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Contents
VOL 52 | ISSUE 2 JULY 2014
Cover story
THE BUSINESS
EXCELLENCE JOURNEY
(1994 – 2014)
A special report celebrating two
decades of the Tata group’s
business excellence journey
In conversation
6
THE VISION: JRD TATA
8
OVERVIEW: THE ROAD TO EXCELLENCE
— Gayatri Kamath
11 THE JOURNEY: RATAN TATA
12 THE WAY FORWARD: CYRUS P MISTRY
54 ‘MY ROLE IS TO
HARNESS PEOPLE
POTENTIAL FOR THE
GREATER GOOD’
NS Rajan speaks to
Cynthia Rodrigues
14 ‘OUR COMPANIES ARE OUR PRIMARY CUSTOMERS’
— S Padmanabhan speaks to Cynthia Rodrigues
17 JAMSHED J IRANI ON BUSINESS EXCELLENCE
18 ‘TBEM CAN HELP COMPANIES REACH THE PINNACLE
OF BUSINESS EXCELLENCE’
— Prasad Menon speaks to Christabelle Noronha
Business
58 TATA STEEL: COUNTDOWN
AT KALINGANAGAR
— Nithin Rao
21 SUNIL SINHA ON BUSINESS EXCELLENCE
62 TATA MOTORS: MOTORING
EXPERIENCES
22 MENTORS: GUIDANCE FROM THE GURUS
28 ASSESSORS: DRIVERS OF EXCELLENCE
WITH ZEST
64 NATSTEEL: SCRAP TO
STEEL
— Shubha Madhukar
BUSINESS EXCELLENCE: CASE STUDIES
33 TATA DAEWOO COMMERCIAL VEHICLE COMPANY
36 JAGUAR LAND ROVER
68 TATA CLASSEDGE:
LEARNING SOLUTIONS WITH
A DIFFERENCE
— Nithin Rao
39 TATA STEEL
42 TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES
45 PHOTO GALLERY: THE BUSINESS EXCELLENCE JOURNEY
52 PERSPECTIVE: SURESH LULLA
EDITOR
Christabelle Noronha
Photofeature
Email: chris@tata.com
71 TITAN COMPANY, JEWELLERY DIVISON:
A SEDUCTIVE MIX OF SCIENCE AND SKILL
— Shubha Madhukar
EDITORIAL TEAM
Anjali Mathur
Cynthia Rodrigues
Gayatri Kamath
Jai Madan
Philip Chacko
Sangeeta Menon
Shilpa Sachdev
Shubha Madhukar
CONTRIBUTORS
Nithin Rao
Shalini Menon
DESIGN
Abraham K John
Shilpa Naresh
PRODUCTION
Mukund Moghe
Community
Book review
85 MANAGING THE CHIMP
IN YOUR MIND
— Nithin Rao
EDITED AND CREATED BY
in association with
The Information Company.
Email: grouppublications@tata.com
Website: www.tata.com
CONTACT
Tata Sons
Bombay House
24, Homi Mody Street
Mumbai 400 001
76 TATA TRUSTS: MAKING
Phone: 91-22-6665 8282
EACH DROP GO AN
EXTRA ACRE
DISCLAIMER
— Shalini Menon
All matter in Tata Review is
copyrighted. Material published
80 TATA AFRICA: SKILLS
FOR PROGRESS
— Cynthia Rodrigues
82 TATA STEEL
SCAN AND WATCH VIDEOS
FROM TATA REVIEW.
GET THE APP!
PROCESSING AND
1. SCAN THE QR CODE ON PHONE
TO DOWNLOAD THE APP
DISTRIBUTION: EQUAL
2. INSTALL AND LAUNCH THE APP
OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL
— Cynthia Rodrigues
3. SCAN THE IMAGE WITH THE
LOGO TO PLAY THE VIDEO
in it can be reproduced with
permission. To know more,
please email the editor.
JRD TATA,
Chairman,
Tata Sons
(1938 - 1991)
One must forever strive for excellence, or
even perfection, in any task, however small,
and never be satisfied with second best.
The business
excellence journey
(1994-2014)
Twenty years ago, the Tata group set forth on a search
for excellence that has had a far-reaching and lasting
impact on the entire organisation. It has enhanced the
reputation and value of the Tata brand. It has spurred
the growth of individual Tata companies and laid the
foundation for them to go global. And it has been the
magic glue that has brought the group together, binding
Tata companies together in bonds of a shared vision
and values.
This special report celebrates two decades of the
Tata group’s business excellence journey with a
medley of company stories, leadership perspectives
and the experiences of some of the key players who
contributed to its success.
COVER STORY
The road to excellence
The Tata group’s 20-year-old business excellence journey has
established the bedrock supporting the growth of the Tata brand
and its reputation across geographies
C
an it be a coincidence that Tata Steel,
Tata Consultancy Services and Tata
Chemicals are among the world’s
largest organisations in their respective
businesses? Or that Titan, Tata Power and
Indian Hotels are not just India’s biggest, but also
acknowledged as best in class in their businesses?
There are two commonalities to these
very diverse, disparate entities — one is the
overarching Tata brand name, and the second is
their status as front-runners in the group-wide
business excellence movement called the Tata
Business Excellence Model (TBEM).
Launched two decades ago, TBEM has been
the driving force that has pushed Tata companies
Crusaders of TBEM: former TQMS chairmen JK Setna (left) and
Madhu Bhagwat (right)
July 2014
8 Tata Review „
to benchmark themselves against leading global
companies and strive for excellence in their
respective sectors. Over the years, this unique
group initiative has forged an abiding culture of
excellence, adding lustre to the Tata brand.
Acknowledging this, Group Chairman
Cyrus P Mistry had this to say about the behindthe-scenes role played by TBEM: “In the last 20
years of our business excellence journey, some
of our companies have become global leaders,
some have achieved leadership positions in India
and most have got better in customer relations,
in operational excellence, in profit orientation,
in strategising and in competitiveness. TBEM
has been the glue in binding the group together
and enhancing the Tata brand.”
THE GENESIS
To understand how and why TBEM has played
such a vital role in the group, it is necessary
to trace the journey from its genesis. Twenty
years ago, Ratan Tata, then newly-anointed
as Chairman, was faced with the challenge of
making the Tata marque a uniform symbol
of excellence across a group of diverse and
independently run companies. His solution to
the problem: TBEM, a group-wide platform
that would encourage, support and recognise
companies working to embed the tenets of
COVER STORY
business excellence in their operations.
The methodology is modelled on the popular
US-based quality initiative, the Malcolm Baldrige
National Quality Award. The recognition element
is the JRD Quality Value (QV) Award, named
after JRD Tata, a vocal proponent of quality and
excellence. The high aspiration levels for the award
can be seen from the fact that there have been only
15 winners in the history of the award.
What made TBEM unique in the annals of
Tata history was that it was the very first pan-Tata
initiative, the first group connector that brought
together Tata companies and people from across
businesses and geographies. It was also the first
step towards making Tata companies conscious
about the quality that they deliver to customers
and their overall organisational quality, which is
what business excellence is all about.
Underscoring the seriousness with which the
Tata leadership viewed business excellence, the
Tata group made TBEM a mandatory component
of the Brand Equity and Business Promotion
(BEBP) agreement, which every Tata company
has to sign. All signatories to this agreement have
to adopt the Tata Code of Conduct (TCoC) and
TBEM. In other words, the BEBP agreement
confers on an operating company the right to use
the Tata brand in return for a commitment to run
the business ethically and excellently.
In the 2008 publication, The Business of
Excellence, Ratan Tata talked about the immense
significance of TBEM in the Tata group: “That
was a time when many of our companies had
their heads in the sand. The dominant impression
was that we were less nimble than others, more
resistant to change and extremely set in our
ways. What we needed to do was benchmark
ourselves against the brightest and the best, and
get away from doing things the way we had done
them in the past. The Tata Business Excellence
Model set the tone and created the foundation
for what, I believe, was perhaps one of the more
critical transformation initiatives the group has
undertaken in recent times.”
MEASURING EXCELLENCE
The transformation that TBEM has induced is a
result of the deep focus that Tata companies have
The TBEM process
TQMS helps
companies
to roll out
TBEM
Tata company
z
Signs BEBP pact
z
Adopts TBEM and TCoC
z
Focuses on improving key business
operations* and internalising the TCoC
Application
Tata company applies for TBEM assessment
Assessment
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Mentors and internal champions provide guidance
Learning
TBEM highlights strengths and opportunities
for improvement
Reward
If TBEM score exceeds 650 the company wins the JRD QV Award
*Includes leadership, strategic planning, customer focus, measurement,
analysis and knowledge management, workforce focus, process
management and business results.
brought to bear on critical aspects of business
excellence such as leadership, strategic planning,
customer focus, measurement, analysis and
knowledge management, workforce focus, process
management and business results.
TBEM includes a tough assessment process
that gives real-world and relevant feedback
to companies on the ways they can improve.
Companies are scored on a scale of 1,000 points,
and crossing 650 points brings with it TBEM’s
grand prize, the JRD QV Award (which is
announced in a glittering ceremony held on July
29 every year, JRD Tata’s birth anniversary).
The true impact of TBEM on the group
can be clearly seen in the numbers. From the 12
companies that participated in the JRD QV Award
in that historical first assessment in 1995, the
numbers have gone up steadily, hitting a peak of
60 companies in 2010. The average company score
has increased dramatically from the low 215 in
1995, to 463 in 2004 to 492 in 2013.
An unlooked for but hugely positive impact
that is a side effect of the TBEM journey is the
cohesiveness that it has brought about among
July 2014 „
Tata Review
9
COVER STORY
TQMS’s diagnostic processes
DIP-CHECK ASSESSMENT
TBEM ASSESSMENT
Examines strengths and
opportunities across the value
DIBJOPGUIFBQQMJDBOU8PSLTBT
Basic assessment for early
maturity companies
Regular assessment for
maturing companies
Advanced assessment for
mature companies
DEEP-DIVE ASSESSMENT
Seeks to dive deep
into the chosen areas
and come up with
recommendations to
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Tata companies. Managers and leaders who
participated in the assessment and evaluation
processes found themselves learning from other
companies, sharing best practices with others
and becoming a part of a growing and connected
network of expert resources. Today Tata Motors
taps into Tata Steel for gyan (knowledge) on total
quality management (TQM), Tata Steel looks to
Tata Global Beverages for best practices in retail
distribution, and so on. When it comes to best
practices, the learning is boundaryless within
the group.
TOWARDS TOMORROW
In keeping with the ‘change for the better’
philosophy, TBEM itself has gone through
several evolutionary stages in the last two
decades. It has morphed and grown and evolved,
becoming more robust and comprehensive with
each change, and now it forms the bedrock
of the business excellence movement across
the Tata group. From a business excellence
initiative that merely looked at processes within
a company, TBEM has become a versatile change
management platform. In 2003, a pan-Tata
movement to improve corporate governance and
knowledge management became a part of the
TBEM initiative. The group’s efforts to mitigate
climate change and drive innovation became
a part of TBEM in 2007. Safety metrics came
under the TBEM lens in 2009.
In the last couple of years, TBEM has again
transformed to remain relevant to its audience.
The mark for winning the JRD QV Award has
been raised from 600 (until last year) to 650,
because TBEM terms a company in the score band
of 651-750 as ‘industry leader’, and 650+ denotes
July 2014
10 Tata Review „
A customised form of basic
TBEM assessment, it does
not expect any prescribed
input documentation from the
BQQMJDBOU*UJTOPUBTTPDJBUFE
with the award process, and
is conducted on a mutually
BHSFFEUJNFGSBNF
the zone of ‘true excellence’. The TBEM process
has now been expanded to include engagement
with the company board on opportunities for
improvement. Another change is that three
different levels of assessment are being offered.
Apart from the standard assessment, mature
companies can opt for an advanced assessment
process which involves deeper engagements,
longer on-site assessments, scrutiny from more
senior assessors, and so on. Tata Motors, TCS,
Titan and Tata Steel have opted for the advanced
assessment. Less mature companies can opt for
a simpler basic assessment. TQMS also offers
diagnostic processes such as deep-dive and dipcheck assessments. More such changes are in the
offing, as S Padmanabhan, executive chairman,
Tata Quality Management Services, explains,
“The TBEM infrastructure and systems have
to become more modern, more relevant to the
current times.”
In the following pages, Tata Review presents
a perspective by former group Chairman Ratan
Tata, an interview with S Padmanabhan, and
articles by former TQMS chairman Prasad
Menon and former chief of TQMS Sunil Sinha.
This special report also includes experiences of
a few mentors and of four Tata companies —
Jaguar Land Rover, Tata Consultancy Services,
Tata Daewoo and Tata Steel – and excerpts from
The Business of Excellence book. Through these
articles, this special report aims to show the
tremendous impact that the business excellence
journey has had on the Tata group, and the way
it has led to Tata companies forging new paths in
their quest for growth.
— Gayatri Kamath
COVER STORY
RATAN TATA,
former Chairman,
Tata Sons, at
the first JRD QV
Award function,
1995
We are moving into a highly competitive
environment — the India of tomorrow.
Obviously, if our name should stand
above that of our competitors, we need
to be highly market oriented, much
more driven to the customer’s needs,
much more sensitive to the needs of the
marketplace and conscious of the quality
of our products and services…and more
importantly, conscious and aware of the
quality of our business processes.
July 2014 „
Tata Review
11
‘TBEM HAS BEEN
THE GLUE IN BINDING
THE GROUP TOGETHER’
CYRUS P MISTRY, CHAIRMAN, TATA GROUP
W
hen the Tata group started the
business excellence journey in
1994, the endeavour was to work
together to craft a collective vision by
taking advantage of our shared heritage,
values and principles. The exercise
which commenced in 1994 with the JRD
Quality Value Award, gave a new focus to
business excellence. The award was the
seed from which the quality movement
grew and the Tata Business Excellence
Model (TBEM) became the formal explicit
component in the group’s drive towards
business excellence.
TBEM set the tone and created the
foundation for a critical transformational
exercise in the group. This was the basis
for the improvement that would happen in
the years to come.
In the last 20 years of our business
excellence journey, some of our companies
have become global leaders, some have
achieved leadership positions in India
and most have got better in customer
relations, in operational excellence, in
OQNÚSØNQHDMS@SHNMØHMØRSQ@SDFHRHMFØ@MCØ
in competitiveness. TBEM has been
the glue in binding the group together
and enhancing the Tata brand. TBEM
has provided a platform for high quality
networking among professionals across
the Tata group.
As the journey continues we need
to give an impetus to human relations,
customer centricity, performance
excellence and performance management
systems and operational excellence. We
need to create a culture of agility and a
culture of a learning organisation. We
need to create more leaders, be more
sensitive to our customers and treat them
as our ambassadors, and enhance the
performance culture and performance
management in our companies.
Additionally, we need to create long-term
value for all our stakeholders — customers,
ÚM@MBH@KØRS@JDGNKCDQRØDLOKNXDDRØU@KTD
chain partners and society.
The business excellence movement
is really about corporate leadership. It is
not about winning a prize or an award; it
relates to putting processes in place and
shaping a mindset that makes us better as
an organisation and more conscious of our
requirements.
Our assessors, our mentors and
everyone associated with the business
excellence programme continue to be our
greatest resource. We have to continuously
enhance the capability of our assessors.
We have to look at bringing in experts from
within the group and from outside, bringing
in experts from the world of academics.
The best thing that we can do as a group
is marshal this strength. The widespread
commitment and spirit that we have seen
in this process embodies the pride that our
people have in the group. Without such
commitment and pride, we could not have
achieved what we have done so far.
This journey has had a profound
impact on the group. The lessons we have
learned along the way, the processes we
have mastered and the changes we have
effected will shed light on the path forward.
As we move ahead, we need to
chart an equally illustrious journey with
the involvement of the boards of our
companies and the support of every
Tata employee. Our quest for business
excellence should be never-ending.
This is a journey without an end.
COVER STORY
‘Our companies are our
primary customers’
From writing applications for the
Tata Business Excellence Model
to mentoring Tata companies,
S Padmanabhan has been
deeply immersed in the Tata
business excellence initiative
for more than a dozen years.
July 2014
14 Tata Review „
A former executive director of
Tata Consultancy Services and
Tata Power, Mr Padmanabhan
has just stepped into his role
as executive chairman of Tata
Quality Management Services
(TQMS), the organisation that
supports group companies
in their improvement efforts.
In this interview with Cynthia
Rodrigues, Mr Padmanabhan
talks about how both TBEM
and TQMS are constantly
evolving to stay in sync with
the group’s vision for business
excellence.
What is the role that TQMS plays in
the Tata business excellence journey?
TQMS’s primary customers are Tata companies.
This institution exists to help our customers
achieve their goals for business excellence.
TQMS facilitates the assessment process and
also identifies areas where companies need a
COVER STORY
detailed deep dive analysis to help them improve
performance. At the end of the day, the excellence
effort should directly impact the company’s
performance in a measurable way and that is what
TQMS aims for.
Can you describe how Tata
companies have progressed in
TBEM over the years?
In the initial years of being assessed under
TBEM, companies were driven by rules and
procedures, in other words, compliance. It took
time, but assessee companies slowly began to
understand the linkages between the questions,
enabling them to see TBEM as an integrated set
of measures that could add tremendous value to
a company. Now many of our large companies
have experienced this value. When the group
started the TBEM process, the average score
was 250-270. Now it is close to 490. Companies
are evaluated by experts and judged on their
practices, performance and achievements (on
a scale of 1,000). Tata companies have matured
751-875
4
650-750
551-650
TBEM scores
You have been associated with TBEM
as a senior leader and mentor for
years. How will your experience aid
you in your new role?
I have been interacting with TBEM assessment
teams for more than 12 years. My association
with TBEM started in early 2000 as a part of
the assessee team in Tata Consultancy Services
(TCS). I have been involved in preparing the
TBEM applications for TCS and Tata Power
for the last 15 years. I became a TBEM mentor
in 2003-04 for Tata Metaliks. Since then, I
have been a mentor to several companies. The
biggest advantage of participating in a TBEM
assessment is the exposure that one gets to other
industries. I specifically chose companies in the
manufacturing sector, since I was already in the
services industry.
My mentorship experience means that I have
personally seen the journey of large companies
through the assessment process. That’s why I
believe I can bring in a broader perspective to
the way TQMS can help our companies in their
improvement efforts.
TBEM scores: Progress over the years
11
1
15
18
451-550
1
351-450
1
16
8
3
19
6
251-350
3
151-250
1
51-150
0
7
4
4
4
4
10
5
15
20
Number of companies
2010
2005
2000
1995
and moved up the scale. Another change is
that in the last 4-5 years, our global companies
have actively adopted the model and become
part of the assessment process. They have also
contributed several executives as assessors. There
is a seamlessness among Tata companies in
different geographies.
How important is it to select the right
assessment team for every company?
Every person on the assessment team is a certified
assessor. This is a minimum criterion. We ensure
that the assessment team has diversity in terms
of experience, expertise and even demographics.
In the last five years, the teams also include
managers of different nationalities from our global
companies. These high diversity, knowledgeintensive teams help the assessee company
through their wide range of experiences and
knowledge. One learning that we have gleaned
over the years is that it is important to have at least
one domain expert among the assessors.
TBEM is a continually evolving tool
for business excellence. What are
the new changes being planned?
In order to be effective in its role, TQMS needs
to draw on the best resources from among
Tata companies to perform as assessors. These
resources will come to us only if they see value
in the process and if they can develop their own
capabilities. We are also considering getting in
external experts from academic institutions or
July 2014 „
Tata Review
15
COVER STORY
Even if 50 of our companies achieve a
certain scale, size and ranking, we will
have done our job and TBEM would have
contributed to making this difference.
industry bodies as a part of TBEM. Also, since
many of our bigger companies are ahead in
terms of process maturity, revenue and size,
they can provide support to smaller or newer
companies. We need to encourage our larger
companies to share business and leadership
capabilities, identify and deploy best practices
and practice rigour of performance review
and management. We can replicate the best
processes of our bigger companies in our
smaller companies.
