Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. (TCS NSE 0.06 %) has turned its sights on the $300 billion business-to-business ecommerce and the direct-to-consumer side of retail as an area for new business growth and to help global clients tap customer insights.
During its fiscal second-quarter earnings call, TCS Chief Executive Officer Rajesh Gopinathan said the company is looking at new opportunities in B2B ecommerce and the D2C market for companies in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) segment, and has already bagged a number of such deals across Europe and the US.
“The emergence of the B2B commerce opportunity as well as D2C has gained traction in recent times. CPG companies in particular have been investing in these D2C initiatives…,” said Gopinathan. “We are enabling a rapid shift to online ecommerce as a preferred channel from brick-mortar stores, or aggregator retailers, helping our clients establish direct customer connect, gain better margins and scale of business and volumes.”
A Swiss pharmaceutical company has selected TCS to implement a hyper-personalised D2C ecommerce customer offering. It includes initial implementation for three countries followed by a global rollout across 30-plus markets over three years, and support leveraging a leading commerce cloud platform.
Even channel intermediaries (distributors) are investing in this technology to remain relevant, Gopinathan said. For instance, a global cloud-based IoT electrical and electronic component distributor has selected TCS to expand its range and availability of products for sale. A global dental products distributor has partnered with the company for B2B ecommerce implementations across Europe, the UK and North America.
DD Mishra, senior director analyst at Gartner Inc., told ET that Indian IT companies in this space have been comparatively less visible until recently. “But with B2B digital commerce initiatives surpassing B2C business during the pandemic, the need to offer differentiated B2B experience has increased.”
TCS already has an established ecommerce practice. Retail and CPG verticals comprise almost 15% of its revenue stream. In Q2 FY22, the company reported Rs 46,867 crore revenue from operations and deal wins worth $7 billion.
TCS competes with Accenture, IBM, Capgemini and Infosys among others in this segment while ecommerce platform firms such as Shopify (D2C) and Amazon (B2B/B2C) are large clients of these system integrators, as CPG companies tap both to go to market.
“The growing strength of these new entrants (platform firms) is creating a huge amount of work in the CPG firms as they present a new way to market and a potential existential threat to their traditional go-to-market models. The shortage of IT and engineering talent has made this sector increasingly turn toward the large-scale service providers to accomplish their digital objectives,” said Peter Bendor Samuel, CEO of IT consulting firm Everest Group. He estimates the B2B and B2C digital marketplace solutions opportunity to be worth $300-500 billion globally.
Analysts said B2B and D2C SaaS platform solutions are also competing for the same talent pool with the IT companies and timely upskilling initiatives will determine the winners in this rapidly maturing market.
Source : Economic Times
