How TCS is taking the Coastal route to reach Top 5 Salesforce GSI status

Late last year TCS announced its intention to acquire Coastal Cloud, one of the biggest pureplay Salesforce consulting firms in the US. Aside from impacting the US Salesforce ecosystem, this news was stunning for another reason – TCS rarely makes acquisitions. Unlike GSIs such as Accenture who hoover up companies on an almost weekly basis, TCS has maintained its somewhat unfashionable stance that sustainable companies grow organically.

At $700 million, the deal, which has just closed, is TCS’s largest since 2008 when it purchased Citigroup Global Services Ltd, Citi’s captive BPO operation for around $500 million. I took the opportunity to speak with Coastal Cloud CEO Eric Berridge to find out what is behind the latest deal.