We are looking at ways to involve a
company’s board of directors in the assessment
process and take their inputs on key focus
areas. Last year, TQMS started the practice of
assessment teams making a presentation to the
board on the results of the assessment. Going
into the future the assessment teams would start
reporting on how the company is doing with
respect to customers, financial stakeholders,
employees, value chain partners and society and
also on key focus areas that have been asked for
by the board. TQMS will then work with the
management to help implement the strategic
imperatives and improve the performance of
the company in key focus areas. The business
excellence head of the company will play a very
important role, one that moves from compliance
to driving performance. He or she will be the
catalyst for improvement in that company.
How will the deep dive that TQMS
offers help drive companies’
performance?
We have derived the TBEM model from the
Malcolm Baldrige model which is applicable to
all businesses and industries. This is a generic
framework. The deep dive process brings in
the customisation. When you do a deep dive,
you need to know about business processes,
best practices in the industry, and have domain
July 2014
16 Tata Review „
and functional expertise. TQMS ensures that
we create good information on best practices
and benchmarking that our assessment teams
can access. Today our assessment capabilities
are mainly in manufacturing and select service
businesses. We need to build assessment
capabilities in emerging industries like retail,
infrastructure, financial services, etc. We also
want to build capabilities to look at the industries
of the future. Employees from these newer
companies need to participate in the assessment
process and undergo training to ensure that we
can have critical mass in that area.
How can TBEM be made more
relevant to modern times?
The infrastructure and systems have to become
more relevant to current times. We can do this
by ensuring that the assessment process is IT
leveraged. Today there are tools available to make
the process more convenient. We could also
ensure a central database of tools that assessors
and mentors can access. Complete information
availability and convenience of use will benefit all
our companies. Tata is a very diversified group and
we need to leverage some of the strong capabilities
that we have — for example, domain expertise, IT
capabilities, the expertise of entities such as Tata
Strategic Management Group, and so on.
What is your vision for the Tata
business excellence journey?
There are a couple of aspects that need
consideration. First, are our companies agile
enough to respond to external stimuli faster?
This relates to the speed of the organisation and
its culture. Second, do we have the ability to
keep learning and build competencies for the
future? The answers to these questions will help
sharpen our focus and performance. I would like
to see our companies achieve excellence in both
these areas. Ideally, I would like to see all our
Tata companies occupying one of the top three
positions in their sector, industry and geography.
But if even 50 of our companies achieve a certain
scale and size and ranking, we will have done
our job and TBEM would have contributed to
making this difference.
COVER STORY
Newer vistas
Dr Jamshed J Irani, former TQMS
chairman, remembers the early days of
the business excellence journey
A
s with any endeavour involving
transformation on an epic scale,
getting started is the really difficult
part. The Tata group’s business
excellence journey has been no different.
There was a fair bit of resistance when we
got going with this change agenda back in the
early 1990s. Convincing everybody that quality
needed to be in the centre of the frame was
no easy task, and we have had to do plenty of
coaxing and cajoling to accomplish our goal. But
now, after all these years and all the effort, we
have the momentum, the focus, the tools and the
belief to take our business excellence initiative to
newer vistas and greater heights.
We have come to a point where most of our
companies understand the importance of our
objectives in fostering business excellence and
furthering its cause. We have not banished the
doubters altogether, but even they have come to
appreciate the thrust on quality and the message
this mission carries — that it is something the
group has to imbibe for its own good. There is a
method here, not madness. Of equal importance
is the realisation that there are many miles of
road ahead, with fresh challenges to overcome
and unseen obstacles to confront.
The Tata group was, in more ways
than one, a pioneer of the business excellence
movement in India. The idea was not to
pursue quality in a compartmentalised and
limited sense, but to weave it into the fabric
of our extended organisation, to make it part
of everything that we do, in the context of
customers, the communities in which we
operate, the way we function and the impact
our businesses have in various spheres of
everyday life.
Over the past 15 years or so, we have
secured a tremendous advantage by remaining
steadfast in our commitment to the business of
excellence. We did not begin by planning the
details of this journey. We have improvised and
found trails we did not know existed, we have
on occasion taken the road less travelled, and we
have stumbled at times, even gone backwards.
That’s the past. Now we are more surefooted and
that will be a strength as we step into the future.
The principal challenge as the group
expands and new members get integrated into
the system is to have everyone sharing the
same vision. We can show a person the rosiest
of scenarios, but getting him or her to accept,
and become part of, your grand plan is the
greater challenge.
Compared with what we were in 1992, there
is much to feel good about, but in the business
of business you can never be satisfied. The road
ahead beckons.
Excerpted from Business of Excellence –
The Tata Journey, published in 2008
July 2014 „
Tata Review
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COVER STORY
‘TBEM can help companies
reach the pinnacle of
business excellence’
Tata Chemicals and later Tata
Power, he has driven deep the
tenets of business excellence in
these two companies — both
winners of the JRD QV Award.
In the last three years, he has
served as the chairman of Tata
Quality Management Services
(TQMS). During his tenure (July
2011 to June 2014), the Tata
Business Excellence Model
(TBEM) has evolved to become
more rigorous and relevant. In
As a senior Tata leader, Prasad
this interview with Christabelle
Menon has invested several
Noronha, Mr Menon shares his
years in the Tata business
perspective on how TBEM has
excellence journey. In his role
impacted the Tata group, along
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with some of his experiences.
July 2014
18 Tata Review „
COVER STORY
Can you give us a bird’s eye
perspective on how TBEM has
changed over the years? And how
have CEOs and MDs changed in
their attitude towards business
excellence?
I think it would be correct to say that the TBEM
movement was seen initially by most of the group
companies as an unnecessary imposition in their
day-to-day operations. That was understandable,
because Indian industry had grown under a
very controlled environment, and there was
no real imperative to improve quality. But with
the opening up of the economy in the early to
mid-90s, the Tata group was one of the first
organisations to understand the importance of
quality — both in products and processes. The
quality movement was given prime importance as
a means of pulling the group towards leadership
in business excellence.
Slowly but surely, driven both by internal
persuasion, and by the pressures of the
marketplace, companies grew to understand the
importance of business excellence as well as the
role played by TBEM in helping them with a
structure. In fact, the Malcolm Baldrige Award
in the US, which was used as a model for TBEM,
was instituted to help American companies
improve their quality processes and compete with
Japanese companies who were providing high
quality products to the US domestic market and
putting US companies under enormous threat.
The lead taken by large companies such as
Tata Steel helped to place TBEM firmly at the
centre of the quality and excellence movement in
the group from the early part of 2001 onwards.
Thereafter, the movement gathered momentum
as more and more companies realised the value
of TBEM. It has now come to the next stage in its
evolution, where many of the larger companies
have reached a certain maturity level in
business excellence, and they now look for more
sophisticated inputs to drive their improvements
further. Our international companies have also
embraced the movement, and they bring their
own areas of expertise into the group.
TBEM has achieved something that was not
fully envisioned when it was initiated — it has
become the glue that binds the group together,
allowing for sharing of best practices, bringing
people together, helping to understand different
cultures, and creating internal competition in a
positive manner.
Can you share some anecdotes and
experiences from your TBEM journey
— from a personal point of view, and
from your experiences heading Tata
companies, and as head of TQMS?
My first close encounter with TBEM was when
I became the mentor for Tata Steel in 2001. That
was the first year we had mentors, and we were
feeling our way into the process. What it opened
up for me was a great deal of learning for my
organisation Tata Chemicals, and I remember
telling Dr JJ Irani that I was going to steal many
of their ideas shamelessly. Of course Tata Steel
was delighted to share whatever they had done.
This opportunity to network, share ideas, take
help across company boundaries, and help to set
benchmarks, is a great feature of TBEM.
TBEM is all about embedding a spirit of
constant improvements, big or small, in all parts
of the organisation, and in doing so, it creates an
excitement of its own. During one of my visits
to one of the companies, I was told that they
had set a target of `2 billion reduction in their
costs in a division. When I asked what the basis
was, the answer was that they did not know, but
would find a way to get there. The concept of an
aspirational goal, which then forces you to look
at the improbable, and find ways to surmount it,
was new. Above all, TBEM is about people, how
to inspire them and how to make them better
leaders. Any organisation that has moved up the
maturity path recognises this.
How does TBEM support the group’s
sustainability vision?
TBEM helps organisations to recognise and
focus on challenges, and sustainability in its
broadest senses is perhaps one of the greatest
challenges facing the world today. Unfortunately
the impact of poor management of our earth is
felt over a longer time frame and so may not be
looked upon as being urgent. But organisations
July 2014 „
Tata Review
19
COVER STORY
understand two things clearly — costs and risks;
and both these issues are hugely affected by
climate change, depletion of natural resources,
community dissatisfaction, etc. So this has to
be factored into the strategy of a company.
Indeed some global business leaders believe
that sustainability should be the strategy of
an organisation. It will force new options on
products and services, new ways of inclusive
business models, a greater sensitivity to the
impact of our operations on society, and so
on, and will soon determine the way funding
is disbursed. So, in various parts of a business,
TBEM processes can help to think about these
areas and prepare plans to handle them.
What, in your opinion, are the
aspects of TBEM and the business
excellence movement that work
Raising the bar
In the last two years, the Tata Business Excellence
Model and its assessment process have undergone
several changes, making the programme more
impactful and rigorous. Some key changes:
JRD QV Award score level raised from 600 to
650. Winners will also have to demonstrate
industry leader attributes and long-term
sustainability of the business focused around
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that the winner will be seen as exemplary.
Companies applying for the JRD QV Award have
to provide an integrated application that includes
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Company boards now play a deeper role in the
process. The board provides the assessment
team with areas to focus on, and the team
presents the outcomes to the board at the end of
the assessment.
All minor recognitions (serious adoption, highest
delta, active promotion, etc) removed. Only one
recognition at 550 points — Emerging Industry
Leader.
Mature companies can alternate between
standard assessments and deep dives.
July 2014
20 Tata Review „
well? What are the aspects that need
further tweaking — for example,
making TBEM equally relevant for
service companies, or smaller-sized
companies?
The TBEM process helps to build a structure
around business excellence, and therefore
encourages organisations to look at challenges
and determine responses in a very formal
manner. It is a great tool to bring in a culture
of constant improvement; it helps to build
capabilities within an organisation, and
encourages collaboration. Its usage requires
assessors of a high calibre, and this is an area
where some more work needs to get done —
how can we bring in more high performing
managers into the process, how can we make
sure that the leadership team sees value in
adopting TBEM, and how can we provide
differentiated inputs to companies in different
stages of maturity in the journey?
Some people still seem to believe that
TBEM is designed only for manufacturing
organisations and not for services companies,
but this is totally incorrect. In fact TBEM
is agnostic to the type of organisation it is
applied to, and can be tweaked for any kind
of organisation.
How do you see the group evolving
further from a business excellence
standpoint?
Ours is a complex group of companies, and
is also governed by separate boards, so it is
not easy to unify an approach like GE can do.
TBEM and its custodian, TQMS, are much
more than being about quality. TBEM is a set of
integrated processes that can help any company
reach the pinnacle of business excellence. And
I believe that many of our companies are on
the cusp of becoming truly world class in some
of their systems and processes. Going forward,
we should have at least one company being
considered as a benchmark for each sector that
we are present in; we should deliver new ways
of creation of long-term value, and with more
improvements. TBEM should become a global
standard for business excellence.
COVER STORY
Transformational
journey
Former CEO of Tata Quality
Management Services (TQMS)
Sunil Sinha shares the high points
of his momentous 12 years with
the organisation
I
took over as the chief executive of TQMS
in January 2005. The chairman of TQMS
then was Dr JJ Irani, who jokingly quipped
that if I did well, I would probably remain
its CEO for ten years. I do not know whether
the length of my tenure was a result of his
prophetic words or whether it can be owed to
my performance; either way I must confess
that every moment I spent at TQMS was both
enjoyable and rewarding.
TQMS brought a unique change to my
professional career — it was both exciting and
challenging in equal measure. Since my task
was to work closely with a large number of Tata
companies on group-level initiatives such as the
Tata Business Excellence Model, innovation,
climate change, safety and affirmative action, it
involved my having to be sensitive and objective.
When we started this journey in 1994,
TBEM received a lukewarm response. Our
companies were single stakeholder-focused
businesses. They thought only of revenues and
profits and only about one stakeholder — the
investor. Over the last 20 years, TBEM has
helped improve customer focus, performance
and strategic planning in Tata companies.
But the most important change is that the
leadership team in Tata companies is now
more receptive to feedback.
The TBEM programme has created a
virtuous cycle of assessments and improvements,
and leaders welcome recommendations on
‘opportunities for improvement’.
In 2005, Tata Daewoo adopted TBEM.
Our challenge here was the language barrier
since none of us knew Korean and hence during
our training workshops, we had to translate
English to Korean. There were some hilarious
incidents here. The concept of ‘employee
engagement’ was mistakenly understood by our
Korean colleagues to mean the ‘engagement
of employees prior to their marriage’. In
yet another instance of misunderstanding,
‘change management’ was understood to mean
replacement of the entire management team.
These were important learnings for
the assessment teams and challenges that
needed to be addressed. Yet another challenge
in the assessment process has been delivering
honest feedback and recommendations
for improvement.
I believe TQMS delivered on its objectives:
it has helped Tata companies improve their
excellence processes; it has been the glue that has
helped bind group companies together; it has
enabled many of the larger companies to achieve
close to global excellence; and it has brought in a
general culture of continuity of growth.
As I move into another challenging role,
as resident director, MENA region, I will carry
with me the experiences and exposure I was
fortunate to have gained as CEO of TQMS.
July 2014 „
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COVER STORY
Guidance from the gurus
Mentoring a company through the assessment process is a win-win situation
— the senior leaders who support TBEM as mentors are able to provide
guidance, even as they take away useful insights and best practices from
assessee companies. This is what some mentors have to say...
Each of the companies I have mentored, while being unique, celebrates the
diversity of the group even as it belongs to it. As a mentor I have learnt a lot from
the CEOs of these various companies on managing oneself in transition from one
company to another – getting used to the new business, culture, people and so on.
And how these people quickly learnt the basic business drivers of the companies
they headed. It requires a great deal of humility and maturity. Professionally of
course the wide body of knowledge these companies have shared with the team
has helped shape some of the policies at Titan. However, the challenges of being
a mentor are of allocating sufficient time and attention to the applicant company’s
business as well as to the process of assessment. It is important to find out from
the team what they expect from the mentor’s role because expectations vary from
team to team.
BHASKAR BHAT, MD, TITAN COMPANY
Mentoring of companies that won the TBEM Awards was truly a wonderful experience
where I came across several processes and practices that could justifiably be
called benchmarks. For example, in Rallis, there were brilliant processes for Board
Room Management and for direct connectivity to their final customers (farmers)
who numbered in thousands. The Taj Group impressed me with their unique calibre
in maintaining the same processes, service levels and customer care levels in all
their locations — be it big cities, small towns or resorts. The way they promoted
the Taj brand was eye-opening. Telcon gave me a great insight into how closely the
management works with its unionised workers, how to obtain competitive information
(which generally is very difficult to get in their industry), and how to excel in the
face of international competition and work with international partners. Tata Steel’s
wires division gave me the unique experience of learning about some great safety
processes, about nurturing the relationship with unions (they shifted their entire
factory to a different location with full support of the union), and about innovation and
customer segmentation. Personally and professionally, my long years of mentorship
have given me exposure to the best of Tata companies and also an opportunity
to interact deeply with senior management and assessor-experts from different
backgrounds. Most importantly, it has taught me to learn, introspect and make my own
company grow and mature in business excellence.
July 2014
22 Tata Review „
SANDIPAN CHAKRAVORTTY, MD,
TATA STEEL PROCESSING AND DISTRIBUTION
COVER STORY
The sessions with the assessment teams are extremely refreshing. Diverse sets of
ideas, opinions, observations and facts come together in the form of an insightful
outcome. As a mentor, the learning is immense. Can you imagine the width and depth
of knowledge that one gains from reading about different companies, figuring out
their strategies, meeting the leadership and management teams, walking the shop
floor, working with a diverse team? And all of this in real time. I see the time I spend
on being a team mentor as a big investment. Every year I eagerly await the mail from
TQMS that tells me which company I am supposed to mentor. One more company,
one more adventure! The big challenge is to guide the team without interfering too
much with the actual assessment — helping them see the business imperatives,
understand the underlying linkages, look at the big picture.
JAMSHED DABOO, CEO, TRENT
As mentors we are also constantly challenged by companies to provide insights into
things that they may have missed out. “Tell us something we do not know” is the
question I am constantly asked. Not a very easy one to answer considering that our
companies do know their businesses inside out. What we as mentors try to provide
them is the outside-in perspective.
Being a mentor for the TBEM process has been a very unique and enriching
experience. In all these years, I have seen companies evolve in the TBEM process
and the quality of information shared has been getting superior every year.
Getting to understand the business model of another organisation, understanding
the imperatives behind such business models, etc is an intellectually satisfying
experience. Obviously, there is lateral application and one starts thinking how to
take such best practices to one’s own organisation.
Many a times, you discover some outstanding innovative ideas that give you a
completely new thought for your own organisation. The assessment helps you to
be more analytical, a strategic thinker, as well as be enriched with the know-how
of techniques and methods being used by others. A mentor’s role also has many
challenges. The mentor needs to be adequately engaged to understand the big
picture and help the team to focus on things that matter to the business.
VINAYAK DESHPANDE, MD,
TATA PROJECTS
The mentor must give a balanced assessment feedback to ensure that it is truly
based on factual observations and data provided by the organisation and not on
some preconceived notions or biased views. Last but not the least, a mentor has to
be a good team leader to keep the energy level high and add value to help the team
provide actionable feedback.
July 2014 „
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COVER STORY
PK GHOSE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AND CFO,
TATA CHEMICALS
Being a mentor is a very unique experience. Firstly, you get to know the dynamics of
different industries. This has a knock-on effect as you are able to use those learnings
in your own business situations. Second, in your own area of specialisation you could
identify better processes and practices and implement them in your own company.
Third, you learn how tough challenges have been handled and also how to bring
the best practices from each company and spread them across the group to have
huge cross-learning opportunities. A mentor must have continuous engagement with
the assessor team and guide them with strategic inputs. Sometimes a particular
argument may sway in an extreme direction; a mentor needs to course correct and
ensure that the applicant’s view is given due consideration. Finally, a lot depends on
the way a mentor articulates the key strengths and opportunities and conveys the
company’s best practices without shying away from key areas of improvement. It is
necessary for the mentor to prioritise key issues, shoulder the tough questions that
need to be asked as well as identify the key drivers with a mix of focus and balance!
Every year has afforded me the opportunity to take best practices from the
companies that I’ve mentored and implement them at Tata Technologies. The Strategy
Booklet, gleaned from Corus, is used annually to cascade our corporate strategy to
all our employees. Personally, the greatest benefit I’ve derived from being a mentor
is the network that I’ve been able to establish within the group. Assessments have
provided me the access to executive teams and company boards, with introductions
to assessment teams made of some of the best and brightest talent in the group.
Professionally, there are always things to learn from other companies. I’m a very
engaged practitioner when it comes to identifying and deploying (within Tata
Technologies) the lessons learnt. In addition, insights into other industries are always
enlightening. From the perspective of the assessment, one always has to work hard
and not duplicate the work of the assessment team. My role as a mentor is to provide
context and ensure that the recommendations are relevant and impactful.
WARREN HARRIS, PRESIDENT AND COO,
TATA TECHNOLOGIES
It is wrong to say that I mentored companies. I have been a mentor to the teams
assessing companies. The Tata group is fortunate to have a wonderful set of
assessors who give their time voluntarily to the assessment process. The assessment
process enables companies to reflect on where they stand on the excellence journey.
It has been extremely enriching to learn from other Tata companies. As a mentor, it
is an energising and learning experience to glean the overall context of the industry
within which a company operates, the cultural factors for success in that industry
and how the organisation has built resilient teams and sound strategy for delighting
customers. Personally and professionally I have had the opportunity to learn from
leaders in the group, from their challenges and triumphs.
R MUKUNDAN, MD, TATA CHEMICALS
July 2014
24 Tata Review „
It is also a tough job to be slightly detached from the entire process. One has to
constantly watch for jumping into the process which could lead to personal biases
creeping in, yet one needs to listen, challenge, guide and support the team.
