Tag: TCS

2025 to be the year of electric vehicles

The TCS Future-Ready eMobility Study 2025, released at the Detroit Auto Show reveals new insights in the EV ecosystem

A new study by  Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), a global leader in IT services, consulting, and business solutions, reveals that more than 6 out of 10 (64%) consumers are likely or very likely to consider an electric vehicle (EV) for their next purchase. The TCS Future-Ready eMobility Study 2025, a comprehensive report on how EVs are shaping the future of sustainable mobility, also highlights that while 60% of consumers said charging infrastructure was a major challenge, 56% were ready to pay up to $40K for an EV.

This study surveyed over 1,300 anonymous respondents across North America (USA, Canada), United Kingdom & Ireland, Continental Europe (Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland) and APAC (China, India, Japan, ANZ). The respondents for the survey included transport manufacturers, charging infrastructure players, fleet adopters, consumers and EV adoption influencers.

Sustainability and lower operational costs were key factors driving EV adoption, according to the study. While consumers and influencers highlighted a clear motivation for EV adoption as ‘environmental sustainability’, the environmental benefits did not match the expectations of many EV influencers. Nearly 48% EV influencers said EVs increase the overall carbon output just as much as they reduce it, with 10% even saying EV adoption is negatively impacting the environment. Commercial fleets maintain a positive outlook towards electric mobility, with a sizable percentage—53%—pointing to reducing operational costs as a primary motivation. Fleet adopters were willing to pay a premium for EVs than for traditional internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles.

Despite the growing interest in EVs among consumers, significant challenges remain, particularly in the areas of charging infrastructure and technological advancements. While 74% of EV manufacturers said the lack of appropriate charging infrastructure remains the biggest obstacle limiting growth in the EV market, 55% have already started investing in innovation for battery technology advancements. Nearly 78% are making investments to reduce vehicle costs to cater to growing demand for EVs.

Anupam Singhal, President, Manufacturing, TCS, said, “The electric vehicle industry is at a defining crossroad, navigating the complexities of scale and transformation. While nearly two-thirds of consumers are open to choosing electric for their next vehicle, manufacturers face challenges like advancing battery technology, complex vehicle designs, and production economics. At TCS, our Future-Ready Mobility vision focuses on creating an interconnected ecosystem powered by AI and Gen AI to drive smarter decision-making, enhanced customer experiences, and deliver scalable, sustainable solutions. By addressing these critical challenges, we are accelerating the global shift toward electrified and sustainable transportation.”

The survey indicates that 90% of manufacturers believe that improvements in battery technology will enhance range and charging speed and will significantly impact the design and performance of EVs in the near term compared to other technological advancements.

Key results from the survey, which can be found at TCS Future-Ready eMobility Study 2025, include-

  • 90% EV manufacturers and 84% of EV Influencers said battery technology improvements to optimise range and charging speed will have a large impact on design and performance of EVs
  • 74% of manufacturers believed charging infrastructure remains the biggest obstacle limiting EV market growth
  • 72% of EV charging infrastructure players are expecting significant mergers in the EV space driven by financial viability and scaling challenges
  • 41% consumers said that an acceptable EV range on a single charge is 200-300 miles, followed by 31% respondents who felt 300-400 miles is a better deal
  • 63% EV influencers said their primary motivation for EV adoption is to achieve net-zero goals and reduce carbon footprint
  • 55% of EV manufacturers are investing in R&D for battery technology advancements, while 78% are investing in vehicle cost reduction
  • 72% US consumers are likely or very likely to purchase an EV as their next vehicle, compared to less than 31% of Japanese consumers

In a world quickly moving towards electric mobility, TCS’ vision for future-ready mobility combines technological innovation, strategic collaboration, and deep expertise to empower manufacturers and EV stakeholders to navigate change. TCS drives change across the mobility value chain, from vehicle design and gigafactory planning to digital platforms, generative AI, and personalised customer experiences.

Focused on sustainable mobility and measurable value, it partners with customers to shape a bold, sustainable future. For over two decades, TCS has been a strategic partner to OEMs, helping them on their ICE to EV transformation journey. It has helped deploy Battery Management System (BMS) Software for 500,000+ EVs on-road globally and establish EV charging infrastructure for 75+ countries for OEMs.

