Tata Consultancy Services

Imagine a course designed by your future employer, which would not only provide special training but even an insight into corporate work life.(TCS) is working towards making that happen.TCS, the Mumbai-based IT service, consulting and business solutions company is all set to introduce in Bengaluru, company-designed bachelor of commerce (BCom) and bachelor of business administration (BBA) courses, with specialisation in business process services (BPS).In an attempt to bridge the wide gap between the academia and industry, these tailor-made programmes are aimed at enhancing employability and augmenting talent supply for the BPS industry. The courses will be introduced during the academic year starting 2015 in St Joseph’s College of Commerce and CMR Institute of Management Studies.“The future is in professionally-integrated courses. This sector has a very high potential and a majority of employment will come from business process services. This is a win-win situation for the industry and academia,” said Ravi Richard, head of department, commerce, St Josephs College of Commerce.Students can choose business process as a specialisation in their final year, for which eight papers will be designed by TCS.Topics of study include banking and financial services, insurance, retail, two papers of business process management and a specially-designed ‘campus to corporate’ transition module.“TCS understands needs of the industry and hence has designed the course accordingly. What it is doing with this course is, it is baking a bigger cake for the whole industry. This will benefit them in the long run,” said Mukherji S G, dean, management and commerce, CMR Institute of Management Studies.St Joseph’s has already received around 130 applications for the specialised course and expects more after 12th/pre-university results are announced.CMR Institute, which will be starting the programme in July this year, also expects a large volume of applications. “We build the base, but specialised subjects like retail analytics and use of big data in businesses are not in syllabus, and we need expertise from industry giants like TCS to teach these to our students,” said Mukherji.Faculty of the colleges will also receive training from TCS, with training extending anywhere between two and three weeks each semester. Students undergo 600 hours of learning and the programme employs a blended approach with exposure to core subjects, industry practices and domain knowledge.“Our goal is to collaborate with leading universities across the country and scale up the supply of graduates with BPS specialisation to about 10,000 students annually to create a sustainable talent pool for the BPS industry and increase the employability quotient of students,” said Ranjan Bandhopadhya, vice-president and head, human resources, TCS BPS. “This is a pioneering effort that contributed to social transformation and has been recognised as a world-class practice