COVER STORY
Each assignment has been an experience in itself. There were companies with
different levels of maturity, requiring a different yardstick for assessment. There
were challenges of a particularly difficult business context at particular points in
time. Being a mentor is a wonderful learning experience. One gets to see best
practices in all the organisations one works with and these can be disseminated
to other companies. One gets to see various styles of leadership and meet people
who take pride in whatever they do. It also gives one an opportunity to learn firsthand about industry sectors one is not familiar with and understand some of the
issues and problems of those sectors. It is a very satisfying learning experience
for the mentor.
HOMI KHUSROKHAN, MEMBER,
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, TQMS
The challenges however start with ensuring that the assessment team delivers
value to the assessee. The assessment team must also work towards resolving
dilemmas and disagreements within the team and provide guidance on ‘tricky’
issues. Having said that, meeting the expectations of the senior management of
the company being assessed is not always easy. There is no ‘one-size-fits-all’
solution here and one needs to understand what is required and expected of the
team in case of every assessment, otherwise there is bound to be a disconnect
between what is expected and what is delivered.
One of my early assignments as a mentor was for a company to be assessed outside
India whose language was not English. TQMS assigned a top team of assessors and
arranged two visits to South Korea. We soon came to learn that our challenge was
not that the senior leadership didn’t speak English. For the most part they did and we
also had translators. It was that we did not speak English. The assessors and I spoke
other jargon. Our first learning was to be clear in our speech. This also led to clarity
of thought.
Our second learning came as we observed certain practices none of us had ever
seen before. These practices, first thought to be opportunities for improvement,
were, in fact, quite good. This required the team to remove its blinders and have
clarity of observation.
One of the jobs of a mentor is to comment in a one page Mentor’s Note on the
strategy of the company. Having been a mentor from the early days allows me
to observe and reflect on the impact of my observations right and wrong and on
a company’s action or inaction on these observations. It is heartening when the
observation is taken forward and we truly help. My learning is that companies benefit
when the senior leadership and the board of directors truly understand and act on the
assessment feedback. This requires clarity of observation, thinking and speech.
PATRICK MCGOLDRICK, CEO & MD,
TATA TECHNOLOGIES
July 2014 „
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COVER STORY
TBEM is a unique model which allows us to participate in a forum for continuous
learning. It is an opportunity to gather deep insights, best practices and learn
from experiences of multiple organisations — both in terms of business acumen
as well as cultural nuances. Each of my experiences in the TBEM process
has added to my knowledge and enriched my understanding, thinking, and
management style.
Having said that, being a mentor also comes with its set of challenges.
Participating in the TBEM process is a time consuming affair and stretches an
individual significantly! Specifically, on the challenges of being a mentor —
everytime I have attended a pre-briefing on mentorship, the stress has been on
the unique role that a mentor is expected to play. The focus is not on getting into
the nitty-gritties of the process. The idea is to be a facilitator of the process — to
resolve, if any, the friction that may come up between the management and an
enthusiastic TBEM assessment team. Mentors are expected to use their maturity
and experience to bridge gaps and communication between the two sides. We
have to sometimes be the carrier of first feedback, not all of which is pleasant.
That entails some additional pressure and sensitivity. All in all, being a TBEM
mentor has been an exciting journey – with its thrills, joy as well as pain. I believe
I’m a more knowledgeable business manager, a more evolved leader and a better
human being because of all these experiences!
AJOY MISRA, CEO,
TATA GLOBAL BEVERAGES
Mentoring has been a deeply enriching experience. I highlight one interesting aspect
from each company: Tanishq, the jewellery division of Titan, was at a different level
of maturity compared to the parent organisation. It was impressive to see how they
learned in an accelerated way, taking advantage of this. It made me think how quickly
we can learn from the best practices of advanced group companies, in a positive nonthreatening environment.
SANJAYA SHARMA, CEO,
TATA INTERACTIVE SYSTEMS
July 2014
26 Tata Review „
Tetley was in its first assessment and despite a positive score, the chief quality head
had doubts about how useful the assessment would be. They dropped the assessment
the next year, but Tata Global Beverages has made excellent strides since then.
Advinus made me think of how a drug discovery business which can have a decadelong discovery cycle would fit in with our business expectations. In some ways, Tata
has had a very long-term mindset, so it was an intriguing question to ponder. I went
to Rallis thinking it might be an unglamorous business but was impressed to see
many brilliant aspects including a million-strong customer group of farmers all over
India! I remain very excited about the possibilities, including cross-selling and big data
on farmers. Tata Technologies was a case study in developing a strong competitive
positioning leveraging an excellent strategic acquisition. We pondered how they could
develop core competence in a matrix of technology and manufacturing to differentiate
from IT majors. Also, there was debate on how the link to Tata Motors and JLR is both
a great enabler but should also not become a dependence. I think mentoring is much
more a training for the mentor than a value-add to the assessment team!
COVER STORY
The experience of mentoring certainly adds to one’s knowledge of new businesses. It
is a tremendous opportunity to learn best practices as well as network with new sets
of assessors and company executives. Each company has unique practices and ways
of doing things. The assessment process enables one to get a closer look and insight
into these for added learning and dovetailing the same with one’s own operations.
The assessment process and subsequent feedback sessions are well orchestered
and useful in terms of interactions and learning. I have always viewed the TBEM
process as a string, which ropes all companies as pearls around it and contributes to
a beautiful well-knit necklace!
Being a mentor is like discovering a treasure of knowledge about so many businesses
and companies. Additionally, one is able to network and know a number of senior
leaders and executives in various companies as well as the assessor community.
It also allows tremendous learning through research and technical scanning of the
deeper aspects of the concerned industry. And, above all, this is a unique opportunity
to see deep into your own business through the lens of TBEM, especially when you are
judging other companies and therefore are able to internalise it much better.
ANIL SARDANA, MD, TATA POWER
One of the features in the group which I found striking when I came in about 10
years ago was the TBEM journey. I have been associated with this programme
from day one in various avatars on both sides of the table. As I went about learning
the ropes of the Blue Book, both as part of the TQMS-run course as well as the
Senior Business Leader programme, I saw the power of TBEM which touches
wall-to-wall of any business. As the team was new to this phenomenon I had to go
about propagating the benefits of the process-oriented approach which forms the
edifice for performance excellence.
VEERAMANI SHANKAR, MD,
RALLIS INDIA
Moving on from internal assessments I got the opportunity to be a mentor to an
FMCG enterprise, moving to mentoring insurance, batteries and now in the steel
sector. What’s amazing is the exposure the assignment gives to other industries
and the learning I have got from understanding / assessing business strategies in
different contexts.
I also get to see the softer parts of the enterprise and how talent and team
building takes place. Every assessment connects me to a new set of Tata
colleagues both within the team as well as in the assessee company. I find TBEM
a wonderful platform to share and receive best practices across processes. I
have faced challenges at times when the assessment team is less appreciative
of the business context / model and equally when the assessee management
is defensive about the issues pointed out. I find the latest practice of engaging
directly with the board / chairmen of companies a jump to the next level that gives
due importance to this vital process, which drives continuous improvement and
excellence in business.
July 2014 „
Tata Review
27
COVER STORY
Drivers of excellence
The true heroes of the Tata business excellence initiative are the assessors,
who spend days and weeks on the site, analysing assessee companies
through the lens of TBEM. Some of their experiences...
P ANAND,
Chief of marketing –
retail and branded products
TATA STEEL
Being a team leader is both exciting and demanding. It involves managing a team with
multifarious experience, driving the assessment agenda cogently and syndicating myriad
opinions and assessment lenses into one that is actionable and relevant. The experience
has helped me calibrate my management style and learn from the vast pool of knowledge
that exists within the Tata group.
Being an assessor teaches you to respect the view point of others. Networking with
the assessment community is a huge platform for knowledge sharing and building the Tata
equity and ‘Tataness’ across diverse companies. The assessors also become vibrant brand
ambassadors of the Tata brand across the companies with strong cultural ethos. Being an
assessor has given me the bandwidth to understand, appreciate and emulate the various
levels of excellence dispersed across the group.
As an assessor and a team leader, I have had the opportunity to interact with
a wide cross section of leaders across industries and functions. I have seen
firsthand how they cope with challenges and opportunities which come their
way, and this has helped me mould my professional career.
I have, over the years, been able to incorporate in my work, many of the
good practices of other Tata companies, and this has contributed to my personal
and professional growth. In the process, I have also built lasting relationships
with individuals throughout the Tata group.
I think the greatest challenge for the assessor community is to add value
to the company being assessed, through our feedback. We need to find new
insights, and this requires an enhanced understanding of the business.
July 2014
28 Tata Review „
JAYANT BALAN,
Vice president – corporate planning
and business strategy
VOLTAS
COVER STORY
PARSHURAM DATE,
Chief - internal audit and
risk management
TATA POWER
In eight years of my working as a team leader, I have not seen a single team
member who does not contribute to the process. Many a times, team members
take on the responsibility on their own by coming forward. Customers also
understand our view point, respect our views and sincerely make an attempt to
use the feedback given.
Being an assessor has facilitated great networking with Tata employees.
It offers a great learning of various industries, their key business drivers and
processes of importance. It sharpens your business acumen that equips one to
handle the business issues. Also, it provides great exposure to work as a team.
Most importantly, it makes you a mature leader who can control his emotions
and not get disturbed by work pressures. The most challenging thing is that the
feedback prepared for the customer must make business sense.
All the assessments I have been on have been interesting but a couple of them stand
out. I was a ‘fresher’ (I was initiated into assessment the day I joined Tata Interactive
Systems) assessor on the TCS 2004 assessment, when TCS crossed the 600 score mark
to win the JRD QV Award. We had John Latham, a Baldrige assessor, on the team and
for me the combination of it being my first time, with a mature company like TCS and the
opportunity to understand TBEM from someone like John was truly the best learning and
TBEM initiation experience. The Tata Daewoo assessment in 2012 with Behram Sabawala
as the team leader was another great assessment. A smaller team of more experienced
assessors and an experienced fun-loving team leader made for a smooth and enjoyable
assessment process.
The TBEM assessment experience has given me a process perspective, lessons in
best practices from other Tata companies and long-lasting relationships.
MUKESH PRASAD,
Chief, business excellence and
quality assurance, and corporate
quality head
TRF
ALBERT LEWIS,
CIO and head – business
excellence
TATA CLASSEDGE
The experience of assessing companies with diverse businesses through a common
framework of TBEM has been a great learning experience. While each company is
different, getting exposed to different facets of the TBEM such as leadership, strategic
planning, customer and market, etc has given me a deep insight into the running of
any business. I have learnt how to look at the big picture. In any situation I first try
to understand the ‘why’ of anything before getting into the ‘how’, ‘who’ or ‘when’.
Planning and prioritising has become a way of life.
Creating consensus, managing conflicts, making every member rise to his /
her full potential, meeting timelines, providing high quality feedback are some of the
inherent challenges of a team leader. But at the end of day the biggest satisfaction
is the feeling that the expectations of all the stakeholders have been met. Also the
bonding that one develops with every member is something that I cherish the most.
July 2014 „
Tata Review
29
COVER STORY
SONAL RAMRAKHIANI,
Senior client partner,
strategic accounts
TCS
The TBEM assessment process has enabled me to deep dive into a particular industry,
understand the business context of an organisation, and provide feedback relevant to the
stakeholders. As a professional, I have gained a good understanding of various industries
ranging from consumer goods, retail, manufacturing and utilities. It has also equipped me
with the ability to understand the strategic perspective of an organisation — a skill that
stands me in good stead in client interactions. I am privileged to have worked closely with
the brightest minds in the Tata group. I am blessed to have made many friends across the
group — friends who stay connected even after the assessments are over.
As a team leader, the biggest challenge is to ensure that the feedback is specific and
relevant to the context of the organisation. At the same time, one needs to ensure that the team
is engaged and that every team member is living up to their potential. While assessment is
serious business, I am also very serious about having a little bit of fun in our team interactions.
The assessment team brings to the applicant company the collective experience and energy
of a team of Tata managers, which is invaluable. One immensely benefits from the wisdom of
the mentor.
In my role as an assessor, the old Boy Scouts motto – “Be Prepared” has held me in
good stead through the years, especially as a team leader, considering that anything can
come to you from anywhere at any time. The challenges were many: 1) Ensuring a positive
approach at all times. 2) Listening and absorbing, far more than preaching. 3) Having an
inclusive approach as far as team member inputs are concerned. Very often, it’s the firsttimers who provide the richest context. 4) Setting expectations very clearly. 5) Going through
the inputs provided by the applicant organisation as many times as possible, and especially
ensuring that they have been kept abreast of all findings so that there are no surprises at the
final feedback presentation.
SRIDHAR SARATHY,
Vice president, sales and
marketing
TATA CAPITAL
July 2014
30 Tata Review „
BEHRAM R SABAWALA,
Chief financial officer
DIESL
The TBEM process gives one an opportunity to assess companies that are different
and therefore each assessment enables you to absorb new learnings. The team is
like a corporate microcosm. During the ten days of consensus, site visit, post site visit
consensus and feedback presentation, many interesting discussions and arguments take
place with the sole objective of ensuring that we do our job well and add value to the
applicant company. Lessons learnt are aplenty and you very soon realise that excellence
is a never ending process. It’s fascinating to see companies strive to improve each year in
their endeavour to excel. Having worked in the group for more than two decades, it’s also
heart-warming to watch the Tata values being practised by all employees. It’s even more
humbling when you see senior leaders, some of them luminaries in their field, being so
modest, ever willing to listen and learn.
The process allows you to blossom under the tutelage of mentors. Personally, I have
improved significantly and look forward to being a part of this great process.
COVER STORY
C SRIVATSAN,
Regional manager
TATA STEEL, COLOMBO
Companies look forward to the TBEM assessment team visit and interactions to get
new insights and to validate the progress of their business excellence journey. Doing an
assessment is like getting in to a B-school. It has helped me appreciate different points of
view of team members and to leverage the unique capabilities of every team member.
Through TBEM I got an opportunity to assess different industries such as financial
services, manufacturing, information technology and services, capital equipment
manufacturing, chemicals and fertilisers and power sectors. It helped me understand how
businesses run and the specific business challenges faced by these industries and response
strategies adopted by the companies. While it is a challenge for any team leader to provide
actionable business-focused feedback to uncover the blind spots which could create value for
the company, with TBEM going global it is also a challenge to do an assessment and manage
teams with multi-nationality and multi-cultural environments.
I am fortunate to have engaged with companies during critical phases of their transformation.
Seeing how companies transform themselves and balance the need for being more business
aligned, and yet meet the expectations of all its stakeholders, makes me feel proud about
being a Tata employee, and gives me a deep insight on why we as a group are so trusted by
everyone, including the outside world.
The assessment process brings out leadership qualities of all the team members. The
team’s ability to create a micro-climate wherein the only thing that matters is collective
wisdom, the agility to absorb and respond to the inputs, the ability to make sense of the
complex, inter-connected aspects of what makes (or doesn’t make) a high performing
organisation, and to ensure that all members of the team contribute, and are developed as
assessors, is critical. Managing a team of assessors, with their experience, insights, baggage,
is a huge challenge. It is important to not be judgemental. It’s about being a good listener, good
empathiser, good in analytics, and good in simplifying concepts and constructs.
RUSTAM VESAVEVALA,
Vice president – human resources
INDIAN HOTELS COMPANY
VIVEK TALWAR,
Chief culture officer
TATA POWER
I view the TBEM assessment process as a fabulous leadership development opportunity for
anyone who wants to understand how companies work. It provides you with a helicopter
view of the organisation and a frontline perspective. After a couple of assessments, you
appreciate how strong processes build sustainable organisations, and how good leadership
creates positive energy in organisations.
The challenges are many. It starts with understanding the dynamics and nuances
of different industries. There are challenges of taking a group of people who have never
worked together and within a 10-day window get them to perform as a team under what
sometimes can become quite stressful.
However, In every assessment that I’ve done, I’ve always felt that I’ve got back more
than what I’ve given. To top it all, you get an opportunity to interact with some amazing
people in the Tata companies that you assess.
July 2014 „
Tata Review
31
PASSION FOR
PERFECTION
How do the principles of business
FYDFMMFODFUSBOTMBUFJOUPSFBMJUZPO
the ground? Here are detailed reports
from four Tata companies:
TATA DAEWOO COMMERCIAL VEHICLE
COMPANY PG4PVUI,PSFBXBTUIFÙSTU
international entity to adopt TBEM and has done
it successfully in spite of language barriers.
JAGUAR LAND ROVER is among the latest
global companies to take up TBEM in its
facilities.
TATA STEELXBTBNPOHUIFÙSTUUPBEPQU5#&.
BOEJUTTUFFM4#6XBTUIFÙSTUXJOOFSPGUIF+3%
QV Award; now three more of its SBUs have won
the award.
TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES, also an early
+3%27"XBSEXJOOFSESJWFTFYDFMMFODFBT
BOFOUFSQSJTFXJEFJOJUJBUJWFBDSPTTBMM
QMVTFNQMPZFFTPWFSMPDBUJPOTBOEBMMJUT
subsidiaries.
July 2014
32 Tata Review „
COVER STORY
A decade of excellence
A decade after its acquisition,
Tata Daewoo Commercial
7FIJDMF$PNQBOZUIFÙSTU
acquired company outside of
India to adopt TBEM, is reaping
UIFCFOFÙUTPGFNCSBDJOHUIF
excellence movement
T
ata Daewoo Commercial Vehicle
Company (TDCV) became a part of
the Tata stable as a strategic move on
the part of Tata Motors to strengthen its
position in an increasingly global market — Tata
Motors needed to consolidate its position on
the home turf, stave off competition from global
players entering India, and learn to hold its own
in developed geographies. The acquisition of
South Korea-based Daewoo Commercial Vehicle
Company in 2004 brought in a lot of the muchneeded competencies.
Says Ravi Pisharody, executive director,
commercial vehicles, Tata Motors, and chairman,
TDCV: “At the time, Tata Motors was unfolding
its strategy to be a world-class global player. The
acquisition of Daewoo proved to be the right step
for us as the company had the capability and the
technology to manufacture world-class vehicles.
The acquisition kick-started our globalisation
plans and gave us access to a partner with world-
class products and technology and the experience
of competing in advanced markets.” The alliance
has greatly benefitted both parties. In the last
two-three years, TDCV has outperformed itself,
showing consistently better results than at any
other time before. The company has seen its
sales figures rising every year since 2009, in
both domestic and exports sales. Production
volumes and sales revenues have both registered
increases, and the market share has increased
in both heavy and medium commercial vehicle
segments. In fact, during FY12-13 and FY13-14,
TDCV notched up its second highest total sales
volumes since FY07-08. The good performance
is particularly evident in the company’s export
business, which has grown tremendously from
874 vehicles at the time of the acquisition to
4,016 vehicles in FY13-14.
The export market was one of the first
areas in which both companies exploited
their synergies, specifically in product design
and development. Tata Motors and TDCV
collaborated on a modular platform, from
which a range of vehicles could be spun out.
“The acquisition kick-started our
globalisation plans and gave us
access to a partner with worldclass products and technology.”
Ravi Pisharody, executive director, commercial
vehicles, Tata Motors, and chairman, TDCV
July 2014 „
Tata Review
33
COVER STORY
This technology sharing led to the development
of Tata Motors’ flagship world truck, branded
as the Prima, which has helped TDCV take a
leading position in the domestic market and
strengthen its position overseas.
EMBRACING EXCELLENCE
One of the factors contributing to TDCV’s
evolution has been its immersion in the Tata
group’s quality movement. In 2005, TDCV
became one of the first international acquired
companies in the group to adopt the Tata
Business Excellence Model (TBEM) as a prerequisite to signing the Tata Brand Equity and
Business Promotion (BEBP) agreement.
The leadership team of TDCV, which
at that time included president Kwang-Ok
Chae, CV Singh and SUK Menon, invited
TQMS to conduct a workshop to explain the
concept and working of TBEM to the executive
management team of the fledgling company.
Having understood the value in TBEM and the
Tata Code of Conduct, TDCV committed itself
whole-heartedly to the processes that underlie
the business excellence and ethics initiatives in
the Tata group.