Other EV news

TCS Launches NVIDIA Business Unit to Accelerate AI Adoption for Customers Across Industries

Tata Consultancy Services a global leader in IT services, consulting, and business solutions, has expanded its collaboration with NVIDIA to launch industry-specific solutions and offerings that will help customers adopt artificial intelligence (AI) faster and at scale. These solutions and offerings will be delivered through TCS’ new business unit focused on NVIDIA, under its AI.Cloud business unit. TCS’ new business unit builds on a collaboration with NVIDIA for over five years, brings together the complementary capabilities of both organizations and offers tailored offerings for various industries.

Enterprises worldwide are racing to adopt AI but there is no consensus on an AI adoption strategy, according to the recent TCS AI for Business Study. The AI adoption journey for every enterprise is unique and involves an interplay of AI and existing enterprise capabilities. AI adoption at scale requires an intimate understanding of the enterprise and its practices and building AI models that are customized for the context. The new unit will design and deliver curated AI adoption strategies by leveraging global centres of excellence (CoEs), investments in the NVIDIA AI platform – including accelerated computing and  AI software, and the NVIDIA AI Enterprise and NVIDIA Omniverse platforms – and skilled resources

The new unit also offers TCS’ proprietary framework, which brings together its deep domain expertise, enterprise contextual knowledge and NVIDIA AI technology for building and deploying agentic AI solutions  – including NVIDIA NIM microservices and NVIDIA NIM Agent Blueprints, which are part of the NVIDIA AI Enterprise software platform and NVIDIA AI Foundry – to deliver value at scale to customers. TCS and NVIDIA have collaborated to build innovative, value chain-centric solutions and offerings for industry verticals on the NVIDIA AI platform. They include:

  1. TCS Manufacturing AI for Industrials: This offering leverages the power of AI and large language models (LLMs) to transform raw data into actionable insights for manufacturing enterprises. While general-purpose LLMs lack the capabilities to understand specific industry nuances, TCS’ Manufacturing AI for Industrials LLMs leverage the company’s contextual knowledge, technical prowess and the power of NVIDIA’s application frameworks to help accurately address industry challenges.
  2. TCS AI Spectrum for BFSI: This offering delivers innovative and secure ways of infusing the power of LLMs and AI into BFSI lines at enterprise scale. Built on the NVIDIA AI Enterprise platform, it enables faster decision-making, improved regulatory compliance and enhanced risk management for financial institutions.
  3. TCS Cognitive Visual Receiving: This is a holistic composite AI offering built on NVIDIA AI Enterprise and Omniverse that revolutionizes retail warehousing with greater accuracy, efficiency and speed by automating quality check, product identification, measurement and attribute extraction.
  4. TCS AI-Native Telco Offerings: These offerings built on NVIDIA AI and NVIDIA Aerial Omniverse Digital Twin enables telcos to rapidly create custom telco domain-specific models to meet business needs such as autonomous network anomaly management, billing & revenue assurance, 3D network visualization and customer experience.
  5. TCS AI-based Autonomous Vehicle Platform: TCS’ IoT and Digital Engineering unit is working with NVIDIA to leverage generative AI and deep learning technologies, such as Omniverse for simulation and NVIDIA AI Enterprise for synthetic data generation, to accelerate the development of end-to-end autonomous features and capabilities for automotive OEMs and tier 1 suppliers.

Jay Puri, Executive Vice President of Worldwide Field Operations at NVIDIA, said, “The fusion of TCS’ deep industry expertise with NVIDIA AI technology is set to introduce a new era of intelligent enterprise transformation. TCS’ new NVIDIA business unit is poised to accelerate AI and simulation with NVIDIA AI Enterprise for building agentic AI solutions and NVIDIA Omniverse for building physical AI solutions, paving the way for AI-driven innovation across India and the world.”

Siva Ganesan, Head, AI.Cloud Unit, TCS, said, “Curated AI journeys are derived at the intersection of deep-domain and deep-tech. This is a space that TCS has excelled at during every business transformation cycle. Our unique vantage point, at the intersection of business and technology, helps us identify the right opportunities for our customers. With the innovative and efficient NVIDIA AI platform, and our wide scale and proven track record in delivering value, our customers now have a means to faster value realization.”

TCS offers clients vast domain expertise across industries, global delivery capabilities, and deep understanding of diverse business processes and industry knowledge. TCS leverages NVIDIA AI, accelerated computing, software, and development platforms in its offerings to cater to the specific needs of each industry and help enterprises unlock the full potential of AI.

