of times one goes to
onsite, the more he earns. Doesn't it feel logical?
Cons -
1) Low end consulting - As the case with any other indian software
company, the major portion of the revenues comes from
low-end consulting. I wish my company develops more products and offers
high-end technical/business consulting in the days to
come. This seriously affects every employee of the company. When you
work at a client location, abroad, you are really looked
down (by some) as we are cheaply billed and are given very mudane
tasks. At times you're are even ordered by clients (some)
to do a mammoth task with stringent delivery dates, which they cannot
do to an IBM guy or one from Accenture. This personally
hurts my ego.
2) Lack of awareness about the company among the people of India and
world - I personally feel that the company failed to
propogate itself to the outer world. Only now this has pinched the
corporate and is focussing more on that.
3) Promotion Policy - As discussed earlier, I wish the promotion policy
be re-visited to be more employee friendly than being
stringent.
4) Formal Work Culture - In my IT career till date, I have worked under
4 project leads of which 3 were like friends
ratherthan being my managers. But my first PL tried to maintain a PL-
team member relationship, which should be looked-into by
the top management to foster a friendly work culture.
That's it. I have really written a lot. These are what I personally
feel about the company. I also agree that some of
theabove-mentioned points might be contended by fellow TCSers. We have
to accept a fact that 'Views differ'.
As a final note, I want to add one more. I just happened to see in your
website, under company profile that the 'uppers' for
Infosys was mentioned as 'Microsoft of India'. If this was true, then I
consider TCS to be 'IBM of India'.
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