Bengaluru, May 13 -- In mid-February this year, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS), India's largest IT services exporter, held its annual strategic event called 'Blitz' in Dubai. Tata Sons chair, Natarajan Chandrasekaran, addressed around 800 employees present-he didn't sound happy.

Chandrasekaran, or Chandra as colleagues address him, underlined the underperformance of TCS in the stock market, according to two executives present at the event. In his 30-minute keynote address, the chairman used a PowerPoint slide to show that the shares of the Tata Group's 26 publicly listed companies were up 270% between 2020 and 2024. Barring TCS, the shares of this cohort were up over 530% in this period.

Chandra went on to lament that TCS was still...