Anupam Singhal, President – Manufacturing, TCS, said, “Manufacturers can now achieve unprecedented accuracy and access the tacit knowledge to optimize their operations, improve decision-making, and drive impactful innovation. This is possible with TCS’ Manufacturing AI for Industrials offering, which leverages NVIDIA technology to harness the power of LLMs (large language models) and is fine-tuned with TCS’ deep manufacturing industry expertise.  TCS is committed to providing manufacturing enterprises with the transformative AI solutions they need to make them future-ready and lead the charge toward a smarter, more sustainable future.”

The collaboration with NVIDIA is part of TCS‘ broader efforts to strengthen its AI-readiness and build end-to-end capabilities powered by NVIDIA technology to foster enterprise-wide AI transformation for its key customers.

John Fanelli, Vice President, Enterprise Software, NVIDIA, said, “Factories, warehouses and robotics are the next grounds for physical AI innovation at scale. Combining cutting edge AI and simulation capabilities can unlock unprecedented potential for intelligent manufacturing operations for TCS clients.”

To help manufacturers embrace the next wave of digital manufacturing, TCS is also working on a new suite of digital twin solutions built on the NVIDIA Omniverse development platform, enabling clients to design, simulate, operate, and optimize products and production facilities across heavy industries:

  1. Factory of the Future: Real-time factory planning, monitoring, and predictive maintenance in a virtual environment, reducing downtime and speeding up time to market.
  2. In-Car Digital Twin: Autonomous vehicle simulation using Omniverse’s physics-based simulations, reducing the need for physical testing.
  3. Aero Care Efficiency: Digital twins creation for aircraft components, enabling immersive training, enhanced problem-solving and the early detection of failures, helping improve safety and reduce operational risks.
  4. Smart Farming Digital Twin: Farming scenario simulations with real-world physics, including soil interactions, terrain analysis, and weather conditions to improve equipment performance, process optimization and sustainability in modern agriculture.

TCS to Fashion New Partner Landscape for Primark to Transform and Grow its Operations

(TCS), a global leader in IT services, consulting, and business solutions, has extended its partnership with Primark, a leading international fashion retailer across 17 countries in Europe and the US. Over the next five years, TCS will help transform Primark’s technology operations to support the retailer’s ambitious plans for global growth.

TCS has been working with Primark since 2016, establishing itself as a trusted partner to the retailer. As well as driving business-critical integration programmes and stabilising core platforms for the retailer, TCS has also improved cybersecurity capabilities, improving stability and reliability of processes and systems.

As part of this expanded partnership, TCS will help transform Primark’s technology operating environment to make it more resilient, reliable, and efficient. By supporting Primark’s transformation journey, TCS will help reduce time-to-market for the retailer, aligning with its strategies for future growth. TCS will help Primark adopt a more agile and product-based operating model by enabling automation through intelligent automation and DevOps technologies. This new operating model will integrate and optimise application development, testing and maintenance processes.

Andrew Brothers, Chief Information Officer, Primark, said, “To help support our ambitious growth plans we’re expanding our partnership with TCS to build a robust, resilient, and reliable IT operating environment to become a more efficient, technology-led global organization with the agility to quickly adapt to changing demands and requirements in a fast-paced industry. Working with TCS will provide us with the ongoing operational stability and accountability needed to support our business to scale. This will allow us to respond to market trends and customer preferences in a timely manner, ensuring that we continue to deliver quality products at the best value for our customers.”

Primark’s new operating model will also be aligned to business functions and driven by their priorities, providing Primark with a comprehensive, real-time view of its technology, business systems and processes to enhance overall performance and enable the agile ecosystem required to support the organisation’s rapid growth plans.

Shekar Krishnan, Vice President & Head of Retail – UK and Europe, TCS, said, “The fashion industry is continually modernising its entire value chain—from conceptualisation, to design, to production and retailing – with innovation-led initiatives to achieve environmental, social, and governance goals. We’re thrilled to support Primark’s mission to offer affordable fashion for everyone and its global vision for growth.” 

TCS works with 200 of the region’s best-known and most-loved businesses, including British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, Sainsbury’s, Nationwide, M&S, Asda and Boots. With its deep industry expertise and an employee strength of 23,000 people in the UK and Ireland, TCS holds a leadership position in software and IT services in the UK and Ireland market. Operating in Ireland since 2001, TCS services over 28 global and local clients from its Dublin headquarters and Global Delivery Centre based in Letterkenny, Co. Donegal.

