Lalit Surajmal Kanodia (born 30 March 1941) is an Indian business entrepreneur. He is chairman of Datamatics Group of Companies which he founded in 1975, national president of the Indo - American Chamber of Commerce and vice president of the Indian Merchants Chamber, both organizations of the Indian business community. He has also served as president of the Management Consultants Association of India.

Early life and education

Lalit Kanodia was born in

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

(then Calcutta) in

West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fou ...

(India), the son of Shri Surajmal Kanodia, a bullion merchant and Smt. Chandravati Kanodia, a home maker. His family moved to

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...

in 1942. Kanodia attended

Bombay Scottish School The Bombay Scottish School, Mahim (BSS or BSS Mahim), popularly known as Scottish, is a private, Christian co-educational day school located at Mahim West in Mumbai, India. The institution was established in 1847 by Scottish Christian missionar ...

. Besides his academics, he participated in athletics and captained his schools’ football Team. Kanodia studied science in

Elphinstone College Elphinstone College is one of the constituent colleges of Dr. Homi Bhabha State University, a state cluster university. Established in 1823, it is one of the oldest colleges in Mumbai. It played a major role in shaping and developing the ed ...

Bombay University The University of Mumbai is a collegiate, state-owned, public research university in Mumbai. The University of Mumbai is one of the largest universities in the world. , the university had 711 affiliated colleges. Ratan Tata is the appointed ...

for 2 years. He was then admitted to

Indian Institute of Technology Bombay The Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay or IITB) is a public research university and technical institute in Powai, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. It is considered as one of the best engineering universities in India and is top rank ...

, where he studied

Mechanical Engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, an ...

. After graduating in 1963, Lalit secured admission to

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...

, MA and completed his MS in Management in 1965 with the highest grade in the graduating class. He was awarded the

Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a US$25,000 gift from Edsel Ford. By 1947, after the death ...

Fellowship while at MIT. He returned to MIT in 1966 for his PhD in management, which he completed in 1967. Lalit was a member of the

Project MAC Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is a research institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) formed by the 2003 merger of the Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) and the Artificial Intelligence Lab ...

that built Compatible Time-Sharing System and

MULTICS Multics ("Multiplexed Information and Computing Service") is an influential early time-sharing operating system based on the concept of a single-level memory.Dennis M. Ritchie, "The Evolution of the Unix Time-sharing System", Communications of ...

(the first two multi-user computer operating systems and precursors to

UNIX Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, an ...

Teaching

While at

, Kanodia taught a course on

statistical decision theory Decision theory (or the theory of choice; not to be confused with choice theory) is a branch of applied probability theory concerned with the theory of making decisions based on assigning probabilities to various factors and assigning numerical ...

to MBA students (1964–65). Later, in India he taught MBA students for 2 years (during 1968–70) at the

Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies is the Department of Management Studies of the University of Mumbai. The institute is named after industrialist and philanthropist, Jamnalal Bajaj. Programmes JBIMS offers full-time Masters in ...

, Bombay University.

Tata Consultancy Services

In 1965,

JRD Tata Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata (29 July 1904 – 29 November 1993) was a French- Indian aviator, industrialist, entrepreneur and chairman of Tata Group. Born into the Tata family of India, he was the son of noted businessman Ratanji Dadabh ...

, the then chairman of

Tata Group The Tata Group () is an Indian multinational conglomerate headquartered in Mumbai. Established in 1868, it is India's largest conglomerate, with products and services in over 150 countries, and operations in 100 countries across six continents ...

was contemplating to start a software company. He asked Kanodia to study the feasibility of computerization within the Tata Group. Kanodia wrote three papers for the Tata Group which led to

automation Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, namely by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machines ...

of the Load Dispatch System of the Tata Electric Companies by Westinghouse, Computerization of the electricity billing system of the company and formation of a software development center. Kanodia then returned to

for his doctorate. He returned to India to form and head the software development center for the

. Kanodia formed the Tata Computer Center in 1967, later called

Tata Consultancy Services Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is an Indian multinational information technology (IT) services and consulting company with its headquarters in Mumbai. It is a part of the Tata Group and operates in 150 locations across 46 countries. In July ...

in 1968.

Consulting

While in the United States, Kanodia consulted for Arthur D. Little and the

Ford Motor Company Ford Motor Company (commonly known as Ford) is an American multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. The company sells automobi ...

. In India, he has been a consultant to the State Bank of India, the Somani Group and the Kamani Group of companies.

Datamatics

Kanodia established his own group of companies called " Datamatics" in 1975 with10 employees. In 1979 he set-up the first dedicated offshore development center for

Wang Laboratories Wang Laboratories was a US computer company founded in 1951 by An Wang and G. Y. Chu. The company was successively headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts (1954–1963), Tewksbury, Massachusetts (1963–1976), and finally in Lowell, Massachuset ...

. He also established the first satellite link for Software development from India, between its software development center in

and AT&T Bell labs USA in 1991. This led to the foundation of BPO services in India and Kanodia formally started another company "Datamatics Technologies Limited" with 100% focus on BPO and KPO services. The start of BPO services helped Datamatics spread its wing globally and it acquired SAZTEC and CorPay, two US based companies in 1997 and 2003 respectively. Since then Datamatics has acquired other companies internationally. As of Lalit is Group Chairman of Datamatics which comprises: * Datamatics Global Services Ltd (A listed Company with BSE/NSE) * CIGNEX Datamatics Technologies Ltd * Lumina Datamatics Ltd * Datamatics Staffing Services Ltd

Personal life

Lalit has four children with his wife Asha Kanodia. Eldest son Rahul Kanodia is vice chairman and CEO of Datamatics Global Services and youngest son Sameer Kanodia is an Executive Director. His two daughters Aneesha and Amrita are married.

Recognition

# Indian Affairs Indian of the year Award for IT, Consulting and BPO services # Special Achievement Award at Asia Pacific Entrepreneurship Awards # Global Achiever Award for Business Excellence # Award from Prime Minister of India for the most innovative software product Kanodia was president of the Management Consultants' Association of India. He is National President of the Indo - American Chamber of Commerce. He is vice president of Indian Merchants Chamber and chairman of its IT committee. He was a member of the executive committee of NASSCOM. He has been Chairman of the Electronic & Computer Software Export Promotion Council (Western Region). He joined the executive board of the Sloan School of Management, at MIT in 2008. He served as the Honorary Consul General of Chile in India from 2002 to 2014.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kanodia, Lalit Surajmal Honorary Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire MIT Sloan School of Management alumni Businesspeople from Mumbai Businesspeople from Haryana 20th-century Indian businesspeople 1941 births Living people Indian industrialists IIT Bombay alumni