Woung Jeong Choi, general manager
and head, corporate culture team, says, “We
participated in the internal and external
assessment and rolled out the climate change
action plan, the safety issue, risk management
process, etc. We also aligned our vision, mission
and values to Tata Motors.”
A series of workshops and training
programmes followed to raise awareness and
knowledge of TBEM. A dip-stick assessment,
conducted in December 2005, bolstered the
effort by throwing up a number of action
points that the company could take forward.
The external assessment team provided more
“Very soon it became clear that
the TBEM framework would only
help our company to improve its
processes.”
Kim Kwan Kju, president and CEO, TDCV
July 2014
34 Tata Review „
detailed feedback to support the company’s
efforts. It was not an easy journey. The fact that
all the available information on TBEM was in
English was one of TDCV’s challenges. Another
was the necessity to change management
mindsets from an operational level of
thinking to the patterns of thought driven by
management concepts.
Despite the difficulties, the new members
of the Tata Motors family showed total openness
and commitment to the process. Despite being on
the learning curve, a few employees from TDCV
signed up to be a part of TBEM assessment teams.
The exposure and the rigorous assessment helped
them to match themselves against other group
companies and to learn from their experiences.
Kim Kwan Kju, president and CEO,
TDCV, avers, “Some of our people experienced
some hesitation initially as the concepts were
unfamiliar. But very soon it became clear that the
TBEM framework would only help our company
to improve its processes.”
Mr Pisharody acknowledges the Korean
company’s success at TBEM, “The Koreans
have always been very receptive to the TBEM
process. Their readiness to understand and adapt
to it was reflective of their willingness to be a
part of the Tata group. The language proved to
be a challenge, but they made every effort to
understand it. Today they are very TBEM savvy
in terms of their performance.”
TDCV’s business excellence journey has
seen steady improvement. The first time the
company applied for the TBEM assessment
in 2007, it won the Serious Adoption Award.
Its second TBEM application in 2008 netted
it the Active Promotion Award. The company
also underwent the assessment process in
2010 and 2012. This commitment led to
TDCV being recognised as one of the best
examples of an overseas subsidiary that was
able to leverage the power of TBEM in its
quest to excel in its business.
The TBEM framework helped the company
to build agile and transparent leadership systems
that could create and sustain performance
excellence. Over time, TBEM also became
a cementing force between TDCV and Tata
COVER STORY
Motors, a means to get to know each other better.
TDCV has sought to align its own processes
with those of its parent company. It has adopted
the Balanced Score Card methodology for the
deployment of strategy. There is sharing of best
practices. One of the earliest exercises in the
integration process was the SAP implementation
in TDCV, where key executives from both
companies spent time in each other’s locations
to help establish processes and carry back the
lessons learnt.
TBEM also had a direct impact on the
performance of the company. The value of the
company’s assets rose from 263 billion Korean
Won in 2004-05 to 564 billion Korean Won in
2013-14. It has been able to negotiate the wage
and collective bargaining agreements with its
unions without the threat of a strike for two
consecutive years in 2011 and 2012.
An unexpected benefit of the business
excellence journey has been the increase in
the satisfaction levels of employees. From an
average service length of 7.5 years in 2004-05,
the company now boasts an average service
length of 11.5 years.
C Ramakrishnan, CFO, Tata Motors,
and a director on the board of TDCV, says,
“Having been associated with TDCV since
the acquisition, it has been a matter of great
satisfaction to see TDCV’s consistent success and
TDCV’s business excellence
journey
Acquired by
Tata Motors
Serious Adoption
Award
2004
2007
2005
2008
Signs up for
Tata Business
Excellence Model
Active Promotion
Award
“It has been a matter of great
satisfaction to see TDCV’s
consistent success and growth.”
C Ramakrishnan, CFO, Tata Motors, and a director
on the board of TDCV
growth. We acquired the company in 2004-05
for an equity investment of US$ 51 million;
in a recent group restructuring initiative, we
transferred the company to our Singapore
holding company for a fair market value of
US$ 350 million. In addition, dividend flows
from TDCV aggregated over `1.3 billion. This
magnitude of value addition can be attributed
to the commitment of the people, excellent
strategic cooperation and the enriched
processes and discipline in the organisation in
product development, manufacturing, quality,
supply chain, etc.”
Encouraged by its performance over the
last few years, TDCV has now set itself some
ambitious goals. Its short-term objective is to
achieve sustainable growth, through effective
management of core business with a focus on
speed, quality and cost. The long-term objective
is to become a full range manufacturer of
commercial vehicles with a global presence and
leadership in chosen markets.
Even though the new changes in the
TBEM assessment structure means that only
companies, not divisions, may apply for
TBEM assessment, TDCV continues to maintain
the strength and integrity of its processes.
Mr Pisharody says, “The scoring is incidental; it
is more important to have excellent processes.
So even in the absence of TBEM assessment for
divisions, the focused adherence to processes and
to business excellence continues. At Tata Motors,
we are continuing our internal assessment.”
The TDCV story is a fantastic example of
how TBEM can be a common thread that helps
unite two companies hailing from completely
different cultures. Its success has since been
replicated in other acquired companies.
— Cynthia Rodrigues
July 2014 „
Tata Review
35
COVER STORY
The Jaguar Land Rover assessment team for 2013
Quest for excellence
Jaguar Land Rover has
adopted TBEM as a tool to
ensure its transformation from
a good company to a great one
I
conic British carmaker Jaguar Land Rover
(JLR) began its TBEM journey barely
two years after it came into the Tata fold.
Following the completion of its sale to Tata
Motors in June 2008, JLR set about putting in
place new operating practices and protocols
in line with its first experience of operational
independence since 1994. By September 2010
the company had full independence in its IT
systems and this marks the point at which JLR’s
TBEM journey began.
With change all around, CEO Dr Ralf Speth,
through engagements with TQMS, concluded
that TBEM would be the perfect framework
to ensure that the development of JLR’s new
processes were aligned and integrated. He found
a readymade solution in TBEM, which he saw as
a tool that would help JLR establish the roadmap
for its transformation from a good company
to a great one. Once the decision was made to
proceed with TBEM, things moved quickly, with
the company submitting its first application in
July 2014
36 Tata Review „
July 2011. Its first full assessment followed in
November that same year.
“With Dr Speth’s encouragement, JLR
decided upon a bold move to go straight to a full
assessment in its first year of TBEM deployment,”
says Richard Shore, director, business
transformation office, JLR. “This rationale
reflected the speed of change desired to improve
the company’s processes and, in retrospect, it
accelerated JLR through the early adoption phase
and ensured rapid company-wide deployment of
TBEM’s core principles.”
The first assessment saw JLR achieve a
score band of 451-500 points, placing it in
the ‘good performance’ level and earning it
an additional pat on the back with an award
for ‘serious adoption’. More significantly, this
first assessment enabled the company to gain
a wealth of learning from the UK-centric
assessment, including encouraging feedback on
the cascade of its exciting ‘creating our future’
vision amongst its employees. The rigorous
assessment also helped the company identify
opportunities that challenged the business to
fully leverage the potential of its brands, seek
a long-term global vision and focus on the
requirements for future global growth.
Subsequent assessments saw the company
make remarkable improvements in its scores:
COVER STORY
the 2012 cycle placed it at 525 points, and
2013 saw it break into the “Emerging Industry
Leader” category with 560 points. With each
application and assessment, JLR’s engagement
with TBEM grew stronger and insights into its
own business sharper. The 2013 assessment,
for example, was a global one, with the team
visiting six overseas markets, global suppliers
and all production and development facilities.
Each year has represented a measurable
improvement on the previous year, providing
an objective assessment of how the company
has progressed against its strategic objectives
on its quest for continual improvement.
Indeed, the real story goes well beyond the
realm of scores and numbers: it is being played
out in the transformation that has been taking
place in the organisation. With cultural change at
its core, TBEM helps a company to take a deeper
look within itself, identify areas that don’t match
the global competitive benchmark and then set
about improving them with a sense of urgency.
Within this context “excellence” is a moving
target and demands that a company understands
the true competitive advantages generated by
its core competencies and the competitive gaps
presenting the greatest threats.
With TBEM, JLR has created a framework
to support the cultural change process and ensure
organisation-wide alignment to common goals.
The focus on benchmarks has helped create
widespread awareness of performance and the
need for continuous improvement. This new
awareness and acceptance is reflected in the way
teams work in a truly cross-functional spirit,
helping to break down functional silos and
support collaborative working. That TBEM is a
serious engagement for JLR is seen in the fact that
the company’s blueprint for lasting success has
business excellence as one of its four foundations.
The company has also been careful not
to let the excellence initiative be seen as the
preserve of a few teams or experts. For JLR,
TBEM is a journey that the whole organisation
must be engaged in. Rather than having a
central group of specialists or relying on external
consulting expertise, TBEM has been deployed
through a network of ‘functional leads’, each
given the responsibility to ensure their function’s
engagement. Whilst this requires more effort
to coordinate, the reward is that it ensures that
TBEM is truly embedded in the way people
actually work. The business excellence initiative
also finds a place in the induction process for
new employees joining the company, with the
organisational profile being used as part of the
on-boarding process.
TBEM’s emphasis on preparedness for the
future has encouraged JLR to not only create a
growth vision for the future, but also kick off
preparations for the organisational structure,
competencies and governance that the vision
necessitates. As the momentum of growth
increases, so too does JLR’s appetite for more
learning and inspiration from the rest of the
Tata universe. As Unni Menon, JLR’s then group
July 2014 „
Tata Review
37
COVER STORY
JLR CEO Dr Ralf Speth (extreme left) with the team of assessors for the year 2012
finance director, said during the company’s
initial phase on the TBEM journey: “Everything
we will need to be a success in the future does
not reside today within the company and we will
need to be open to identify where this help will
come from outside of JLR.”
Therefore, JLR has been quick to
identify tools or ideas that could help its own
transformation agenda. A good example of this
is the integrated management system now being
deployed at JLR — the idea for this approach
came from benchmarking with Tata Consultancy
Services through the Tata Network Forum. A
further example has been the use within JLR of
innovation tools sourced from TQMS under the
guidance of the Tata Group Innovation Forum
JLR’s business excellence journey
Acquired by
Tata group
First assessment
garners ‘Good
Performance’
score
2008
2011
2010
2013
Adopts Tata
Business
Excellence Model
Achieves
‘Emerging
Industry Leader’
recognition
(TGIF): an Innometer study was conducted
in 2012; Innoverse has been used this year
to support challenge solutions in the area of
environmental innovation; and, JLR Innovista
was established in 2013 as an internal showcase
for innovation mirroring Tata Innovista.
After the hectic pace of improvement that
marked the initial years of its business excellence
journey and with the higher band score achieved
in 2013, JLR’s approach for 2014 breaks from the
traditional annual assessment cycle by engaging
in a number of deep dives. It has identified the
subject and scope of the deep dives through an indepth analysis of the 2013 assessment and based
on an understanding of the deliverables required
to scale the next peak: a score of 650 points.
Mr Shore sums up the journey that has
taken JLR from good to the verge of great:
“Right from the start of our TBEM journey we
have never lost sight that the main goal is to
improve the business. This helps explain why we
chose to go straight into an assessment within
months of commencing our TBEM journey —
this “fast to 500” mentality drove a high pace of
improvement.
In addition we have always followed the
principle that TBEM should integrate existing
initiatives and not sit as an additional initiative
in its own right. This has played a large part in
the successful engagement of hearts and minds
throughout JLR.”
— Sangeeta Menon
July 2014
38 Tata Review „
COVER STORY
Becoming the best
in the business
The pursuit of business
excellence has been the key
driver of Tata Steel’s global
spread and growth in the last
two decades
I
t is among the world’s top steel makers today,
but 20 years ago Tata Steel went through a
dark period. Steel was considered to be a
sunset industry and the Tata group actually
contemplated selling it off. Fortunately, that did
not happen. Instead, the company invested in a
quality and business excellence movement that
has successfully transformed the Indian steel
major into a world-class company.
Today Tata Steel is bigger, better and leaner:
where it took 80,000 people to make 2 million
tonnes of steel then, its global workforce of 70,000
now produces 30 million tonnes of steel annually
in plants across the world. It is one of the lowest
cost producers of steel in the world, one of the
biggest adopters of IT in the steel industry and
among the top 10 steel makers in the world.
Most of the laurels earned by the company
in the last two decades can be traced back to
the events of the early ’90s, when the winds
of liberalisation first stated blowing in India.
At the time, Tata Steel had grown to become
India’s largest private sector steel company
under the protection from competition
afforded by the licence raj. The prospect of
economic reforms meant that the company had
to take a cold hard look at its performance and
gear up to face competition.
TV Narendran, MD of Tata Steel India and
South East Asia recalls those early days: “The
first thing Tata Steel needed to accept was the
need for improvement. We had to get over this
“Management is no longer about
intuition. Every decision has to be
backed by metrics, and everyone
knows it.”
TV Narendran, MD of Tata Steel India
and South East Asia
July 2014 „
Tata Review
39
COVER STORY
excellence and innovation with GE, safety with
DuPont, and retail distribution with several
FMCG companies.
Results started to show soon and the
company’s productivity improved as much as 15
times. In 2000, Tata Steel became the first Tata
company to win the JRD QV award. Then, after
working its way up to the 700 mark on the TBEM
scale in 2004, the company took a break from the
TBEM process; it went back to TQM, and set its
sights on the Deming Application Prize.
arrogance that we knew everything there was
to know about making steel. It was Dr JJ Irani,
then joint MD, who saw the value of initiating
a quality drive. He pushed the company into
adopting Total Quality Management (TQM) in
1990 and, once it had been introduced in 1995,
the Tata Business Excellence Model (TBEM).
We realised that survival meant improving our
operations and performance.”
BENCHMARKING WITH THE BEST
That first TBEM assessment was an eye opener
— the flagship of the Tata group achieved a
miserable 201 points on a scale of 1000. This
was just the shock that was needed to propel
a companywide makeover, with Tata Steel
focusing on crucial aspects of business such as
productivity, technology, innovation, customer
centricity, safety and so on.
A large part of the business excellence
journey for Tata Steel was about pulling itself
up by its bootstraps. To do this, the company
benchmarked each function with the best in
class. Its customer complaints management
process was benchmarked with Modi Xerox,
credit management with Citibank, operational
INNER FOCUS
The Deming Application Prize is a highly
coveted recognition awarded to companies
which successfully implement TQM, and is
administered by the Japanese Union of Scientists
and Engineers (JUSE). Explaining the difference
between the TBEM and TQM methodologies,
Mr Narendran says, “TBEM is a model that
cuts across several high level aspects of business
operations; it helped us to focus on strategy,
customer focus, results, productivity, and so on.
The Deming application, on the other hand, cuts
deep. It’s all about process improvement and
helped us to tackle systemic issues.”
Tata Steel’s business excellence journey
Introduced a
scheme where
employees
could suggest
improvements
Launched quality
initiatives such as
-"-1!Ÿ*.Ÿ4ATAŸ
1UALITYŸ!WARDŸ
SIMILARŸTOŸTHEŸ*2$Ÿ
16Ÿ!WARDŸANDŸ3Ÿ
6ISHWANATHŸ!WARD
Steel SBU
wins the
ÚRSTŸ*2$Ÿ16Ÿ
Award
1932
1992
2000
Adopts
$EMINGŸ
quality
methodology
Tata Steel
Tubes
division
WINSŸ*2$Ÿ16Ÿ
Award
"ECOMESŸÚRSTŸ
integrated steel
plant outside
OFŸ*APANŸTOŸWINŸ
THEŸ$EMINGŸ
Grand Prize
2005
2010
2012
1991
1996
2004
2008
2011
Set up Total
1UALITYŸ
Implementation
group under the
guidance of
$RŸ**Ÿ)RANI
First
assessment
under TBEM
Tata Steel
becomes
THEŸÚRSTŸ4ATAŸ
company to
breach the 700
mark under
TBEM
Wins
$EMINGŸ
Application
Prize
Tata Steel Wires
division and
Ferro Alloys
and Minerals
division win the
*2$Ÿ16Ÿ!WARD
July 2014
40 Tata Review „
COVER STORY
The Deming application emphasises
two distinct aspects of management — daily
management and policy management. Ideally,
the more senior the leader, the more time he or
she should spend on policy level management
rather than the nitty-gritty of daily operations.
This is not as simple as it sounds because it
involves ensuring that there is no volatility in
daily operations, no time wasted in fire-fighting,
in other words, a very high level of quality.
Another key aspect of the Deming
application is its emphasis on the reality on the
ground, the way things operate down on the
shop floor. Alok Krishna, chief of TQM at Tata
Steel and the man in charge of the business
excellence programme, explains how the
JUSE assessors walk around asking questions
even of the shop floor workers: “They will ask
penetrating questions about how a particular
issue was resolved, because the manner in
which an organisation handles problems is very
important. The entire Deming journey was
managed through intensive communication
with all workers. The unions were equally
invested partners in this journey.”
Tata Steel was awarded the Deming
Application Prize in 2008 and went on to win
the Deming Grand Prize in 2012, the first time
a non-Japanese steel making facility has won
this prestigious award. And interestingly, PN
Singh, the president of the Tata Workers Union,
accompanied HM Nerurkar, the MD of Tata
Steel at that time to Tokyo, to receive the prize.
NEW GOALS
Following the maxim that business excellence
means continuously raising the bar, Tata Steel’s
latest goal is to apply for the advanced TBEM
assessment next year. This process promises to be
far more rigorous and intensive than the one Tata
Steel went through a decade ago. “We need to
continuously raise our performance levels. We are
now planning to re-engage with TBEM and get all
the teams up to speed,” says Mr Krishna.
To do this, Tata Steel will launch a mass
training campaign that aims to touch every
person in the steel SBU. Nearly 1,500 change
agents are being trained and the company intends
The essence of BE
TV Narendran, MD, Tata Steel India and South East
Asia encapsulates his years of experience with
business excellence (BE) in a few succinct points:
Business excellence is too critical a function to be
left to a department. Leaders need to walk the talk.
Don’t confuse the award for the destination.
Business excellence is a continuous, neverending journey. Keep looking at the next peak,
the next level to be achieved. Business
excellence is a great opportunity to engage
with every single employee in the company,
through mass training programmes that will raise
standards across the organisation and align
everyone to a common goal.
Companies need to understand the difference
between achieving a level of ‘good’ and a level of
‘outstanding’.
Business excellence should be all-pervasive:
improvements should be perceptible to all
stakeholders — customers, investors, channel
partners, supply chain, and so on.
to conduct a mid-course dipstick survey before
the actual assessment next year.
These momentous two decades of the
business excellence journey have transformed
Tata Steel in many ways. One big visible
change, according to Mr Narendran, is in the
way managers function. “Across the company,
management is no longer about intuition and gut
feel; it’s about making decisions based on hard
numbers and supported by data. Every decision
has to be backed by metrics, and everyone knows
it.” Another positive side effect is the sharing of
best practices across Tata companies.
Two decades ago, when Tata Steel started
its business excellence journey, it was a survival
strategy; today, the pursuit of excellence has
become so ingrained in its functioning, it sees
this as the only way to achieve its goals. Including
its latest — that of becoming the benchmark for
other steel companies in the world.
— Gayatri Kamath
July 2014 „
Tata Review
41
COVER STORY
Experience excellence
Excellence has to be an integral
part of every employee’s
daily work, and that is what
Tata Consultancy Services
continually strives to achieve
T
ata Consultancy Services (TCS)
adopted excellence as a core business
value more than two decades ago, and
many of the quality-related acronyms
— CMM, ISO, TBEM — have been a part of its
lexicon for years.
The correlation between the IT major’s
excellence journey and its steep upward growth
trajectory is plain to see. Take 2004 — an
“It’s about driving improvement
in each area of functioning...
we want all our stakeholders to
experience excellence at all their
TCS touch-points.”
Manojkumar Agarwal, head, business excellence, TCS
July 2014
42 Tata Review „
extraordinarily eventful year for the IT major:
TCS became the first Indian software
company to cross $1 billion in annual
revenues, covering 32 countries and with
30,000 people on its rolls.