TCS launches WisdomNext an industry-first GenAI Aggregation Platform

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), a global leader in IT services, consulting, and business solutions, has launched TCS AI WisdomNext, a platform that aggregates multiple Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) services into a single interface and enables organizations to rapidly adopt next-gen technologies at scale, lower costs and within regulatory frameworks. The industry-leading platform is designed to remove barriers for customers to develop and launch business solutions, allowing for real-time experimentation across vendor, internal, and open-source LLM models.

AI and GenAI have far-reaching applications across the value chain for businesses. However, solution designers around the world find it difficult to select, experiment and decide on the right foundational models to use. Foundational models are constantly evolving, and each model offers different capabilities in terms of mode of usage, cost, and effectiveness. TCS’ AI for Business Study, a comprehensive survey on the impact of AI on businesses, found that while business executives are generally positive about the impact of AI, they are less certain about the path to transformation. TCS AI WisdomNext helps businesses choose the right models and simplify the design of new business solutions using GenAI tools. It also enables businesses to reuse pre-existing components to accelerate the design.

Siva Ganesan, Head, AI.Cloud Unit, TCS, said, “TCS AI WisdomNext helps our customers take advantage of GenAI to unlock the full potential of their data, drive greater business innovation and efficiency, and gain a competitive edge. Customers appreciate the newly launched platform’s ability to help navigate a diverse and quickly evolving AI marketplace and rapidly compose ‘art-of-the-possible’ solutions. We are solving business problems and helping our customers redefine what it means to harness the power of GenAI. The rapid adoption of GenAI and experiencing what it means in terms of business outcomes is something our customers find very exciting.”

In the initial testing phase, TCS has already leveraged this powerful tool for many of its largest customers to create value for them and build prototypes. Examples include fast-tracking sales for an outdoor advertising company in the US, with real-time inventory availability and quote generation with maps Integration; enhancing productivity and efficiency across the application migration and modernization lifecycle for a leading American insurance provider; and enhancing customer experience through a smart mortgage-assistant for a leading bank in the UK.

Scott Kessler, Executive Vice President, Chief Information Officer, Northeast Shared Services, said, “GenAI presents us with the chance to elevate the value of our knowledge capital across multiple dimensions. Through access to the TCS AI WisdomNextTM platform, we can amplify our enterprise knowledge, orchestrating a seamless integration of data and insights to enhance the efficiency, innovation, and customer-centric focus of our grocery organization, thereby incrementing value at every turn.”

TCS AI WisdomNext is an integrated enterprise AI orchestration platform with features including:

  • Preconfigured industry solution blueprints
  • Intelligent ‘evaluator bots’, which enable organizations to compare available GenAI models and related technology stack choices, helping them to make more informed decisions
  • Scenarios to optimize GenAI running costs using the platform’s native intelligence
  • Centralized governance with in-built guardrails to ensure compliance with local regulations and best practices
  • Seamless portability feature across cloud platforms and GenAI ecosystems
  • Build hyper-personalized experiences, paving the way for higher customer satisfaction.

R “Ray” Wang, CEO and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, said, “Customers seek an innovative GenAI platform that has a powerful combination of prefabricated industry blueprints, cutting-edge technologies, and orchestration capability to help businesses succeed in their future adoption strategies and innovation on GenAI. The service providers that thoughtfully make investments in GenAI and help clients transform, navigate, and experience the world of GenAI with security and ethical guardrails at its core will be the technology partners that customers will trust to deliver on the promises of GenAI. These AI-first technology partners can deliver on what customers seek – a new multi-model, multi-modal and multi-cloud platform.”

The AI.Cloud unit brings together TCS’ capabilities in cloud computing and artificial intelligence to cater to the contemporary needs of customers. The comprehensive portfolio of GenAI services and solutions includes consulting and advisory, solution design and prototyping, large language model training and fine-tuning, guardrail agent design, project delivery, and ongoing maintenance as well as a responsible AI framework to help enterprises navigate the ethical and safe uses of AI. With over 300,000 associates trained on the foundational skills of AI/ ML, including GenAI, TCS is also set to build one of the largest AI-ready workforces in the world. TCS AI WisdomNext is available to customers now. For more information, please visit https://on.tcs.com/TCS-AI-WisdomNext

86% of Executives have already deployed Artificial Intelligence to enhance revenue, reveals TCS Global AI Study

A new study by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), a global leader in IT services, consulting, and business solutions, reveals that more than eight out of 10 (86%) of senior business leaders have already deployed artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance existing revenue streams or create new ones. This compares to a staggering 93% of surveyed executives from Ireland and the United Kingdom (UK) region, who currently have AI projects aimed at growing revenue.

