Tata Consultancy Services was established in the year 1968 and is a pioneer in the Indian IT industry.Despite unfavourable government regulations like the Licence Raj the company succeeded in establishing the Indian IT Industry.

It began as the "Tata Computer Centre", a division of the Tata Group whose main business was to provide computer services to other group companies. F C Kohli was the first general manager. JRD Tata was the first chairman, followed by Nani Palkhivala.

One of TCS' first assignments was to provide punch card services to a sister concern, Tata Steel (then TISCO). It later bagged the country's first software project, the Inter-Branch Reconciliation System (IBRS) for the Central Bank of India. It also provided bureau services to Unit Trust of India, thus becoming one of the first companies to offer BPO services.

In the early 1970s, Tata Consultancy Services started exporting its services. TCS's first international order came from Burroughs, one of the first business computer manufacturers. TCS was assigned to write code for the Burroughs machines for several US-based clients. This experience also helped TCS bag its first onsite project - the Institutional Group & Information Company (IGIC), a data centre for ten banks, which catered to two million customers in the US, assigned TCS the task of maintaining and upgrading its computer systems.

In 1981, TCS set up India's first software research and development center, the Tata Research Development and Design Center (TRDDC). The first client-dedicated offshore development center was set up for Compaq (then Tandem) in 1985.

In 1989, TCS delivered an electronic depository and trading system called SECOM for SIS SegaInterSettle, Switzerland. It was by far the most complex project undertaken by an Indian IT company. TCS followed this up with System X for the Canadian Depository System and also automated the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE). TCS associated with a Swiss partner, TKS Teknosoft, which it later acquired.

In the early 1990s, the Indian IT outsourcing industry grew tremendously due to the Y2K bug and the launch of a unified European currency, Euro. TCS pioneered the factory model for Y2K conversion and developed software tools which automated the conversion process and enabled third-party developers and clients to make use of it.

In 1999, TCS saw outsourcing opportunity in E-Commerce and related solutions and set up its E-Business division with ten people. By 2004, E-Business was contributing half a billion dollars (US) to TCS.

On 9 August 2004, TCS became a publicly listed company, much later than its rivals, Infosys, Wipro and Satyam.

During 2004, TCS ventured into a new area for an Indian IT services company - Bioinformatics.

In 2008, the company went through an internal restructuring exercise that executives claim would bring about agility to the organization.