All TCS centres were assessed at Capability
Maturity Model Integrated (CMMi) and
PCMM Level 5, making TCS the first
organisation in the world to achieve this.
It became the most valuable Tata company
by going in for a `40 billion public offering
on July 29, JRD Tata’s birth anniversary.
Fittingly, it also won the JRD QV Award
that year.
Here’s a picture of the company today,
a decade after working further to embed
excellence in its core operations. TCS has
grown tenfold in these ten years — with more
than 300,000 people in 46 countries, bringing
in over $13 billion in revenue. Since 2012, the
TCS brand has been valued by Brand Finance
among the world IT industry’s Big 4, right up
there with IBM, HP and Accenture.
According to N Chandrasekaran, CEO and
MD of TCS, excellence is an integral part of
COVER STORY
the company, a part of its DNA. “We work with
global leaders in many industry verticals. When
we serve world class companies and compete
with world class companies, it is absolutely
essential that we function as a world class
company,” he says.
To do this, TCS has adopted several quality
and excellence frameworks, such as ISO and
CMMi (see box: The TCS Way). The company’s
Tata Business Excellence Model (TBEM)
journey started in 1998-99. “All our excellence
frameworks act as a great big funnel that
helps us understand how to add and enhance
capabilities critical to our operations,” says
Mr Chandrasekaran. “At the end of the day, all
of them are connected. All of them are about
improving our capabilities and delivering the
best results — whether it’s our quarterly results,
or the impact of our CSR activities, or even the
manner in which one of the company drivers
receives a guest at the airport.”
MORE THAN THE MODEL
TCS has made a religion out of making
excellence less about the model and more about
the way it is experienced by customers and
other stakeholders. The company today has
four core themes that define its culture and the
way its employees work: customer centricity,
realise your potential, performance ethics, live
our values. “It’s about driving improvement in
each area of functioning. It’s about living the
TCS tag line — Experience Certainty. We want
all our stakeholders to experience excellence at
all their TCS touch-points. Excellence is a part
of everyone’s daily job,” explains Manojkumar
Agarwal, head of business excellence at TCS.
Easy to say, but a huge challenge when
one considers that TCS has more than 300,000
people that need to be aligned on the excellence
journey, with more than a tenth of these
coming in as fresh new recruits every year. How
does TCS do it?
The most significant aspect about the
company’s successful business excellence
journey is that the biggest believers in
excellence are the people at the very top.
“Our senior leaders and the next three levels
“It’s important to scale up and
sustain excellence across the
organisation.”
Aarthi Subramanian, head, delivery excellence group,
Tata Consultancy Services
are all champions of business excellence,”
says Mr Agarwal. “That’s about 1,000 highlevel champions who demonstrate daily that
excellence is a behaviour trait, a mind-set.
These are the people who drive the cultural and
behavioural aspects of excellence.”
So committed are these leaders to
excellence that when Mr Agarwal became head
of the function two years ago, he had no less
than 20 senior leaders who offered to coach
him in the role.
TCS displays similar rigour in embedding
the religion of excellence in its new recruits.
TCS has an Initial Learning Programme (ILP)
where about 40,000-50,000 campus recruits
undergo a three-month induction programme,
and the Experienced Professionals Induction
(EPI) for lateral recruits. “Business excellence
is a key ingredient in the ILP and the EPI. This
is where newcomers learn about the TCS way,”
says Aarthi Subramanian, head of the delivery
excellence group at TCS.
The TCS way
Given the global nature of the IT
industry and the TCS customer base
of industry leaders, the company
has built up excellence as a part
of its DNA. The quality assurance
approach that TCS follows is called
Integrated Quality Management
System (iQMS). It integrates
processes, people and technology
maturity through various established
frameworks and practices, including
IEEE, ISO 9001: 2008, CMMi, SWCMM, P-CMM and Six-Sigma.
July 2014 „
Tata Review
43
COVER STORY
train more people,” explains A Narayanan, lead,
business excellence, leadership and strategy.
TCS’s business excellence journey
Established
as a
division of
Tata Sons
Adopts
Tata
Business
Excellence
Model
Wins
recognition
as ‘Industry
Leader’
in TBEM
assessment
1998-99
2007-08
1965
‘Industry
Leader’ level
in advanced
TBEM
assessment
2013-14
1993
2004
2010
Enterprisewide ISO
Wins JRD QV
Award (only the
second Tata
company to do
so in 10 years of
TBEM)
Enterprise-wide
OHSAS 18001
Enterprise-wide
ISO 14001
Becomes
VNQKClRØÚQRSØ
organisation
to achieve
enterprise-wide
CMMi-Level 5
CHAMPIONS OF QUALITY
TCS has a Business Excellence Council,
which has 10-12 senior leaders who provide
continuous directions and guidance. There is
a core business excellence team comprising
experts who drive this within the organisation
and also closely collaborate with TQMS and
other Tata group companies.
TCS has also invested in over 350 business
excellence champions who are experts in the
various frameworks and models. A few years
ago, TCS restructured itself into several P&L
units, a structure that allows it to be more
agile and responsive to market changes. The
champions work with the individual business
units to further their excellence initiatives.
The way TCS creates these champions is
interesting. “We make people aware, we enthuse
them, train them, and then they become
champions of excellence. We break down the
concepts of quality and excellence in a positive
way, make it plain that their role is important to
TCS’s BE journey. This has worked so well that
we keep getting requests from our businesses to
July 2014
44 Tata Review „
REMARKABLE RIGOUR
The BE journey at TCS is not only a longrunning one, the company believes in
constantly setting itself tougher goals. Last year,
for instance, TCS went in for the advanced
assessment under TBEM.
“It is a much more rigorous and intensive
exercise designed for high-performing
companies. The exercise involves very senior
assessors, longer site visits, deeper engagement,
greater scrutiny of areas such as corporate
governance, corporate social responsibility,
safety, ethics, etc,” explains Mr Agarwal.
The TCS way is all about driving
performance improvement. “It’s important
to scale up and sustain excellence across the
organisation. Performance improvement is
a core part of the performance management
system at TCS. The focus is on continuous
learning, benchmarking and improvement,”
says Ms Subramanian.
“The BE Council itself is an example of
how TCS constantly works to improve itself.
Another example is the way TCS works to
improve one of its core strengths — delivery
excellence.”
To improve its collaboration and
communication channels, TCS has built an
internal social platform called Knome which
connects every single TCS employee across
continents. Platforms like this help TCS
function as a single integrated organisation.
Mr Chandrasekaran says, “‘One TCS’ is a very
important concept. We need to ensure that
customer experience of our service is uniform
across the globe.”
The core of the excellence initiative at
TCS is about continuously enhancing and
improving its capabilities. With senior leaders
as evangelists and champions of excellence
across the organisation, excellence is more than
a belief at TCS; it is a way of life, and a neverending journey.
— Gayatri Kamath
Two decades of business
excellence in fast motion
Since 1994, the Tata business excellence journey has been
driven by a few crusaders and managed by several Tata Quality
Management Services chiefs. This album of memorable moments
DBQUVSFTTPNFPGUIFÚBWPVSPGUIFMBTUUXPEFDBEFT
The TQMS team facilitates the business excellence movement in the Tata group. From left: executive chairman
S Padmanabhan (seated fifth); former TQMS chairman Prasad Menon (seated sixth) and former TQMS chief
Sunil Sinha (seated seventh) with the present team at their Pune office
July 2014 „
Tata Review
45
COVER STORY
FORMER TQMS CHIEFS
SA VANESWARAN
The first CEO of TQMS,
he was one of the
leading lights of the
business excellence
movement in the group
JAMSHED DABOO
Currently chief
executive of Trent
Hypermarket and
former COO of Indian
Hotels. He served as
CEO of TQMS from
1999 to 2000
G JAGANNATHAN
Currently executive
VP and global head of
business excellence
at Tata Technologies.
He headed TQMS
from 2000 to 2002
SUNIL SINHA
Served as the head of
TQMS from 2005 till
June 2014
July 2014
46 Tata Review „
JEHANGIR ARDESHIR
Was the CEO of TQMS
from 2002 to 2005
COVER STORY
THE JRD QV AWARD WINNERS
It is the ultimate prize in the
Tata group. Designed by Titan
Company, the elegant JRD QV
Award trophy is much-coveted
by all companies in the business
excellence movement. Only 15
units have won the award in the
last 20 years.
TATA STEEL, 2000
TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES, 2004
The Tata Steel team celebrates as it becomes the first-ever
winner of the JRD QV Award
Keshub Mahindra (centre), the then
chairman of Mahindra & Mahindra, hands
over the JRD QV Award to the TCS team
July 2014 „
Tata Review
47
COVER STORY
TATA MOTORS, 2005
Former Tata Sons
Chairman Ratan Tata
(centre) with Ravi Kant
(left) and KC Girotra of
Tata Motors
TITAN, TIME PRODUCTS DIVISION, 2006
Titan Industries (now
Titan Company), time
products division, with
the JRD QV Award
TATA CHEMICALS, 2007
2007 was a fruitful
year for the Tata group
with three companies
winning the award. Here
the Tata Chemicals team
poses with Mr Tata
July 2014
48 Tata Review „
COVER STORY
TATA METALIKS, 2007
The team from
Tata Metaliks with
the JRD QV Award
THE TINPLATE COMPANY OF INDIA, 2007
The Tinplate Company
of India team with the
JRD QV Award
TELCO CONSTRUCTION EQUIPMENT COMPANY (TELCON), 2008
The team from Telcon
(now Tata Hitachi
Construction Machinery)
displays the JRD QV
Award
July 2014 „
Tata Review
49
COVER STORY
TATA POWER, 2009
The Tata Power team,
with the JRD QV Award,
along with Mr Tata
TATA STEEL, TUBES DIVISION, 2010
The team from Tata
Steel, tubes division,
with the JRD QV Award
RALLIS INDIA, 2011
Rallis India MD
Veeramani Shankar with
his team collecting the
JRD QV Award from
Mr Tata
July 2014
50 Tata Review „
COVER STORY
TATA STEEL, FAMD, 2011
The team from Tata Steel’s
Ferro Alloys and Minerals
division collects the JRD QV
trophy from Mr Tata
TATA STEEL, WIRES DIVISION, 2011
TITAN, JEWELLERY DIVISION, 2012
The wires division of Tata Steel
receives the JRD QV Award
Mr Tata presents the JRD QV trophy to the
team from Titan’s jewellery division
INDIAN HOTELS, 2013
The team from
Indian Hotels
receives the JRD
QV Award from
Group Chairman
Cyrus P Mistry
July 2014 „
Tata Review
51
COVER STORY
Such a long journey…
Suresh Lulla, pioneer of the quality movement in India, shares
some fascinating insights and experiences
I
n the days when historians assumed that
history began with Greece, the Greek
historian Herodotus recorded the first
known reference to cotton grown in India:
“Certain wild trees bear wool instead of fruit,
which in beauty and quality excels that of
sheep; and the Indians make their clothing
from these trees.”
Arab travellers in the ninth century India
reported: “In this country they make garments
of such extraordinary perfection that nowhere
else is there like to be seen … sewed and
woven to such a degree of fineness, they may
be drawn through a ring of moderate size.”
But weaving was only one of the many
handicrafts of India. Europe looked up to
Indian expertise in almost every line of
manufacture: wood-work, metal-work,
bleaching, dyeing, tanning, soap-making,
glass-blowing, gun powder, fireworks, and
cement. Much of the gold used in the fifth
century BC came from India.
Ashoka’s famous many-pillared hall
Suresh Lulla is the founder of Qimpro Consultants. He
has vast experience and expertise in problem solving,
process excellence, performance excellence and best
practices benchmarking. He has chaired the IMC
Ramkrishna Bajaj National Quality Award since 1994;
and was presented the Distinguished Alumnus Award
by IIT Bombay in 2005.
July 2014
52 Tata Review „
in his palace at Pataliputra was partly dug
out by archeologists about a century ago. In
his official report, Dr WA Spooner of the
Archaeological Department of India stated
that the hall was “in an almost incredible state
of preservation; the logs which formed it being
as smooth and perfect as the day they were
laid, more than 2,000 years ago.” He further
added that the “marvellous preservation
of the ancient wood, whose edges were so
perfect that the very lines of jointure were
indistinguishable, evoked admiration of all
those who witnessed the experiment. The
whole structure was built with a precision
and reasoned care that could not possibly be
excelled today…. In short, the construction
was an absolute perfection of such work.”
The art of tempering and casting iron was
developed long before its known appearance
in Europe. Vikramaditya, for example, erected
in Delhi (circa 380AD) an iron pillar that
stands untarnished even after 16 centuries.
The quality of metal, or manner of treatment
which has preserved the pillar from rust or
decay, is still a mystery to modern science.
Centuries later, the industrial revolution
taught Europe to scale up manufacturing
operations more economically, and Indian
industry faded into obscurity — being unable
to stave off the competition.
COVER STORY
The incredible growth of worldwide
competition in the past 50 years — led at
different times by American, German and
Japanese companies — has shaken modern
business to its very core. The prime movers
for the success of these companies have been
reliability engineering and customer-focused
management. People around the world thus
have access to quality products.
In India, quota raj ended two decades
ago. Internationalism has substantially
replaced isolationism. Customers now
have choices in a wide range of sectors:
automobiles, garments, electronic goods,
processed foods, computers, software, TV
channels, hotels, hospitals, schools, and
much more…
During an interview in 1994, quality
guru Dr JM Juran was asked: “Dr Juran,
how would you rate corporate India’s
commitment to the theories and practices
of total quality management?”
Dr Juran’s response: “Much depends
on whether that term is even understood
by Indian companies. I think it is a very
misunderstood term, not only in India but in
various countries throughout the world. All
it really means is a collection of all the things
that we must do to have quality leadership.
But the list has not been standardised… My
opinion is that in the US, the best are the
criteria in the Baldrige Award.”
Another question to Dr Juran: “Which
of these criteria would you identify as the
most important?”
Dr Juran: “First, senior managers must
personally take charge of leading change
relative to quality. If they try to delegate
that they will not get good results. The
second important factor is the training
of the management hierarchy on how to
manage for quality. Then there is the idea
of undertaking to improve quality on a
revolutionary basis. Firms across the world
have developed processes for control of
quality, for stabilising things, preventing
adverse change. But none of them has
developed processes for creating beneficial
change for improvements …. in the sense of
reducing costs and improving processes so
that we do not take as long to meet customer
needs — we have been derelict.“
Yet another question: “Is it likely that
the history of not having been forced to
compete may have created a mindset in Indian
companies that is opposed to embracing
quality practices? How significant a hurdle
could such a mindset present?”
Answer: “Mindset is a very difficult
thing to change. I think the official name is
cultural resistance. And that’s a very powerful
force. It relates to the way people are brought
up as children. In a place like India you have
a culture that, in many respects, has sharp
differences with the West; to the point where
many are absolutely mystified by some of
them. They think they are superstitions. But
they don’t realise that some of the things that
they do look like superstitions to people from
India. And, in some ways, the superstitions
of the West are greater than the superstitions
of the East. That applies fully to trying to
introduce change in a company where you
have numerous cultures. Product development
engineers have a culture different from that
of the finance people and the like. Each of
them has been subjected to brainwashing, if
you want to call it that. Each of them develops
what anthropologists call a pattern of culture:
a selection of beliefs and habits and practices,
things they must do — the rituals — and the
things they must not do — the taboos.”
Around the same time, in 1994, Qimpro
Consultants partnered with the Juran Institute
to conduct Baldrige self-assessment exercises
for Tata Steel and Tata Motors at Jamshedpur.
The senior managements of each of the two
organisations proved ruthlessly transparent.
On a scale of 1,000, Tata Motors rated itself
210; and Tata Steel 180. The rest is history.
In 1994, the JRD Quality Value Award
was founded by the Chairman of Tata Sons,
Ratan Tata, based on the Baldrige criteria.
Over the past two decades, the JRD QV
process has become a global benchmark for
implementing performance excellence.
July 2014 „
Tata Review
53
IN CONVERSATION
‘My role is to harness people
potential for the greater good’
In his role as the chief human
)JTEJTBSNJOHTFOTFPGIVNPVS
SFTPVSDFTPGÙDFSBOENFNCFSPG
TIBSQJOUFMMFDUBOECVTJOFTTBDVNFO
the Group Executive Council of
are an asset in his interactions with
Tata Sons, NS Rajan TFUTUIFBHFOEB
everyone, junior or senior. He also
for harnessing the potential of
CSJOHTUPIJTDVSSFOUBTTJHONFOUUIF
employees in line with the Tata ethos
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architecture for the group.
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A quintessential people’s man, he
$PMMFHF$IFOOBJBOEBQPTUHSBEVBUF
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capital in the Tata group.
XJUIBOVNCFSPGMBSHFFOUFSQSJTFTBOE
July 2014
54 Tata Review „
IN CONVERSATION
DPOTVMUJOHÙSNTJODMVEJOH3BOCBYZ
"TJBO1BJOUTBOE&SOTU:PVOH
*OUIJTJOUFSWJFX.S3BKBOTQFBLT
to Cynthia RodriguesBCPVUUIF5BUB
What binds people to the group are our
value system, our culture, the way we treat
people with dignity and respect, as well as
the challenges and opportunities...
group’s plans for augmenting the
talent pool, attracting the younger
HFOFSBUJPOBOEQVTIJOHUIFHFOEFS
EJWFSTJUZBHFOEBBDSPTTUIFHSPVQ
You’ve moved from a consulting
practice to an HR function. What
has the change been like?
It’s been a change but not the way people
see it. At Ernst & Young, I was heading
the HR consulting practice across multiple
geographies; at Tata too we are talking of 100plus companies. So there is a parallel there, in
terms of complexity.
Work-wise too, it is familiar ground for
me. I have been serving clients across a crosssection, including many Tata companies. I see
our CEOs and CXOs as my primary internal
customers. At a broader level, I am blessed
with the opportunity of being a custodian of
human capital across the group.
In my previous role as a leader of the
business, I was responsible directly for the
profit and loss of the global practice. Here my
role is to harness the people potential for the
greater good.
Before you took up this
assignment, what were your
impressions about the HR
landscape at the Tata group?
The Tata group is probably the only one
of its kind with this richness of intellectual
capital. Because of its size and the diversity
of its operations, you are bound to find a
rich repertoire of talent in almost every
professional community. That is the hallmark
of the group.
We have a rich heritage of looking after
our people. I recall reading in our archives
of how our Founder Jamsetji Tata pioneered
not just businesses but also employee-friendly
practices; Tata employees enjoyed benefits
such as an 8-hour workday, good housing and
living conditions, way ahead of the times.
Our Chairman Cyrus Mistry is carrying
forward this legacy with a deep belief in the
power of our people. My association with
the group has only reinforced the positive
impressions I had before joining.
What keeps employee loyalty so
high in the Tata group?
At Tatas, employment is not just any job,
it is a career and a calling for many of us.
When I think of employee loyalty, the
metaphor that comes to my mind is that of
lasting marriages. I think there needs to be
a certain alignment of values on the part of
the individuals and the company. When that
happens, the employee feels at home. And
those who find a home with the Tatas like to
stay with the group.
What binds people to the group are our
value systems, our culture, the way we treat
people with dignity and respect, as well as the
challenges and opportunities offered by our
group of 100-plus companies. The longer you
stay with the group, the harder it is to leave.
What must the Tata group do to
attract the younger generation?
Today’s generation wants to work amidst
bright talent, they want to be challenged
consistently by their bosses as well as their
peers, and they want growth. We need to
showcase what we do. We also need to
listen to them very carefully and spend
time understanding their needs, fears
and aspirations.
Attitude is going to be a key component.
It is critical to find bright people who have the
July 2014 „
Tata Review
55
IN CONVERSATION
right attitude and fit in with the Tata culture.
We need to consciously create a very inclusive
environment and pick people from diverse
segments, who are bound by our shared ethos.
As the HR chief, how do you keep
yourself responsive to their needs
and aspirations?
Professor CK Prahalad used to say that the
company that finds a way to manage each of
its thousands of customers on a one-to-one
basis will build a differentiating connect with
customers. We need to do something similar
for our employees, our internal customers.