The ‘TCS AI for Business Study’, a comprehensive report on the state of AI adoption and its impact on businesses, also finds that 69% of businesses are more focused on using AI to spur innovation and increase revenue than on productivity improvement and cost optimisation. For respondents from Ireland and the UK, this figure was significantly lower at 59%.

Executives are generally positive about the impact of AI, with 57% globally reporting excitement or optimism about the potential impact of AI on businesses. This figure is slightly lower in Ireland and UK at 50%.

Among all respondents in the study, 45% expect up to half their employees will need to use generative AI capabilities to do their job in three years’ time — and another 41% think even more will do so. Most (65%) believe AI will augment and enhance human capabilities, enabling people to focus on higher-value activities that require creativity and strategic thinking.

Gerard Grant, Director of Strategic Initiatives at TCS Ireland, said, “2023 was a year of exuberance, with every enterprise experimenting with AI/GenAI use cases. We are now entering an era of wide-and-deep enterprise AI adoption. Enterprises, however, are realising that the path to production for AI solutions is not easy, and that building an AI-mature enterprise is a marathon, not a sprint. Our AI study has confirmed this sentiment; it has also highlighted that enterprises feel underprepared to deploy AI solutions at scale as well as to manage the profound shifts in the roles of people and ways of working resulting from such deployments.”

Business leaders are less certain about the path to transformation. Only 4% of global respondents use AI in a way that has transformed their business, this figure is slightly higher in Ireland and UK at 5%. Nearly a quarter (24%) of global respondent say they haven’t even moved beyond the initial exploratory phase; this is even less among Ireland and UK respondents at 15%.

The report finds that top barriers to business success include current corporate IT infrastructures and customer expectations. Organisations also recognise the need to move beyond existing metrics to measure the success of AI implementations; nearly three-fourths (72%) of global respondents and over three-fourths (77%) of Ireland and UK respondents say they don’t have the right metrics. The survey also highlights the need for businesses to take a strategic approach to AI adoption and develop the right performance indicators to measure the impact of the technology on their business.

TCS was one of the first organisations in the industry to bring together the capabilities of cloud computing and artificial intelligence under its AI.Cloud unit to cater to the emerging needs of customers. The unit drives TCS’ multi-layered AI architecture to help strategise AI deployment for customers across their value chains, enable deployment and govern thereafter.

The TCS Thought Leadership Institute surveyed nearly 1,300 CEOs and other senior executives with P&L responsibilities, across 12 industries and 24 countries. The survey included 111 respondents from businesses across the United Kingdom and Ireland. About half the companies had $1 billion to $5 billion in annual revenue and the other half had over $5 billion in revenue. Other key results from the global report, which can be found at on.tcs.com/2024-global-AI-study, include:

  • Executives believe the impact of AI will be greater than or equal to that of the internet (54%) and smartphones (59%)
  • Corporate functions with the most completed AI projects: Finance/comptroller (completion rate of 29%); HR (completion rate of 28%); Marketing (completion rate of 28%)
  • 65% of senior executives say their competitive advantage will still come from humans — with their creativity, intuition, and strategic thinking unleashed by AI’s augment and assist capabilities
  • 40% of executives say that in the future they have a lot of changes to make to their business before they can take full advantage of AI
  • Over half (55%) said they were actively making changes right now to their business or operating models, or to their products and services, due to the potential benefits and risks of AI
  • 81% of executives highlight the need for global AI standards and regulations
  • 93% of executives surveyed in the Ireland  & United Kingdom said they have AI projects aimed at growing revenue. Executives in other regions are equally enthusiastic with 89% in North America, 88% in APAC, 83% in Continental Europe, and 80% in Latin America
  • Nearly two-thirds of BFSI (64%) and manufacturing (63%) industry executives surveyed say they are excited or optimistic about the impact of AI on businesses

“Since our inception in 1968, TCS has always been leading change in embracing new technologies, helping decipher the opportunities behind them and execute transformational projects for our clients to rapidly unlock business value. Through our TCS Thought Leadership Institute, we have brought in new insights on every key technology development and how various industries and personas (CEOs, CFOs, CIOs etc.) are leveraging them. Through this new, data-driven and unique global AI study, we hope to further deepen the dialogue and perspectives on how AI can be used to build stronger, more sustainable and adaptable businesses for the future,” said Abhinav Kumar, Chief Marketing Officer, TCS.

