LONDON — Tata Consultancy Services has selected Ogilvy PR following a competitive review of its $4m global PR remit, PRovoke Media has learned.

It is understood that Ogilvy was appointed following a final round that featured four agencies. The assignment had been held by FleishmanHillard since 2004. The global PR remit does not include India, where TCS currently works with Adfactors. 

Abhinav Kumar, TCS chief marketing and communications officer for global markets, declined to comment. Representatives from Ogilvy PR and FleishmanHillard also declined to comment.

The review comes after TCS surpassed Accenture in market capitalisation last year, to become the world's most valuable IT company, with a market cap of $144.73 billion.

More recently, TCS was the first Tata company to restore salaries to pre-Covid levels, and has also announced two pay hikes in the past six months. These moves reflect the rapid recovery in India's IT sector since the onset of the pandemic.

TCS revenue dropped 6.3% y-o-y in Q2 2020, before rebounding to growth in subsequent quarters, led by life sciences and healthcare demand, along with the recovery in North America, which accounts for nearly 70% of Indian IT sector revenue. TCS revenues grew 3.7% in Q4 of 2020, the company's strongest fourth quarter performance in nine years. 

In 2018, TCS integrated its global marketing and communications functions under the leadership of global CMO Ravi Viswanathan, who left the company last year and was replaced by former global retail head Rajashree R.

Additional reporting by Maja Pawinska Sims