Leaders must feel an acute need to own the
people function and have a strong people
orientation. People need to understand Tata
policies and the philosophy upon which they
are based. If the philosophy is understood
well, and policy crafted accordingly, it will
touch people’s lives.
The time has come for us to go beyond
engagement and work is afoot to further
deepen our involvement and connect
with our people.
July 2014
56 Tata Review „
What are the key challenges that
HR faces in the Tata group?
There are things we need to do to strengthen
the rich fabric of the Tata group, starting with
a determined effort to attract the younger
generation. Also, over time, our performance
orientation tends to soften; we should guard
against this. In my mind, being hungry
for growth is not the opposite of being
conservative and nice. I think anyone who
cannot be competitive cannot be a responsible
leader for the company.
Above all, we need to leverage our
employer brand equity to find ways to attract
even more of the best. Our people, in what
they achieve every day, define our success.
We are in the process of articulating
the ‘Tata Quality of Life’ for our employees.
The time has come for us to go beyond
engagement and work is afoot to further
deepen our involvement and connect with our
people. We are re-examining how we measure
and enable a consistent experience for every
Tata employee that reflects our ethos.
How should companies ensure
leadership development?
In our leadership development architecture,
our premise is built on incorporating two core
elements spanning the lifecycle of our leaders:
experience and competence.
On the experience dimension, we need
to enable the individual to work for multiple
companies, functions, geographies and
business scenarios in their 20-year lifecycle.
We can then shape a person’s career by
providing experiences which are very unique
to a group like ours.
The competence dimension itself
consists of three layers. The first is
functional and technical competence,
the second is behavioural, and the third
comprises the Tata accelerators.
We can study the group’s unique
situation, and see how we can train employees
to meet our requirements. So, for example,
we could arrange for coaching in geopolitical
sensitivity and cultural diversity, which
IN CONVERSATION
are typically not a part of the standard
competency model. By exposing employees
to different disciplines, we can add to their
repertoire. In this regard, content is being
sourced from the best institutions, to cover
the entire spectrum of competencies.
Our endeavour is also to refresh the TAS
programme which was a flagship initiative
started in the late 1950s to create leaders
for the future. The business environment
has changed so much since then that it is
imperative for us to revisit the fundamentals
of this programme and redefine our
expectations from it. Seminal to our new
approach is the idea of owning the entire
employee lifecycle and playing a facilitative
role throughout it.
How is Tata Lead — the diversity and
inclusion initiative — shaping up?
This initiative launched by our Chairman
is being steered by an active group diversity
council comprising CEOs and CXOs from
group companies. In the first phase, we have
chosen to embrace gender diversity as our focus
area. We are not just talking of compliance
around gender diversity, or a mandate
which needs adherence. We are talking of a
group-wide commitment to celebrating the
importance of gender diversity.
We are talking of achieving a two-fold
goal by 2020: first, double the current figure of
115,000 women in a total employee workforce
of 540,000; the second, more aspirational goal,
is to groom and develop 1,000 women leaders
in the group.
Our endeavour is to remove hurdles in
the way of career growth, be it unconscious
bias or policy shortfalls. We are even
thinking of building this as a measure for
leaders to embrace.
There is also a need for corrections at
the policy and the practice levels, in terms of
what needs to be done to achieve our goals.
The change has to be brought in layer by
layer, across the entire pyramid. Most of the
companies that have attempted the road to
diversity have taken 8-10 years. I believe that
by 2020, we should be fairly close to where we
have set ourselves to be.
What else is on the HR anvil?
We are studying Tata Next practices across
the value chain of HR, a thought-leadership
initiative that aims to help us stay ahead
of the curve in people practices. We are
deploying a three-fold approach to help
define the way forward — philosophy and
first principles from research, internal as
well as external benchmarking. Once we
have the entire value chain covered, we will
have the best of the best available for any
company to use as they deem fit.
Our endeavour is also to foster multiple
avenues of synergy across the group. To tap
the pool of intellectual capital in the group,
we have initiated a construct where people
from across the group have opportunities of
coming together on an ideation platform, for
a short duration of a month or two.
These short-term think tanks are
temporarily created from across group
companies to deliberate on a pre-defined
problem and provide collective solutions,
leveraging their experiences. I believe such
interventions are another small step to
bring us closer together, and could even be
a force multiplier.
How do you manage work-life
balance? How do you make time
for your varied interests?
What is important must find time. I teach and
do so at IIM Ahmedabad and XLRI, whenever
I can. I write for business papers, dabble in
photography and enjoy penning poetry in
three languages. I make time to blog and also
stay connected with my friends and colleagues
on social media. The list doesn’t end here!
I love every day of my work and see what
I do as a wonderful privilege to serve. It is for
each one of us to create a portfolio of what we
love and find our own food for the soul.
You can follow NS Rajan on Twitter
@RajanNS
July 2014 „
Tata Review
57
BUSINESS
Countdown at Kalinganagar
Tata Steel’s massive Kalinganagar complex in
Odisha in eastern India is abuzz with activity as it
prepares to get commissioned by early 2015
T
here is palpable excitement
at the sprawling
Kalinganagar project of
Tata Steel in the eastern
Indian state of Odisha. Thousands of
engineers, technicians, construction
workers and other support staff are
working round-the-clock to ensure
that the first batch of steel products
roll out of the gigantic complex
by end of fiscal 2014-15. Workers
donning yellow and blue hard hats
swarm the various facilities — sinter
plant, blast furnace, power plant,
railway lines, etc — that make up the
huge integrated steel plant.
Located about 100km from
the state capital Bhubaneshwar,
Kalinganagar today presents a state
of dramatic activity that is completely
July 2014
58 Tata Review „
in sync with the tremendous
significance of the project to
Tata Steel. When completed,
Kalinganagar will produce 6 million
tonnes of steel products — raising
Tata Steel India’s output by 60
percent from the 10 million tonnes
that it produces now at Jamshedpur.
The first phase of the project
targets an output of 3 million tonnes
and occupies 2,000 acres of land.
Phase 2, which will take another
three years, will double the output
and grow to cover a total of 3,100
acres, making Kalinganagar the
largest single-location greenfield
project in India. Says TV Narendran,
managing director, Tata Steel India
and South East Asia: “Kalinganagar
is Tata Steel’s first greenfield project
outside of Jamshedpur. The plant
will not just add volumes, but
also enrich our product mix and
enable us to maintain our industry
leadership position.”
FROM PLAN TO PLANT
The project started back in 2005
with a budget of approximately
`150 billion. Today the budget has
crossed `400 billion and counting.
Says Mr Narendran, “Typically it
costs about $1 billion dollars (about
`60 billion) to produce a million
tonnes of steel. At Kalinganagar, we
are spending about `40-50 billion
extra at the project site to build local
infrastructure and amenities.”
Some of the zeroes in that
figure have resulted from the delays
that plagued the project over civil
and regulatory issues. But the end
is now in sight for this massive
project. Civil work is almost over
and structural work and erection is
BUSINESS
on at present. Says Arun Misra, vicepresident, operations: “All mission
critical plants like power plant, coke
oven, sinter plant, blast furnace, steel
melting shop and hot strip mill are
fast moving towards completion.”
The first phase will cover
various grades of hot-rolled products
of different thicknesses. “Once the
cold rolling mill is ready in the
second phase, we will be able to
meet the demands of the automobile
sector in India,” he explains.
There’s more to Kalinganagar
than just steel. Since it is an integrated
steel plant, it will have its own power
generation capacity, raw material
handling facilities, railway lines,
connectivity with the port, etc. “We
are laying an 18km railway line and
a 16km long water pipeline,” says
Mr Misra. Three power plants will
generate about 180MW of electricity.
A TOUGH LEARNING
EXPERIENCE
Developing such a mega project in
an area that does not boast of much
industrial infrastructure was in itself
a formidable challenge for Tata Steel.
But the thousands of engineers and
workers, who have been relentlessly
working at the project site, have done
a remarkable job. Rajesh Ranjan
Jha, vice-president, engineering,
points out that no industrial or
infrastructure site in India has seen
the kind of work being done at the
Kalinganagar project.
For instance, 50,000 cubic
“All mission critical plants like power
plant, coke oven, sinter plant, blast
furnace, steel melting shop and hot strip
mill are fast moving towards completion.”
Arun Misra, vice-president, operations
metres of concrete was poured every
month for more than a year in 2012
at the site. “Before that, there were
only two projects in India where
concrete was poured at that rate,” he
says. “And in those projects, it was
for just a month, not a year.”
Similarly, structural erection at
Kalinganagar proceeded consistently
at a pace of 12,000 tonnes or even
more every month. “This has never
been done anywhere in the past,”
says Mr Jha. “Even during expansion
work at Jamshedpur, the highest
structural erection work we did was
5,000 tonnes a month.”
Executing the Kalinganagar
project has been a great learning
experience for the Tata Steel
employees involved. Although, over
the years, Tata Steel’s steel capacity
has grown steadily from the submillion tonne plant that was set
up in Jamshedpur in 1907, all of
that growth has been brownfield
expansion, that too in the comfort
zone of Jamshedpur. “We have
had no experience in putting up a
greenfield project before. Most of us
have not seen work of such scale,”
explains Mr Misra.
Many of the learnings from the
“No industrial or infrastructure site in
India has seen the kind of work being
done at the Kalinganagar project.”
Rajesh Ranjan Jha, vice-president, engineering
first phase are being incorporated
in the engineering work being done
for the second phase. Says Mr Jha:
“We have decided to go into ‘discreet’
mode for the second phase. We will
leverage the expertise gained in the
first phase and do many things on our
own. So instead of giving a turnkey
contract to a construction company,
we will opt for separate contracts for
civil construction, structural work
and mechanical and piping work.
This will give us a cost advantage.”
SUSTAINABLE APPROACH
Kalinganagar has been planned with
an emphasis on recycling waste.
Waste gas from the coke oven and
blast furnace will fuel the power
plants, thus reducing dependence on
fossil fuels. Slag — a by-product from
the blast furnace — will be supplied
as raw material to nearby cement
plants (set up by other companies).
The slag will be granulated and sent to
the cement plants by rail. According
to Mr Misra, the steel plant will have
zero discharge of effluent water.
Wastewater will be processed in an
effluent reservoir and recycled for use
at the plant. Solid waste material will
be converted into crystals, which can
be used for landfill.
One big learning from
Kalinganagar (see box) has been the
need to have industrial and social
infrastructure in place. Explains
Mr Narendran: “For a project like
this, there is a lot of planning needed
for local infrastructure — water,
July 2014 „
Tata Review
59
BUSINESS
electricity, roads — and all of these
need to be planned well in advance.”
Another aspect to be considered
is that remote areas are difficult for
people to live in as there are issues
relating to recreation, medical
treatment and security. “If we do
not plan for and provide proper
facilities, it could lead to attrition in
the workforce,” says Mr Narendran.
“We need to think about how women
workers, wives and children will live
in these places. We are not talking
about setting up townships, but
working with partners to make sure
that our people are cared for.”
In many ways, Kalinganagar has
added several dramatic moments to
Tata Steel’s history. As Mr Jha puts
it: “It is difficult to eliminate all the
challenges. You have to navigate them
on a day-to-day basis. Executing a
project of this size in such a location
is like canoeing in white water.”
With the commissioning
due a few months from now, the
excitement at Kalinganagar is bound
to increase several notches.
— Nithin Rao
R&R is as crucial as engineering
While top leaders and managers executing
mega projects usually talk of technology, return
on investments and deadlines, a new phrase
is fast entering their lexicon: resettlement
and rehabilitation (R&R). Arun Misra, vicepresident, operations, at the Kalinganagar
OQNIDBSØR@XRØ11ØHRØBQTBH@KØHMØ@MXØFQDDMÚDKCØ
project today. “I have been speaking at
engineering colleges, emphasising the need
for courses on R&R for engineering students.
We need to document this subject within the
Tata group as well, as these issues will crop up
whenever major projects are taken up.”
Young engineers also need to be trained
and sensitised on these issues. “Handling technical challenges is easier, whereas R&R is
complex,” he avers. Mr Misra recalls that when he came to Kalinganagar in 2012, the project had
not taken off, and there were a number of stoppages as villagers raised objections. “There was a
SQTRSØCDÚBHSØATSØVDØVNQJDCØSGQNTFGØHSØ@MCØF@UDØINARØSNØSGDØKNB@KØODNOKDØ3GDXØJMNVØNTQØKHLHS@SHNMRØ
and they do not expect us to meet all their demands. But they want us to listen to their problems
and importantly, demonstrate sincerity.”
“The people at Kalinganagar know and understand that their economic prosperity is closely
connected to the steel plant. They feel they have a natural claim to this plant and that their
economic progress should be linked to it. It is our responsibility to ensure that this happens,”
Mr Misra adds.
At the Trijanga R&R colony on the outskirts of the Kalinganagar Tata Steel plant, one can
see many of the original residents now being gainfully employed. Sharda Gautam, director,
1DM@HRR@MBDØ2SQ@SDFHBØ@MCØ,@M@FDLDMSØ2DQUHBDRØVGHBGØQTMRØSGDØOQNIDBSØNEÚBDØMNSDRØSG@SØ
odd families have been resettled. Many of them are employed with Navjeevan, a cooperative that
has been set up.
,NQDØSG@MØØVNLDMØ@QDØHMUNKUDCØHMØÚUDØCHEEDQDMSØDMSDQOQHRDRØBNUDQHMFØF@QLDMSØL@JHMFØ
painting, stationery, broiler farming and food business. “We have tied up with partners such
as Fabindia, the Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India and Tribal
#DUDKNOLDMSØ"NNODQ@SHUDØ"NQONQ@SHNMØNEØ.CHRG@ØDMRTQHMFØSGDXØG@UDØRTEÚBHDMSØVNQJnØGDØ@CCR
July 2014
60 Tata Review „
BUSINESS
“We need to build equity with the local community”
TV Narendran, managing director, Tata Steel India and South East Asia, elaborates on
the learnings from the Kalinganagar project
At Kalinganagar, we
assumed that because we
had the Tata name and we
were going in with good
intentions, the project
would be relatively smooth
and our intentions would be
appreciated and welcomed.
But there is a local reality —
there are vested interests,
genuine local issues,
community concerns, etc.
So the big learning is
SG@SØHMØ@ØFQDDMÚDKCØOQNIDBSØ
there is a need to do a
lot of equity building with
the local community. The
local community is not
bothered with our history
in Jamshedpur; they have
genuine concerns which
have to be addressed. This
aspect was something
that we probably
underestimated.
The second learning
HRØSG@SØFQDDMÚDKCØOQNIDBSRØ
should be looked at in a
slightly different manner
from other projects — we
need to build equity with
the local community even
ADENQDØVDØOTSØTOØSGDØÚQRSØ
wall. There has to be a
lot of initial activity on the
ground. In fact many global
mining majors follow this
approach. This is something
we are now following at
other projects. We have
plans for Karnataka, and we
have started working with
the local community there;
we have even brought
community leaders and
ministers to Jamshedpur to
see what we do. We have
realised that building a steel
plant per se is a relatively
easy task, as compared to
managing these issues.
Another big learning
is that there is a need to
sensitise our managers
and leaders on how to deal
with local communities.
We do have our people
from Tata Steel Corporate
Services or Tata Steel Rural
Development Society,
but when we go into a
FQDDMÚDKCØ@QD@Ø@KKØSGDØ
people going to the site
need to be sensitised to
local cultures and ideas.
Even if it is not a part of
their daily job, they will
be coming into contact
with the local population
one way or another. This
should be planned for —
something similar to how
people going overseas are
given training for cultural
orientation.
Another thing to look
out for in these huge
construction sites is the
need to work with the
government for some kind
of planned development of
the ecosystem. Otherwise
there will be haphazard,
unplanned growth. A
few years ago, there was
nothing close to our site;
today there are 14 bank
branches. There is a huge
amount of economic
activity that cascades from
the project cost, and the
government needs to plan
for this.
At Tata Steel, we
have realised that to steer
projects of this scale, there
has to be a team of people
that includes not just
project management and
operations functions, but
also corporate services and
"21ØSNØADØ@LNMFØSGDØÚQRSØ
ones on the ground.
As told to Gayatri Kamath
July 2014 „
Tata Review
61
BUSINESS
Motoring with Zest
Meet the Zest, the all-new, next-generation car from Tata Motors. Designed
for the global market, the soon-to-be-launched Zest is a classy sedan that
DPNFTMPBEFEXJUIHSFBUOFXEFTJHOBFTUIFUJDTBTFHNFOUEFÙOJOHESJWF
experience and high-tech infotainment system
July 2014
62 Tata Review „
BUSINESS
WHAT’S UNDER THE HOOD
SPECIFICATIONS
Engine
Max power
PETROL
Revotron 1.2T
85PS@5000 RPM
DIESEL
1.3L Quadrajet
90PS@4000 RPM
Max torque
Gear box
Wheel base
Wheel track
Vehicle dimension
GVW
Kerb weight
Payload (kg)
Brakes
140 Nm @ 1750 - 3000 RPM
TA65*
2470 mm
Front: 1450mm Rear: 1440mm
L - 3995 mm x W -1695 mm x H -1570 mm
1531kg
1106kg
425kg
Vacuum assisted independent hydraulic;
ventilated disc brakes in front and drum in rear
Dry single plate
200 Nm @ 1750 - 3000 RPM
C549
Clutch
Tyres
Steering
Suspension
Fuel tank capacity
R16
Electronic power steering with brushless motor
Front: Dual path independent McPherson strut with anti-roll bar
Rear: Independent 3-link McPherson strut with anti-roll bar
44 litres
We are delighted
to showcase the muchawaited ZEST, a stunning
and exciting new
Ranjit Yadav,
president,
passenger vehicles,
Tata Motors
compact sedan that has
been engineered for
global customers,
through global teams
across India, UK and
South Korea. The car is
a true representation of
our Horizonext
philosophy, with its
best-in-class offerings
for performance that
offers economy and
efficiency.”
July 2014 „
Tata Review
63
BUSINESS
Scrap to steel
of over 2 million tonnes.
New investment over the
past few years has boosted
QSPEVDUJWJUZBOEQSPÙUBCJMJUZ
and the company is ready to
take on opportunities that the
region presents.
Shubha Madhukar speaks
to NatSteel CEO Vivek
Kamra about investments,
opportunities, expansion plans,
safety and more. Excerpts
from the interview:
Set up as the National Iron
and Steel Mills in 1963,
NatSteel became a part
of the Tata group in 2005.
Based in Singapore, NatSteel
is a leading provider of
reinforcement steel across
UIF"TJB1BDJÙDSFHJPOBOE
has a combined annual
steel production capacity
July 2014
64 Tata Review „
How has business been in the past
fiscal? What is your expectation for
the fiscal 2014-15?
The global steel industry has been challenging
in FY14, with excess production capacity
leading to intense price competition,
particularly from China. NatSteel has
performed admirably against these headwinds.
The NatSteel group achieved record sales
volume and turnover, bolstered by the robust
expansion of its business in Fujian, China. The
group’s sales volume rose 38 percent to reach
BUSINESS
Precage wall
Precage column
Slab mesh
Precage beam
Beam stirrup cage
Column link cage
Diaphragm
wall cage
Drain mesh
Pile cap – mesh
Precaged
bore pile
reinforcement
Cut and
bend rebar
Couplers in DWall
for future extension
of slab
NatSteel is a one-stop shop for a construction site’s steel requirements: from cut-and-bend
reinforcement bars to welded wire mesh and prefabricated cages
over 2.6 million MT, and turnover increased 18
percent to cross the S$2.5 billion mark.
We continued to take bold steps towards
operational excellence by enhancing capabilities
of our plants in the region. The Singapore
plant underwent a major transformation and
completed a slew of modernisation projects
across operations. Similarly, there has been a
major push to enhance safety and productivity
through automation and IT adoption in all our
major operations. In Thailand, NatSteel’s wire
business under Siam Industrial Wire started a
new chapter by venturing into galvanised wire.
These investments will strengthen NatSteel’s
position to capture future opportunities in the
regional steel markets.
For FY15, the key focus will be the
continued expansion of our prefabricated
steel reinforcement solutions business. As our
new downstream plants in Xiamen, China,
and Johor Bahru, Malaysia, gain momentum,
we aim to establish two additional plants
in Hong Kong and Jakarta, Indonesia, to
introduce prefabricated building solutions to
these markets.