TCS Helps AIB life Launch Operations in Ireland with a Digital-First Platform Powered by TCS BaNCS

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has helped AIB life, the newly formed joint venture between Allied Irish Banks plc and Great-West Lifeco, launch operations in Ireland with a future-ready, digitally enabled, platform that supports its vision to help people on their path to financial security, one step at a time.

TCS was selected as the strategic partner to help build a digital first, full-service life company for the Irish market. TCS helped create a modern, cloud-based technology stack ground up, with its flagship insurance platform TCS BaNCS™ at the core that gives AIB’s 3.2 million customers the ability to access financial advice and a range of integrated AIB life protection, pensions, and investment products in their branch, by phone and via the AIB mobile banking app. The solution also integrates with AIB’s nationwide network of 120 financial advisors from whom customers can seek financial guidance.

TCS BaNCS’ configurability and rich functionality will enable AIB life to launch innovative new products and services. The entire solution is hosted on the cloud and its digital-first architecture provides APIs to enable easy integration with ecosystem partners to co-create new joint offerings.

In addition to designing and deploying the enabling technology stack, TCS will also provide IT, customer, and claims handling services for AIB life in a managed insurance services model. The end-to-end policy administration services will be provided from the TCS Global Delivery Centre in Letterkenny, Co. Donegal.

“Financial services firms and their customers around the world are benefitting from the rich functionality and omnichannel experiences offered by TCS BaNCS. Its Digital First, Cloud First architecture is tailor-made for the digital-first approach that AIB life has taken. We are delighted to support the launch of AIB life and be a partner in the exciting journey ahead,” said Vivekanand Ramgopal, President, BFSI Products and Platforms, TCS. “TCS BaNCS’ digital capabilities and configurability will help AIB life differentiate itself in the Irish market with innovative offerings that seamlessly support its customers in their personal financial journeys.”

Jacquie Doyle, COO, AIB life, said: “The Joint Venture between AIB and Great-West Lifeco, which will provide AIB customers with exclusive access to AIB life protection, pensions, and investment products, has entered into a 10-year partnership with TCS to build and operate a future-ready digital infrastructure that enables customers to more effectively plan their finances and investments.

“After an extensive review of the market, it was clear that TCS’ contextual industry knowledge, European cloud-based technology and global delivery team based in Letterkenny meant that they would be the perfect partners for us. As we look to grow this new greenfield life company, it is key that we build this on a foundation of cutting-edge technology. The global delivery centre in Letterkenny, where we will be servicing AIB life customers, will allow us to help our customers understand and improve their financial wellbeing and the financial security of their families and businesses.”

TCS is one of the world’s largest providers of services and solutions to the financial services industry and has been helping leading banks and financial institutions across the world in their growth and transformation journeys. Using its deep domain expertise, contextual knowledge, intellectual property and knowledge of global regulatory norms and risk management guidelines, TCS helps its customers leverage high levels of intelligent automation to reimagine their operations, enhancing their agility and competitiveness. For more information about TCS BFSI Products and Platforms, visit https://www.tcs.com/what-we-do/products-platforms/tcs-bancs.

TCS Cloud Study: Ireland CIOs Prioritise Cloud Investment, Despite Macro Headwinds

Tata Consultancy Services’ (TCS) latest survey of senior business leaders worldwide, ‘Connected Future: How Cloud Drives Business Innovation’ reveals that cloud remains a long-term investment priority for 74% of major corporations in Ireland, despite current macro headwinds and the recent slowing of growth of global cloud providers.

The global survey of 972 senior executives included 102 respondents from across the UK and Ireland. It reveals that innovation is a major driver of cloud investment, with 70% of Irish respondents reporting that cloud is crucial as a catalyst for innovation for their organisation’s future. This figure is significantly higher than the global average of 59%.

This appears particularly true for artificial intelligence (AI): 79% of Irish respondents invested in AI and machine learning capabilities over the past two years, while 83% plan to do so over the coming 12 – 24 months. Both technologies are highly dependent on access to large amounts of data and scalability through cloud.

