Forrester covers the Innovation network concept of TCS which is an attempt to differentiate itself in an otherwise homogeneous market place, excerpts from the report:

Tata Consultancy Services' (TCS) launch of its Co-Innovation Network signals a major shift in the innovation strategy of global IT service providers. Instead of relying exclusively on in-house R&D capabilities, IT consultants like TCS are striving to comprehensively meet their clients' domain-specific business innovation needs by forming global innovation ecosystems composed of academic labs,startups, venture capital firms, large independent software vendors (ISVs), and lead users. As ecosystem building becomes the competitive locus of the global IT services market, corporate strategists at TCS's rival firms must actively drive the formation and expansion of their own client-focused Innovation Networks.

What is it?

TCS recently formally launched its Co-Innovation Network (COIN), a collaborative ecosystem of IT and business partners that work closely with TCS to
jointly develop and deliver client-valued innovations.

What does it plan to do?

It boasts R&D partnerships with a scope well beyond joint marketing and sales.

It sports an ambitious innovation agenda that cuts across domains and industries.

It collapses invention-to-market cycles to speed time-to-value for clients.

It is helping TCS evolve into a biz consultant by "industrializing" its IT services delivery.

TCS's COIN announcement heralds a major shift in the global IT services industry. The competitive locus of IT consultants is shifting from exploiting internal assets and talent to deliver client-valued services to orchestrating external ecosystems of innovative partners that can continually tune clients' business performance. Corporate strategists in IT consulting firms, particularly the Indian vendors, must strive to match TCS's innovation ecosystem capabilities.9 As they start building their firms' Innovation Networks, heads of strategy in IT service providers must seek out clients' active participation in formation of their ecosystems, the client organization being the ultimate beneficiary of innovations that emanate from these ecosystems. Smart strategists will do the following:

Enable clients to harness ecosystem capabilities to drive breakthrough business models.

Invite entrepreneurial clients to finance promising inventions of ecosystem partners.

Broker non-IT execs' access to domain expertise available in their Innovation Networks.

Source: 1, 2

Prashanth Rai