Billion-dollar targets

Lesser tycoons make a big hue and cry about hitting the one million customers mark in various sectors. Why should Ratan Tata then be left be...

Lesser tycoons make a big hue and cry about hitting the one million customers mark in various sectors. Why should Ratan Tata then be left behind? After all, being owner of a company that has crossed the 1 billion mark as far as revenues is concerned is a big deal too. TCS earnings now at Rs 5,012 crore 1.04 billion are 20 per cent higher than last year8217;s revenues. This is unique more because this is also first time TCS has reported its revenues separately from that of Tata Sons, of which it is after all, a division. After Maruti and Patni8217;s great IPO, Tata is determined to outdo them and has appointed merchant bankers and thus seems to have appropriately publicised its record-breaking revenues in order to push the success of its planned IPO. But the one billion revenues aren8217;t the only reason for Tata to be smiling, there is more. TCS has just won the 8216;Banker Technology Award8217; 2003 by Financial Times Group and the Banker magazine, for the CDSX project that it had previously undertaken for CDS Canadian Depository for Securities Ltd. Impressed with its work, the CDS has signed up TCS on a 5-year contract. Apart from this, SBI8217;s largest domestic project in the IT industry and Toyota Financial Services8217; maintenance support contract in the US are also in its kitty, which again is no surprise, considering TCS scale and technical skills. The latest on Ratan Tata8217;s wish list is to make TCS into one of the top 10 software service organisations in the world by 2010, by hitting the 7 billion mark.

No stops for clothes

It seems like every retailer has discovered that the latest craze among us Indians is that of lifestyle clothing and accessories. So we have Benetton, Reebok, and Lee expanding their ranges. Indian players are not far behind. B.S. Nagesh, the tycoon behind India8217;s largest retailing chain, Shoppers Stop, is ecstatic, because last year when Austin Reed8217;s CEO visited India in search for a suitable partner, he chose Shoppers Stop over brands like S Kumar8217;s and Raymonds. Austin Reed has more than 50 outlets in the UK, and uses international licenses across the globe. Now it will bring its Autumn-Winter collection for men out into the market through Shoppers Stop.

Channels galore

It seems in spite of the problems CAS has created in the lives of consumers and broadcasters even before its implementation, it hasn8217;t dampened the spirits of M. Raajhendhran, the tycoon behind Raj TV. For shortly after releasing his Telugu channel Visa, which is presently competing with Sun Network8217;s Gemini TV and Teja TV, he now plans to launch a Kannada and Malayalam channel as well. That8217;s not all, apart from them there will also be a round-the-clock multi-language music channel called Raj Musix, and a 24-hour news channel similar to Sun News. The nine-year-old Tamil satellite channel company already had the distinction of being the among the first private channels in South India to have had its own OB Outdoor Broadcast van. Now, Raajhendhran plans to add another feather in his cap by being the first to have a Hindi news bulletin, along with three Telugu ones. The tycoon8217;s ambitious plans will require at least Rs 42 crore for their successful implementation. Raj TV8217;s own revenues being Rs 40 crore, some financiers consider the risk not worth taking. Considering its boom time and also hectic competition time for channels and considering that everybody who is somebody wants to launch their own channel, why shouldn8217;t Raajhendhran expand the bandwagon?

Dilip Cherian runs a public relations firm Perfect Relations. He is an economy watcher and tycoon tracker. The people he writes about are not his clients. Send your dope to dilipcherianhotmail.com