68% of the Irish executives surveyed say they have invested appropriately in cloud while 11% recognised that they have under-invested in cloud-based technologies to date.

Over half of respondents from both Ireland and UK (56%) ranked ‘new ways of working to improve employee engagement and productivity (e.g., remote collaboration technology)’ as their most desired outcome for cloud-enabled innovation. Progress is underway, with 32% already realising their desired innovation outcomes in this area.

In addition, the study also finds a clear majority of respondents (75%) in Ireland and the UK are using cloud technologies to achieve their sustainability goals. This is higher than the global average of 67%, however, 48% reported difficulty in understanding the carbon footprints of cloud service providers. This suggests that while most respondents see cloud as an important—and thus far successful—part of their sustainability strategy and increasingly use cloud tools to assess their own carbon impact, they are now demanding the same visibility from their cloud providers.

Overall, despite significant progress in recent years, the study reveals that businesses still have a long way to go to unlock the full power and potential of cloud. Other key findings for Ireland and the UK include:

  • Industry clouds or ‘vertical clouds’ are rapidly emerging as a fast path to acquiring greater business expertise and capabilities, with an overwhelming majority of executives (79%) already assessing, adopting, or using them in business today. This is higher than the global average of 73%, indicating Ireland and the UK are ahead in leveraging the cloud for industrial applications.
  • 84% of respondents want to participate in digital ecosystems, but most are still far from realising their full value: 43% are still in the earliest stages of transition towards mature digital ecosystems.
  • Critical skills shortages continue to affect businesses in the cloud space, around half (up to 55%) of respondents report a lack of full cloud proficiencies in-house.

Gerard Grant, Director of Strategic Initiatives, TCS Ireland, said: “Despite the challenging economic climate, a majority of large enterprises in Ireland are prioritising long-term investment in the cloud to power innovations such as AI and drive new business models. Interestingly, Ireland is already making progress when it comes to industry-specific cloud deployments and achieving their sustainability goals. We expect to see an acceleration of innovation, as more businesses start to leverage cloud technologies for long-term growth and profitability.” 

Krishnan Ramanujam, President, Enterprise Growth Group, TCS, comments: “A desire for greater efficiency, resilience, and flexibility drove early cloud adoption, and these remain critical factors. Businesses now more fully understand how cloud drives business growth and innovation for the long-term, and for most, the journey is only just getting started.”   

“Cloud is a frequent source of short-term ROI anxieties, but growth and transformation is a long game. Reconciling these two realities is a challenge and a necessity, but fully achievable with the right strategy and planning. This is critical because cloud is now the unifying digital fabric of every enterprise, fuelling powerful technologies—from generative AI to edge and quantum computing—and is ushering the next wave of innovations now and into the future,” Ramanujam adds.

The 2023 TCS global cloud study surveyed 972 senior executives at companies exceeding $1 billion in annual revenue from multiple sectors across Asia, Europe and North America. A majority of the companies report annual revenues in excess of $5 billion. Individual markets surveyed include:

  • Continental Europe (Germany, Spain, France, Switzerland​, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg).
  • UK & Ireland
  • North America (USA, Canada, Mexico)​.
  • APAC​ (India, Japan, Australia, New Zealand).

To read the full report and receive further information, please visit https://www.tcs.com/insights/global-studies/tcs-global-cloud-study

TCS names Laura Farry as goIT Global Innovator of the Year

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) announced that Laura Farry, a third year student at secondary school, St Columba’s College Stranorlar in Donegal, has been named the 2022 goIT Global Innovator of the Year. The global competition had over 40,000 entrants and Laura, aged 15, was named the overall winner for the year.

This year, TCS set out to identify some of the top young talent the world has to offer through its flagship digital innovation and career readiness program, goIT (Go Innovate Together). goIT prepares students with the skills, confidence, and mindsets to pursue STEM careers.

During the program, students work to design tech-for-good solutions to address global problems aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). With a global footprint of 42 countries and more than 135,000 student participants, goIT is uniquely positioned to find, inspire, and activate the world’s top, young innovators ready to design solutions to all 17 of the United Nations SDGs.

