N Chandrasekaran: Tata Consultancy Services to build a war chest for making acquisitions

NEW DELHI: Calling Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Japan visit a 'successful' one, N Chandrasekaran, MD & CEO of TCS told ET Now that he expects the PM's US visit to see similar success. "Prime Minister's visit to Japan was really successful. I am hoping that similar success will come out of the US visit," Chandrasekaran said.

Chandrasekaran went on to say, "Prime Minister's visit to the US is a great thing, not only because of IT companies, but because by and large there is a phenomenal opportunity between US and India." "Indian companies can do lot in the US, US companies can do lot in India across sectors,' he said.

According to Chandrasekaran, "The opportunity to increase bilateral trade in such that there is a huge impact on exports, imports or employment creation. It is probably one of the biggest opportunities."

Asked if he will be a part of the PM's delegation to US, Chandrasekaran said, "Though I am travelling to the US, but I am not part of the delegation."

Talking about whether TCS feels any pressure to make acquisitions, after Cognizant's recent move to acquire TriZetto, he said, "No, not at all. Every company has to have its strategy. It will be a big mistake if you extrapolate somebody else's strategy for your strategy."

Commenting on the company's plans to make acquisitions, Chandrasekaran said, "We did a deal in Japan, France. We will always look at geography expansion." "We will see if we can get any platforms which we think will be strategic for TCS," he added.

Chandrasekaran said that TCS will continue to pay healthy dividends. "We generate lot of cash. However, we will definitely maintain a certain amount of war chest for acquisitions."

Discussing the significance of business, he said, "There is a significant interest from customers. Our digital business is definitely growing faster than the rest of the company." "Digital business will generate at least $5 billion revenues in 4-5 years," he added.