How does NatSteel ensure its
operations are sustainable?
NatSteel, in Singapore, operates one of the
most energy-efficient electric arc furnaces
in the world. The company utilises about
30 percent less electricity per tonne of steel
produced, compared to other typical electric
arc furnace operations.
Enhancing energy efficiency has always
been a priority for NatSteel’s upstream
steelmaking operations. Given Singapore’s open
economy, industries based in the country must
operate at a globally competitive level, or risk
becoming unviable.
The nation also has one of the highest
electricity rates worldwide, and hence it is in
our interest to reduce electricity consumption
as much as possible. To achieve further savings,
NatSteel has recently completed a shaft furnace
upgrade to its meltshop. This will increase
productivity and reduce the specific power
requirement of the furnace even further.
A strong focus on value-added products
and keeping the company close to builders,
contractors and local construction authorities
July 2014 „
Tata Review
65
BUSINESS
To download the app
scan the QR code
with your phone
Scan the image
using the app to
watch the video
Safety practices at NatSteel
As a major employer as well as a key pillar in the
construction industry in Singapore, NatSteel is
committed to helping raise the national industry
benchmarks in safety. The organisation has been
collaborating with the government in recent
years on safety. One such example is NatSteel’s
participation in a pilot study to integrate personal
health and wellness into the corporate workplace
safety and health programme.
NatSteel embarked on the safety journey in
2008 with the goal of achieving a zero-incident
workplace. The programme has resulted in
RHFMHÚB@MSØHLOQNUDLDMSRØHMØR@EDSXØNUDQØSGDØO@RSØRHWØ
years, with lost-time-injury-frequency in Singapore
falling from over 10 in FY08 to 0.61 in FY14. The
programme has also been successful in promoting
a safety culture at NatSteel.
Key facets of NatSteel’s safety programme include:
Everything starts with safety: The message that
R@EDSXØBNLDRØÚQRSØHRØBNLLTMHB@SDCØSGQNTFGNTSØ
the organisation, from the board to all contract
workers.
Leadership is caring: Promoting leadership
by example and caring for the safety of fellow
colleagues.
Building a structure for safety: Putting in place
a structure for implementing, reporting and
reviewing safety initiatives.
Committing resources: Allocating required
resources for safety initiatives.
July 2014
66 Tata Review „
enables us to continuously enhance our
value proposition.
A strong focus on people and systems
will always hold us in good stead to reinvent
ourselves in the toughest of times.
What has been the impact of
the recent investments in new
steelmaking and automation
technologies at your Singapore
facility?
The recent investments in modernising the
plant are already bearing fruit. In addition to
a new energy-saving shaft furnace and electric
arc furnace, we have modernised our scrap
processing facility, our rolling mill automation
system, as well as our supply chain and IT
infrastructure. These investments have led to
improvements in productivity and cost, as well
as the yield in the meltshop.
The automation of our downstream
fabrication centres has led to capacity and
productivity enhancements, which is crucial
for the business to compete. Between FY10
to FY14, we recorded a 50 percent increase in
sales of downstream value-added products,
with a corresponding increase in downstream
manpower of just 16 percent. The future
ambition is to increase downstream capacity
and sales even further, but with the same
or even less manpower and by leveraging
automation and IT to drive productivity.
What are the challenges of doing
business in Singapore? And how do
you tackle them?
Singapore’s open economy and lack of trade
barriers entail that businesses here must stay
highly competitive at a global level. Given the
country’s small footprint, labour and land use
are at a premium, and the government is highly
focused on driving productivity and optimising
the use of resources. In the past decade,
Singapore’s manufacturing base has seen a
shift towards high value-added activities which
utilise the latest technologies, and require lesser
but more skilled labour.
Similarly, NatSteel has seen the need to
BUSINESS
Investment in automation has led to improvements in productivity and cost
transform and modernise itself to achieve
higher labour and land productivity, so
as to enhance its capability to serve the
construction industry.
Another challenge for NatSteel is the
high cost of electricity in Singapore, given
that electricity is the key energy input for the
steelmaking operations.
With many developed markets
witnessing a gradual economic
recovery, do you see improved
sentiments in the global steel
market in the near future?
While the global steel industry continues to
face the challenges of excess capacity and strong
price competition, the global demand for steel
is expected to continue to rise. According to
forecasts by the World Steel Association, global
apparent steel use will increase by 3.1 percent
in 2014 and a further 3.3 percent in 2015 to
reach 1,576 MT.
Asia, in particular, remains a region with
high potential for steel consumption growth,
given the relatively low steel consumption
relative to per capita GDP. The developing
markets in the region present promising
opportunities for NatSteel to provide building
solutions for their construction industries.
The NatSteel way
Headquartered in Singapore, NatSteel has
operations in Australia, China, Indonesia, Malaysia,
Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. The company
manufactures steel, exclusively from scrap, for use
in the construction industry. In FY14, the company
posted revenue of over S$2.5 billion.
Singapore generates over a million tonnes
of metal scrap yearly, of which almost half is
recycled by NatSteel to form the backbone of
Singapore’s urban landscape.
NatSteel’s energy consumption per tonne is the
lowest in the world and carbon footprint is the
best in the industry.
-@S2SDDKlRØBNLLHSLDMSØSNØDMDQFXØDEÚBHDMBXØ
has won accolades such as the Energy
$EÚBHDMBXØ/@QSMDQRGHOØ V@QCØEQNLØSGDØ2HMF@ONQDØ
government, as well as the Singapore Compact
Green Champion Award in 2012.
NatSteel operates out of the world’s largest
prefabricated reinforcement steel production
centre at one location.
Between FY10 and FY14, NatSteel has seen a
50 percent increase in sales of downstream
value-added products, with a corresponding
increase in downstream manpower of 16 percent.
July 2014 „
Tata Review
67
BUSINESS
Learning solutions with
a difference
Tata ClassEdge, earlier a part of Tata Interactive
Systems, is empowering teachers with tools that
improve the pedagogical process and ensure
better learning outcomes
J
ust three years after the
launch of Tata ClassEdge,
a unique educational tool,
more than 40,000 teachers
and around a million students across
1,200 schools in India are benefitting
from it. An integrated learning
solution for schools, the tool is
designed to help teachers deliver
high-quality instruction with an
effective blend of classroom activities
and interactive multimedia.
Nirav Khambhati, CEO, Tata
ClassEdge, says: “The response
has been overwhelming. We now
plan to ramp up our offerings,
covering many more students.” Tata
ClassEdge was spun off in February
2014 from Tata Interactive Systems
(TIS), the world’s leading developer
of learning solutions and products.
The success ClassEdge has
received is especially gratifying,
given the fact that it began life
only in 2011 when TIS decided
to convert its years of expertise in
instructional design into a product
to help advance the quality of
teaching in schools and improve
learning outcomes.
Earlier this year, it was decided
to look at this particular business
“We want to work with teachers and
empower them, give them the requisite
tools to improve the quality of the
teaching-learning process.”
Nirav Khambhati, CEO, Tata ClassEdge
July 2014
68 Tata Review „
through a different lens, of making a
meaningful difference to the quality
of education in India and not be
bound by financial aspects such
as revenues and bottom line. “We
want to measure results in terms of
how many lives we have changed,”
says Mr Khambhati. The whole
perspective changed and profit was
no longer the primary motive; so
ClassEdge was spun off as a separate
entity to maximise the impact on the
quality of education.
BUILDING PROFICIENCY
The underlying philosophy behind
the move was that well-equipped
teachers ensure better students.
“We want to work with teachers
and empower them; give them the
requisite tools to improve the quality
of the teaching-learning process,”
says Mr Khambhati.
The proficiency of teachers —
not just in India, but around the
world — is not uniform. While
some are exceptionally good,
there are others who still have to
work hard to excel. Mr Khambhati
explains: “The tools that we have
developed allow them to get there
BUSINESS
ClassEdge is an integrated learning solution with an effective blend of classroom activities and multimedia
faster. They provide support in
terms of audiovisuals, question
banks and worksheets.”
While launching ClassEdge,
the entire syllabus prescribed by the
National Council of Educational
Research and Training (NCERT),
a government of India body, was
broken down into various ‘teaching
points’. These points — which
include, for instance, Newton’s first
law of motion, rational numbers,
the Harappan civilisation, etc —
were then modularised and digital
resources were created to ensure that
learning happens in multiple ways.
All these resources are bundled
into the Tata ClassEdge software
and deployed in schools across the
country, along with hardware such
as projectors and PCs. Creating the
software was a phenomenal exercise,
perhaps the largest of its kind in the
world. Mr Khambhati elaborates:
“We have invested close to 14,000
person-months of effort to develop
Tata ClassEdge. I am not aware of
any other investment on such a large
scale in developing school content.”
IMPROVED LEARNING
New products are being developed
as part of the constant endeavours
by the company to leverage
technology to make the teaching
and learning processes more
effective and efficient. “A pipeline
of products is under consideration,”
informs Mr Khambhati.
Tata ClassEdge recently
launched two new products,
PlanEdge and TestEdge. PlanEdge
has been designed to reduce the
planning and administrative tasks
of teachers by automating annual
academic planning, time-table
creation, grade-book generation and
so on. TestEdge comes with a bank
of more than 65,000 questions and
a user interface designed to enable
teachers to generate standardised
question papers at the click of a
few buttons. Both products are
compliant with the continuous
and comprehensive evaluation
parameters of the Central Board of
Secondary Education (CBSE), India’s
leading school education body.
The ClassEdge modules
supplied to schools follow different
boards including the CBSE, the
Council for the Indian School
Certificate Examinations (ICSE)
and all the state education boards.
Thanks to the modular architecture
of the product, it can be adapted by
schools following different boards.
At present, the tools are in English,
Hindi, Marathi and Gujarati, but
other languages are also being
considered by Tata ClassEdge.
The product has been
greatly appreciated by principals
and teachers across India. “We
proactively support schools
July 2014 „
Tata Review
69
BUSINESS
and hand-hold them in this
transformational journey,” explains
Mr Khambhati.
One of the best testimonials for
the product, says Mr Khambhati,
was by the City Montessori School,
Lucknow; the school, which figured
in the Guinness Book of World
The ClassEdge advantage
Tata ClassEdge was developed on the premise that when
students use multiple senses and are involved in a variety of
carefully planned activities, they will be better involved with
learning and will retain concepts better. The model makes
use of distinct types of activities that promote social and
thinking skills in students, including critical thinking, creativity,
teamwork, research-orientation and communication skills.
Key features:
Provides effective, short duration multimedia elements
and worksheets designed to promote critical and creative
thinking.
Integrates differentiated extension activities for struggling
and gifted students.
Provides well-designed classroom activities that teachers
can use in the classroom to make learning more engaging
@MCØDM@AKDRØDEÚBHDMSØTRDØNEØSD@BGDQØSHLDØSGQNTFGØHMSDQ@BSHUDØ
teacher tools.
/QNUHCDRØ@ØTMHÚDCØOK@SENQLØENQØBNMSDMSØRDKDBSHNMØKDRRNMØ
planning tools and an immersing learning environment.
The company provides state-of-the-art educational
software and technology infrastructure to schools including
projectors, power back-up systems, and arrangements for
internet connectivity. It also trains teaching and non-teaching
staff, and generates students’ progress and attendance reports
and tracks teachers’ usage of Tata ClassEdge.
Records as having the most number
of pupils (nearly 40,000), made a
video recording of the experience of
its principal, teachers and students
with Tata ClassEdge, and uploaded it
on YouTube.
The 1,200 schools that currently
use ClassEdge are spread across both
urban and rural areas. In fact, many
of them are located in remote areas
with virtually no road connectivity.
“On one end we have schools where
we had to ship our equipment on
bullock-carts, and on the other a
school like The Cathedral & John
Connon, Mumbai, one of the toprated schools in India, which is using
Tata ClassEdge in all its classrooms,”
reveals Mr Khambhati.
Lack of electricity and
connectivity are major infrastructural
bottlenecks in some areas. While
Tata ClassEdge is addressing the
issue of internet connectivity, power
shortage remains a major challenge.
Erratic power supplies can also
damage equipment.
The company has initiated talks
with Tata Power Solar Systems, a
wholly-owned subsidiary of Tata
Power, for a possible tie-up in a bid
to convince schools to adopt solar
energy, which would not only ensure
consistent electricity, but would also
contribute to sustainability.
India’s supplemental education
market presents a huge opportunity
— a $15-billion market over the
next 10 years, and ClassEdge, it
appears, is already at an advantage.
With the expertise of TIS, which
has won all the Oscar-equivalents
for instructional design around the
world, Tata ClassEdge will not be
short of inspiration and wherewithal
to rise up to the challenge.
— Nithin Rao
July 2014
70 Tata Review „
PHOTOFEATURE
A SEDUCTIVE MIX OF
SCIENCE AND SKILL
Behind the glitter of gold and dazzle of diamonds is the intricate art of jewellery making,
an amalgam of science and skill. Traditionally, Indian karigars (artisans) had to work in
hot, cramped, unhealthy conditions, inhaling noxious fumes while they soldered melting
gold by hand. In 1995, when Titan Company entered into the jewellery business, it
changed the game completely. It built a sprawling 130,000 sq ft plant at Hosur, Tamil
Nadu, which was well-lit, air conditioned and followed all health and safety practices.
Innovation and technology have brought in new products, better designs and greater
productivity. Behind every piece of jewellery is an exquisite combination of traditional
karigari (craftsmanship) and modern automation. Tata Review captures the process,
step-by-step, that converts solid gold into art you can wear.
Text: Shubha Madhukar
Photographs: BN Ramesh and Titan Company archives
July 2014 „
Tata Review
71
PHOTOFEATURE
STEP 1
Crafting the master
At the beginning of the gold chain are
the expert goldsmiths who evaluate new
designs from the Titan Design Centre
and carefully handcraft the master in
silver or wax. Some masters are also
created using the rapid prototyping
machine. From the master, moulds
are created using the process of
vulcanisation. Using a sophisticated wax
injection machine, wax is fed into this
mould and several replicas of the design
are created. Once cooled and examined,
they are readied for treeing.
STEP 2
Treeing
The many wax pieces are
attached to a central spool
of wax. This process, done
manually, needs trained
and dexterous hands, and
immense care as the quality
RIWKHÀQDOFDVWLQJGHSHQGV
on this. Titan has mastered
the art of creating intricate
moulds. Moulds for delicate
ÀOLJUHHMHZHOOHU\DUHVSHFLDO
as they allow the company
to make lighter and
affordable jewellery.
July 2014
72 Tata Review „
PHOTOFEATURE
STEP 3
Melting, casting and quenching
7KHZD[WUHHLVWKHQWUDQVIHUUHGLQWRÁDVNVLQWRZKLFK3ODVWHURI3DULVLVSRXUHG
and placed in the rotary burnout furnace and burnt for 12 hours. The temperature
varies depending on the jewellery — 600°C for diamond jewellery and 720°C
for plain gold jewellery. In the furnace, the wax melts and leaves behind a cavity
of the desired shape into which molten gold of the desired caratage is poured.
In the casting machine, gold granules and alloys are charged. At 1,050°C, gold
turns into liquid in about 8-10 minutes. It is poured into the tree mould placed in
WKHÁDVNEHORZ2QFHUHDG\WKHÁDVNVDUHTXHQFKHGLQZDWHUIRUPLQXWHV
STEP 4
Piecing
$QGQRZLQVLGHWKHÁDVNDQGWKH
3ODVWHURI3DULVZKDWZDVDZD[WUHH
turns into a gold tree. A high-pressure
ZDWHUMHWLVXVHGWRFOHDQWKH3ODVWHU
RI3DULVWRUHYHDOWKHJROGWUHH*ROG
pieces are cut from the tree using the
SQHXPDWLFWUHHFXWWHUDQGJURXQGÀQH
before being rotated in a barrel along
with abrasives and polishing medium.
July 2014 „
Tata Review
73
PHOTOFEATURE
STEP 5
Sorting
A robot (called robo kit marshal)
matches all the units for a piece
of jewellery and sends them to
downstream operations. The robot
can handle up to 4,000 pieces in a
day. Each item has a batch number
— the robot reads the bar code
and groups together the items for a
piece of jewellery. This technology
is unique to Titan jewellery division.
STEP 6
Benchwork
The pieces are now ready to be benchworked.
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the pieces are assembled and soldered using
indium (instead of the harmful cadmium used in
traditional workshops). Next comes the careful
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hands using the right equipment and tools.
PRODUCT MIX
F
A
C
T
F
I
L
E
Studded jewellery
25-30%
Gold coins
5-10%
July 2014
74 Tata Review „
ANNUAL CONSUMPTION
Plain gold
jewellery
65%
Gold
18-20 tonnes
Diamonds
150,000 carats
PHOTOFEATURE
STEP 7
Stone-setting
If the piece is a studded one,
setting the stones is the next
process. The diamond bagging
automation machine puts together
a kit of diamonds that have to be
used in a particular piece. This
is a unique machine used at the
Hosur plant to ensure the right
quality and caratage of diamonds.
STEP 9
Quality check
Finished pieces of
jewellery undergo a
close quality check.
Once passed they are
weighed and bar coded
and readied for dispatch
WR7DQLVKTDQG*ROGSOXV
boutiques across India.
STEP 8
Polishing
The physical piece is ready but the lustre
and sheen comes only with the highest
degree of polishing.
KARIGARS
About 400-450 karigars work
at the plants in Hosur (Tamil
Nadu), Dehradun (Uttarakhand)
and Pantnagar (Uttar Pradesh)
GREEN
PROCESSES
Zero metal
discharge in the
environment
REVENUES
FUTURE WISE
100 billion
in 2013-14
‡ 3D printing of jewellery
‡ Active jewellery fitted with
electronic devices
July 2014 „
Tata Review
75
COMMUNITY
Making each drop go
an extra acre
Rainwater harvesting and the support of the Tata
Trusts and partners have made it possible for
farmers in the arid Vidarbha region in India to have
QSPUFDUJWFJSSJHBUJPOGPSÙSTUDSPQTBOEFOPVHI
water for second and, sometimes, third crops
L
ast year, 50-year-old Suresh
Landge harvested a crop of
wheat on his land. So what is
unusual about that you wonder
— wheat is harvested by farmers
across India every year. However, for
Mr Landge, a small farmer, it was
a dream come true. Wheat formed
a major part of his diet, but it was
the first time he was cropping it on
his land. In the arid rain-fed land
in remote Akhpuri Chowki village
in Vidarbha, farmers considered
themselves lucky if they were able to
harvest a healthy first crop.
Mr Landge’s wheat harvest was his
second — and an unexpected bonus.
So how did the miracle in
Mr Landge’s life happen? Because of
a recharge pit in his field. A recharge
pit is one of the low-cost rainwater
harvesting (RWH) structures
July 2014
76 Tata Review „
constructed through the support of
the Sir Ratan Tata Trust and Navajbai
Ratan Tata Trust (the Trusts), as part
of the Sukhi Baliraja Initiative (SBI),
initiated to address agrarian distress
in the Vidarbha region.
KNOWING THE LAND
RWH has proved to be a life-saving,
life-changing intervention in
Vidarbha, where, with the monsoons
generally being erratic, water scarcity
is a looming threat. Prolonged dry
spells resulted in farmers finding it
difficult to irrigate the standing kharif
crop — usually soyabean or cotton
— far less think about a second crop.
A boon to farmers, RWH has helped
to provide protective irrigation to
the standing crop during the water
stressed periods of the monsoon.
The Trusts have partnered
the Chetna Samaj Seva Mandal
at Akhpuri Chowki village and
the Kamalnayan Jamnalal Bajaj
Foundation (KJBF) at Ridhora
village, under the SBI and a bilateral
programme of the Government of
Maharashtra called Convergence
of Agricultural Interventions in
Maharashtra (CAIM) Programme,
with the support of the International
Fund for Agricultural Development,
for soil and water conservation
interventions.
Chandrashekhar Shirwadkar,
development officer, water resource
development, SBI-CAIM, avers,
“If water harvesting structures
are constructed by adopting a
participatory integrated watershed
development approach, after careful
study of the watershed area, land
topography and in consultation with
experienced farmers, then, there is
little chance of them failing.”
