UPDATE(20 Mar 2010) – Below comparison is based on someone’s PERCEPTION, its not final or true words.. Its about you, how well you received acknowledgement in either of the big MNC. As per me, TCS is really good to work with. So just ENJOY the article ..

TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES
Experience Certainty.
“This is something that our clients already know; now we are letting the Cat
out of the Bag”
Vision: “To be Global Top 10 by 2010”

INFOSYS TECHNOLOGIES LTD
Win the Flat World.
“The competition has been leveled, the world is flat”

These are the two leading Indian IT companies that are set to lead the IT
world globally. Both are basically “Computer Services Companies” even though
they have their own Products like “Infy Finacle” and “TCS Quartz”.

Even though they compete in the same area,
Even though they have many common clients,
Even though they do a lot of similar work,
these two are totally different in the way they work, their policies, the
way they see the clients/employees, the way they handle projects.

TCS is a 39 year old $4 billion company compared to Infosys which is 25 year
old $3 billion company. Let’s compare from two perspectives:
1) Customer
2) Employee

1) Customer
As a Customer to these two companies, you won’t find much differences. Both
deliver things on time, both deliver code of same quality etc.
But TCS may be a bit cheaper than Infosys, but latter may guarantee more
quality
for that price.

2) Employee
As an Employee, one can see a lot of differences.

1) Work Pressure
This is the first and foremost thing an employee looks for. Here obviously
TCS scores. You will rarely see people slogging in TCS whereas there is no
Infy without Slogging. Of course this difference to certain extent comes
from some extra quality things that are done at Infy, but still TCS do not
mind saying “No” when it’s difficult. Infy manager rarely has the world “No”
in their dictionary.

Note: No matter what facilities a company provides, if the workload is high,
your life will be miserable.

2) Remuneration
Infy have a well defined compensation policy. They have increments every
year and everything follows proper process. At the end, TCS guy too have the
same salary, but there are no processes as such.
One good thing about TCS is their Variable pay is less compared to infy
i.e. TCS gives what they promises but Infy may not.

Infosys is a company that loves to make Employees pay tax.
In a way, Infy is more patriotic.
TCS is more practical and loves to be in the side of employees.

3) Infrastructure
Well, this point, don’t even think of comparing. They are miles apart.
Infosys has world class facilities which only a few companies can boast of.
TCS infrastructure is pathetic say even it is Buildings, Computers,
Internet, Transport or Food courts. Computers @ TCS are generations behind.

4) Security
“Too much security” is an apt phrase for TCS. It is good from customer point
of view, but very very bad from an Employee point of view. You need to get
lot of permissions to login to a system and need a lot of access to make it
working. Half your life will go in TCS raising tickets or you will become
too lazy that you will stop using some of the facilities instead of raising
tickets. Life is so much better at Infy where things are “Hare paced’ not
“Tortoise paced” like TCS processes.

5) Work Culture
Infy has a lot of team building activities, cultural programs etc from the
HR side where as a TCS guy will see an HR only when he is in bench.
But sometimes the Infy activities end up creating a lot of pressure which
finally ends up in dissatisfaction which was actually intented Employee
satisfaction. But Infy do score here.

6) Ethics
Infy is really a company with a conscience. It is very transparent and
manages things in a beautiful way. It is indeed the “BEST MANAGED COMPANY”.
TCS has to go a long way in this to achieve this level of Transparency even
though they are trying.

7) Initiatives
There are a lot of initiatives that happens in Infy like for example “The
Ozone initiative”. It aims at reducing the paper usage. Infy will never use
paper unless it’s very necessary. “Online” rules Infy.

In TCS, one can see paper paper every where. Even for a survey, they don’t
have a proper “Survey” tool, which in turn leads them to the Manual paper
survey which not only leads to inefficiency but also it wastes lot of paper,
which in turn wood, which in turn trees, which in turns harms the Nature.

Btw, sometimes i do prefer certain things in Paper.

Then there are very active Bulletin Boards, Writer’s Forums etc in Infy
which you will never find in any another company.

8) Brand Name
Infy shows the ordinary things as Extra ordinary. That is their way of
Branding while TCS was not bothered about branding till now as they had a
strong Backbone from “TATA”. Now they have realized the importance of
branding and they have started a good campaign for better branding.

9) Code Quality Vs Documentation
Code Quality is the keyword of TCS while Infy will bore people with the word
“Documentation”. Even though the word “Documentation” is boring, it is very
important in the long run.

10) Average Age
Average age of employees in Infy is much less than that of TCS. TCS runs
mainly with Experienced people where as Infy is a “Fresher” driven company
making it more like college.

11) Processes
Too many Processes spoil the Code. This happens only in Infy.

Each company has its Prons and Cons. It’s the Employee who should decide
what they want.