John DiChiara, Global Head of TCS’ goIT program, said, “TCS’ objective with goIT is to demystify computer science and motivate students to pursue STEM education and become tomorrow’s technology leaders. As a first-year participant in goIT, with no explicit experience in design or computer science, Laura has captured the true essence of the program, designing a tech-based solution that directly impacts a need in her local community. Like Laura, students around the world are discovering their passion to learn about technology and apply their learnings to improve their community. We could not be prouder of what Laura has accomplished and we look forward to continuing to work with her to bring her concept to life.”

Laura Farry’s prize-winning concept titled ‘Educate Ukraine’, is based on the development of an app that would provide services for Ukrainian refugees in the community in which they are now living, featuring translation guides, the history of their new community, tourist attractions, shopping and food options, information on school systems, and available support groups.

Commenting on the decision to award Laura as the goIT Global Innovator of the Year, Chris Lynch, senior leadership executive at TCS said “We are so proud that Laura from Donegal was successful out of thousands of app innovation entries and named Global Innovator of the year; her compassion for her target audience and her confidence was truly remarkable, a worthy winner of the competition.”

Since being named Global Innovator of the Year, Laura has visited the TCS Global Delivery Centre in Letterkenny to receive her prize of €500 cash. As part of her prize €500 was also donated to the Donegal Intercultural Platform on Laura’s behalf. She will be the face of the TCS goIT programme for 2023 and will be invited as a guest to TCS events throughout the year. Empathy and an eagerness to learn and support those in need are characteristics TCS holds close as a company and Laura has truly embodied this in her winning concept.

Last year, a group of transition year students from Rosses Community School, Dungloe in Co. Donegal became the first Irish school to be selected as a monthly winner of the goIT Monthly Challenge.

TCS Launches Sustainathon Competition for University Students in Ireland to Tackle Environmental Issues with Digital Innovation

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has announced the launch of the 2022 UK and Ireland Sustainathon, a problem-solving competition that challenges university students to address corporate sustainability problems through innovative digital technology, creativity, and teamwork.

Registrations are now open for the 2022 Sustainathon, which invites university students to work alongside TCS and its partner network (via a virtual online portal) during a two-week sprint to devise digital solutions that can help businesses overcome their most urgent sustainability challenges.

“TCS is fully committed to addressing environmental challenges in the countries and communities we operate in, and to building a sustainable future through innovation and adoption of digital technologies,” said Andrea McBride, Head of TCS Global Delivery Centre, Letterkenny.

She added, “This is the first year that the TCS Sustainathon is available to students in Ireland. The competition has had great success in the UK and other regions over the last number of years and we are delighted to be able to offer Irish students the opportunity to be involved this year.”

TCS is engaging with universities across the UK and Ireland, including Atlantic Technological University (ATU) and North West Regional College (NWRC), Derry, to launch the competition, as part of its ongoing commitment to promote STEM skills, nurture young talent and support sustainable enterprise. TCS will work closely with its clients and supporting organisations as the challenge partners for 2022, including Phoenix Group, Lloyds Banking Group and Marks & Spencer.

Participating teams will be given a unique opportunity to join a series of interactive masterclasses, virtual mentoring sessions and online webinars with business and community leaders who will guide them through each stage of the ideation process and help to turn their concepts into a reality.

Irish academics partnering with TCS on this year’s competition, include Dr. Mark Kelly, Head of ATU Galway and Mayo Centre for Sustainability who will deliver an online ‘Sustainability Masterclass’ to all participating students from Ireland and UK and Francine Moran, Lecturer in Science and Sustainable Technologies at NWRC, participating as a guest panellist for a discussion session on ‘Sustainability and Career Paths’.

After presenting their solutions to the judges, the winning teams will be rewarded with sustainable prizes and an opportunity to showcase their ideas at the grand finale event on Tuesday 6th December. The judging panel will be comprised of representatives from UnifAI Technology, the Rail Delivery Group, a selection of not-for-profit organisations, and sustainability experts who are independent from the competition process. The members of the Grand Finale winning team will be offered one month paid internships with TCS.

Last year, the winning team ‘Biophilic’ from University College London was challenged to increase community engagement around sustainability by enhancing the digital functionality of Scotland’s National Entitlement Card (NEC) app. Biophilic was invited to present their winning concept to an audience of business leaders at TCS’ Innovation Forum in London, which resulted in the companies working with the students to develop their ideas into a real solution.

For more information and how to register, please visit:

https://www.sustainathon.tcsapps.com/events/ongoing/UKI2022