The Trusts have also supported
the widening of streams and
deepening of community ponds,
along with construction of water
harvesting structures such as check
dams. Farmers who have access to
COMMUNITY
water resources have been provided
sprinklers and pipes for irrigation on
a subsidy, supported by the Trusts,
thereby saving precious water. Lowcost technologies have been used
wherever possible, so that the cost
to the impoverished villagers is
minimal. Soil conservation has also
remained a constant focus.
One such example of a stream
widening project is in Ridhora village.
A small tributary of the Panchdhara
river separates the fields of Bhaskar
Zende, Ganesh Jambhulkar and
Arvind Shivram from that of Bhimrao
Khairkar and his brothers. However it
is as though a vast ocean separates the
two strips of land. That’s how different
the texture of the land is, on each
bank. The fields of Mr Zende,
Mr Shivram and Mr Jambhulkar
become bone dry soon after the
skies clear, while Mr Khairkar’s land
remains waterlogged. With great
difficulty, both sides cultivated a
single crop.
However, this has become a
memory of the past. The shallow
stream was widened and deepened
by KJBF and the Trusts, check dams
built and the height of boundary
walls increased. The 2m stream now
measures 7m in breadth and is deeper
by about 2m. “It is the month of June
and there is enough water to go in
for a third crop before monsoon.
However, we are not prepared because
the stream has never had water during
peak summer. We will surely go in for
a third crop next year,” says Mr Zende
regretfully. “We harvested two crops,”
says Mr Jambhulkar as Mr Shivram
stands by, smiling widely.
At Akhpuri Chowki, a new
experiment has been a low-cost
check dam with a base of concrete, an
upstream earthen wall, a downstream
gabion wall and an impermeable
From top: The abundance of water in the deepened and widened stream
reflected in the green fields; a recharge pit being readied to store
life-saving rainwater; water from the cool depths of the river being
transported to baked fields as part of the lift irrigation project
July 2014 „
Tata Review
77
COMMUNITY
“If water harvesting structures are
constructed after careful study...there
is little chance of them failing.”
#HANDRASHEKHARŸ3HIRWADKARŸDEVELOPMENTŸOFÛCERŸ
WATERŸRESOURCEŸDEVELOPMENTŸ3")#!)-
layer made of fibre between the two,
reducing cost by 40-50 percent as
compared to a dam made of concrete.
Widening and deepening of
a community pond at Akhpuri
Chowki, allows it to accommodate
about 10 million litres of water as
compared to 0.9 million litres earlier.
Widening and deepening has helped
extend the flow in streams and
channels. The irrigated area in the
village was 15 acres but has increased
to 79, benefitting 23 farmers as
compared to three farmers earlier.
BEATING ALL ODDS
“It is not possible,” said many villagers
when Anil Dumbhare, Hemraj
Dumbhare, Kamlakar Dumbhare
and other farmers spoke about the
plan to set up a lift irrigation system
to pump water from the river to their
fields. Who will finance it? Will you
stick together long enough to execute
your plan? Even if you manage to
implement it, won’t you fight for
water? There were many questions.
But the negative queries did not deter
them. They had planned and waited
long to find an organisation that
believed in them and was willing to
support them, and they found two —
KJBF and the Trusts.
Sawangi village is situated
near the confluence of Dam and
Bor rivers, with a 30-40 feet deep
depression close to the village. No
villager has seen the bottom of the
depression, for it has never run dry.
However, the villagers never had
water for cultivation. The area is
covered by black cotton soil, which
absorbs water, swells, becomes soft
and loses strength; in summer, the
soil shrinks and develops cracks. It
was difficult to dig wells since the
walls become unstable and cave in.
A single crop was all that the farmers
could coax out of the harsh land.
When the farmers approached
Members are all ears at a village development committee meeting
July 2014
78 Tata Review „
KJBF and the Trusts, they did a
survey, calculated the cost and
suggested the design and equipment
needed. The total expenditure came
to `375,000. It was decided that KJBF
and the Trusts would contribute 50
percent and the beneficiaries will
bear the remaining cost. And the lift
irrigation project was born.
The project irrigates about 60
acres of land — of which 50 is owned
by the founder members of the group.
The remaining 10 acres belong to
non-members, who pay a nominal
charge to use this water, which goes
towards the maintenance of the pump,
underground pipes, outlets, electricity
bill, etc. The naysayers, now silenced,
pay money to irrigate their land.
GREEN ALL AROUND
The group’s combined yield has
doubled — they harvested 25 quintals
of wheat and 40 quintals of cotton
over last year’s yield. “My son who
works in the medical industry has
never shown interest in farming. He
brought me seeds and information on
vegetable cultivation. He has realised
that agriculture can be profitable,”
says a proud Kamlakar Dumbhare.
The group has paid off the loans taken
for the project and is ready to start
afresh with liability at zero.
The group has proved the power
of cooperation. Hemraj Dumbhare
and Kamlakar Dumbhare are staunch
political foes. Their raised voices were
often heard at the village panchayat,
arguing about the viewpoints of their
respective political parties. However,
this did not prevent them from
working towards a water harvesting
system that has benefitted over 20
farmers in their village. Their example
has inspired groups in neighbouring
villages who have initiated more
models of the lift irrigation project.
COMMUNITY
Each project, big or small, is
the combined effort of the villagers
and the Trusts and their partners.
The village development committees
(VDCs), formed in each village of
a cluster, give direction to villagers’
efforts. The funds allotted for a
project are managed by cluster-level
committees whose members comprise
selected representatives from VDCs.
The authorised signatories are the
president or secretary of the clusterlevel committee and a representative
of the grantee.
“Instead of a fragmented
approach with each villager working
alone and sometimes at a tangent with
others, the VDCs have helped to unify
us and work towards a common goal,”
says Nandu Kashyap, president of a
cluster-level committee. The projects
are monitored at various levels. The
initial checking is done by the VDCs.
Monitoring by the representatives of
the Trusts, impact assessment reports
and third-party supervision are
other instruments through which the
success of a project is determined.
The landscape of many villages
in Vidarbha is set to shine bright
and green as efforts are underway to
bring larger areas under the reach of
each RWH initiative. The projects
are proving to be models that can
be replicated elsewhere, with the
recharge pits attracting the attention
of top government officials and
even visitors from abroad. Suresh
Meshram of Akhpuri Chowki says,
“There was a time when the owner
of a bicycle renting stall at Yeotmal
would refuse to loan us a bicycle
because he did not know that a village
by the name of Akhpuri Chowki
existed. Now the world knows us
because of our recharge pits.”
A water resource of their own
When it rains it usually pours in Vidarbha; at other times, it is
drier than an Indian summer. This results in alternate water
logging and scarcity during the monsoons. Recharge pits are
innovative and inexpensive water harvesting structures devised
by the Sir Ratan Tata Trust and Navajbai Ratan Tata Trust and
their partners to tackle this problem. Dug at the lowest point
HMØ@ØE@QLDQlRØÚDKCØSGDØOHSRØ@BSØ@RØRSNQ@FDØTMHSRØENQØSGDØDWBDRRØ
water, and provide protective irrigation for the standing crop
during dry spells.
The pits measure 3-4m across and 3m in depth on
average. The water that percolates into the pits undergoes
ÚKSDQHMFØSGQNTFGØ@ØØEDDSØRHKSØSQ@OØÚKKDCØVHSGØQTAAKDØA@KK@RSØ
FQ@UDKØ@MCØR@MCØSG@SØ@BSØ@RØÚKSDQØLDCH@Ø#TDØSNØSGDØÚKSDQHMFØ
OQDBHNTRØEDQSHKDØSNOØRNHKØHRØQDS@HMDCØ@ANUDØSGDØÚKSDQØLDCH@Ø@MCØ
RDCHLDMSØCNDRØMNSØRDSSKDØNMØSGDØOHSØÛNNQØ@MCØQDCTBDØHSRØCDOSGØ
over time. The soil excavated is used to form bunds (barriers)
@QNTMCØSGDØOHSØ@MCØÚDKCRØSNØG@QUDRSØRTQE@BDØQTMNEEØDM@AKDØ
FQNTMCØV@SDQØHMÚKSQ@SHNMØ@MCØOQDUDMSØRNHKØDQNRHNMØ3NOØRNHKØ
which is the most fertile and usually used for bund formation,
is thus conserved. Each pit costs about `10,000 to `12,000 to
construct, and the farmer puts in his 20 percent as money or
labour — proud to call it his own.
“The recharge pits have kept this tree green,” says Maruti
Madavi, pointing to a tree far from the closest recharge pit.
m3GDØHMUHRHAKDØADMDÚSØSG@SØMNANCXØSGHMJRØ@ANTSØG@RØADDMØ
groundwater replenishing, which has helped to retain water in
our wells and streams for a longer period.” The last season,
,@QTSHØ@MCØ1@LDRGØ,@C@UHØG@UDØRDDMØSGDHQØOQNÚSRØHMBQD@RDØAXØ
`25,000 and `40,000, respectively, owing to second crops.
— Shalini Menon
July 2014 „
Tata Review
79
COMMUNITY
Skills for progress
By teaching IT tools and skills to local youth in
South Africa, TCS is hoping to empower the
younger generation, enhance their competencies
and offer better prospects for the future
S
killing is one of the
more sustainable paths
to empowerment, and
this is the path that Tata
Consultancy Services (TCS) has
been building over the last three
years in South Africa. TCS engages
with school-children, college-going
youth and youngsters looking for
employment, as one of the key pillars
of its socially responsible practices.
TCS’s skills development
training programme dates back to
2011 and the underlying philosophy
is to build strong employable skills
among those who need them. Varun
Kapur, vice president and head of
Middle East and Africa, explains
the thought behind the effort:
“We have introduced several skills
development programmes for the
benefit of youth in South Africa.
These skills will enhance their
competencies and enable them
to strive for a better career.” The
training covers a wide range of
relevant modules such as Java EE,
Mainframe, C++ Imot, .Net, BIPM,
Bizskill, V&B, Testing, EIS and
Oracle DB.
CENTRES FOR LEARNING
Going a few steps further, TCS
has also invested in setting up two
IT learning centres that aim to
further the education needs of both
adults and children. In partnership
with Change the World, a nongovernmental organisation, TCS
has set up an IT training centre at
Diepsloot to train underprivileged
youth and unemployed people. With
the support of TCS, Change the
World has appointed a trainer to train
the teachers and students.
The company has also partnered
with the Department of Public
Enterprise to establish an IT learning
centre at Eastern Cape. This centre is
named after the late Oliver Tambo,
a South African anti-apartheid
politician and a central figure in the
TCS has introduced several skills development programmes for the benefit of local youth in South Africa
July 2014
80 Tata Review „
COMMUNITY
African National Congress. Another
TCS initiative is aimed at school
children. The company wants to create
IT awareness among school children.
It is also working with schools in
rural areas. The target is to touch
about 100 children a year through
training. Also on the agenda are plans
to organise the TCS IT Wiz, a quiz
which has gained immense popularity
in India where it was first initiated.
The quiz is now conducted in several
international venues.
This animation-based quiz
initiative will engage young children
in South Africa at a national level.
The interactive knowledge platform
will encourage strategic and lateral
thinking and take learning beyond
school walls. Mr Kapur explains, “The
TCS IT Wiz will serve as a fun way
of teaching IT to school students in
Johannesburg. We are confident of
being able to use this quiz to broaden
their learning horizons and engage
them beyond the confines of their
textbooks and the classroom in an
inspiring and fun way.”
REACHING OUT TO
YOUNGSTERS
The emphasis on skills development
is core to the TCS philosophy on
giving back to society. Mr Kapur
says, “TCS has made a commitment
to South Africa, and we are
passionate about empowering the
local talent. We have, therefore,
made training a core focus of our
plan to develop internal capability.”
One of the company’s skillbased touch points is the graduate
development programme. TCS’s
Initial Learning Programme, a first
of its kind in the industry, is a 50-day
intensive course covering software
engineering concepts, quality
management systems, software
“TCS has made a commitment to South
Africa, and we are passionate about
empowering the local talent ... we have
made training a core focus of our plan.”
Varun Kapur, vice president and head, Middle East and Africa
tools, and communication skills.
Mr Kapur says, “Having trained 30
young graduates, we have employed
all of them. This step has helped us
to upgrade our internal capability in
line with our plan for localisation.”
TCS also offers specialised
training to its customers on niche
skills. This is one of the company’s
initiatives to transfer important
skills to South African nationals and
involves on-the-job practical training
with assigned mentors who are
subject matter experts.
In the past few years, TCS
has worked towards knowledge
transition for more than 2,000 South
African customer employees, who
have been trained in a wide range
of IT skills, including applications
and tools from Oracle, Microsoft,
Solaris, PeopleSoft and Siebel. The
subjects covered include mobile
applications, business analysis,
system architecture, system design
and project management, among
others. The training has already
covered more than 8,000 hours.
TRUE COMMITMENT
Going local is another of the
company’s sustainability pillars,
and one of its goals is to localise
80 percent of global deliveries. TCS
has established Service Delivery and
Resource Centres in Johannesburg to
serve local customers; these will be
managed and staffed by South African
citizens. Next year operations at the
delivery centre will be expanded to
service international customers.
The local focus is one of
the ways that TCS demonstrates
its commitment to inclusive
development. TCS is proud of being
recognised as a level 2 contributor
to the Broad Based Black Economic
Empowerment (BBBEE), a
South African initiative to uplift
underprivileged members of society.
The goal of BBBEE is to distribute
wealth across a broad spectrum of
previously disadvantaged South
African society.
Besides organising skill-based
programmes, the company also
encourages its employees to volunteer
to work with disadvantaged children.
Employees take time off from their
busy schedules to mentor and coach
underprivileged children in IT-related
subjects. Mr Kapur says, “We recently
held a workshop to teach children
the art of creating a webpage in just
four hours. Nearly 45 school children
participated. We felicitated and
rewarded the top three students.” The
company also sponsors five students
at the CIDA city campus.
Globally, TCS is recognised
as one of the world’s biggest brand
names in the IT sector. In South
Africa, the company is taking
its competencies and domain
knowledge to a new level by using IT
to enable and empower local youth
and bring in a transformation into
the local lives.
— Cynthia Rodrigues
July 2014 „
Tata Review
81
COMMUNITY
Equal opportunity for all
Aimed at inclusive growth, Tata Steel Processing
BOE%JTUSJCVUJPOmTBGÙSNBUJWFBDUJPOQSPHSBNNF
XPSLTPOTLJMMCVJMEJOHBOEFNQMPZNFOUHFOFSBUJPO
for the scheduled caste and scheduled tribe
communities in India
S
ometimes the best legacy
you can leave another is a
level playing field where
each person, irrespective
of caste, creed, race, or gender, has
the opportunity to prove his or her
mettle and live life to the fullest. The
Affirmative Action (AA) programme
initiated by Tata Steel Processing and
Distribution (TSPDL) aims to create
such a world of equal opportunities
for all.
TSPDL, then known as Tata
Ryerson, embraced the Affirmative
Action agenda in late 2006, even
before the Confederation of Indian
Industry (CII) had articulated its
Code on Affirmative Action. It
signed the Code in 2007, becoming
one of the first companies to sign it
and started reporting the status of its
affirmative action initiatives to the
CII. This is an activity it continues to
do even today, on a biannual basis.
In 2011, TSPDL became an
enthusiastic and active member of the
Tata Affirmative Action Programme
(TAAP), going on to win an award
for its best practices at the TAAP
Convention this year. Managing
director Sandipan Chakravortty,
whose visionary zeal has paved the
way for widespread dissemination
and acceptance of the AA agenda in
TSPDL, elaborates on his plans for
taking AA forward: “Our company’s
“Any AA initiative must be inclusive,
without any differentiation on the basis
of caste, creed or colour, and must
ensure equal opportunities for all.”
Sandipan Chakravortty, managing director, TSPDL
July 2014
82 Tata Review „
vision encapsulates a commitment
to caring for the community; AA is a
step in that direction. I would like to
see our employees and their families
forge an emotional attachment to
this initiative, and work to make a
sustainable impact on society. Any AA
initiative must be inclusive, without
any differentiation on the basis of
caste, creed or colour, and must
ensure equal opportunities for all.”
The TSPDL leadership’s
commitment to AA is seen in the
composition of the apex committee
formed to drive the initiative —
headed by the MD, the committee
includes executive director Abraham
Stephanos; CFO Pratik Chatterjee;
senior general manager HRM, PK
Sahu; company secretary and head of
corporate sustainability Asis Mitra;
head of procurement Siddhartha
Dash, and location heads. The unit
HR heads, working under Mr Sahu
at the company’s five locations, serve
as the AA champions. They are
responsible for the implementation,
monitoring and review of the various
initiatives launched by the apex
committee. They also participate in
the sustainability review.
The apex committee and the
AA champions form an effective
framework for the functioning
COMMUNITY
Some of TSPDL’s affirmative action initiatives: providing education support, facilitating duckery farming,
organising stitching classes for girls and encouraging sports talent from the scheduled caste community
of AA and other sustainability
initiatives. As Mr Mitra elaborates:
“Our focused approach involves
our AA champions actively seeking
to understand the needs of the
community. This becomes a critical
input for TSPDL to decide what
AA activities should be undertaken
for the year.” For FY2014-15, the
company plans to give out 100
scholarships to needy school
students. It has been observed that
many children, a majority of them
girls, drop out of school owing to
financial constraints. TSPDL also
plans to support college students,
based on the findings of its need
assessment study.
The overarching focus of
TSPDL’s AA programme is creating
employability. And it is in this context
that the company has been making
determined efforts to induct greater
numbers of scheduled caste (SC) and
scheduled tribe (ST) candidates and
offer them opportunities for growth
and development.
TSPDL first decided to hire SC /
ST candidates in significant numbers
in 2011. It now sets a target for the
number of candidates that it will take
on board every year.
“Recently, we conducted a
SWOT analysis and learned that the
representation of SC and ST groups
was low among the officers and
associates cadre in our company,”
says Mr Sahu, “so we are now taking
steps to address this imbalance. We
are keen to increase the percentage of
SC / ST officers to 4 percent and that
of SC / ST associates to 12 percent.
Currently, around 20 percent of the
total workforce, including permanent
and contract employees, belongs to
the SC / ST category.” The apex committee reviewed
the situation and realised the need
to urgently align the goals of AA
with the exigencies of the business,
a necessary step that would help
to bolster the company’s business
while ensuring the longevity of the
programme. Towards this, TSPDL
has stepped up its on-the-job training
and skills development efforts.
SKILLS FOR GROWTH
TSPDL’s growth aspirations pose
a unique challenge. As Mr Sahu
explains, “The skills that our
business requires are unique; no
industrial training institutes (ITI)
or polytechnics are able to provide
them. So we have been training our
SC / ST and other recruits in-house
through on-the-job training over
a two-year period. We exercise
positive discrimination to induct
more SC / ST candidates by giving
them a relaxation of 10 percent in
the minimum marks required.”
Once selected, however, the
SC / ST candidates are put through
the same drill as those selected from
the general category. Their success
is proof that, given the opportunity,
they are able to demonstrate their
competence. In the last four years, of
the total 537 candidates selected for
on-job training , 347 were from the
SC / ST communities. In time, most
of them will join the company as
permanent employees. The on-the-job training
includes coaching and mentoring
by experienced line operators,
called Dronacharyas, some of
whom are from the SC / ST
category themselves, and hence
better equipped to empathise and
understand the needs of the trainees.
After the training, the
candidates have to take an
examination, and undergo an
assessment of their soft skills
July 2014 „
Tata Review
83
COMMUNITY
before being inducted into the
company. This ensures that the new
employees have the right skills and
temperament for the job. Even after
they are hired, they continue to
undergo learning programmes to
help them rise through the ranks.
TSPDL also expends
considerable effort in cultivating
SC / ST entrepreneurs. “TSPDL
has taken a stand that the services
and consumables we need for our
business will only be sourced from
SC / ST vendors,” says Mr Mitra,
“And to facilitate this, we actually
help SC / ST persons to set up their
own business.”
This is a huge challenge
as people coming from the SC
/ ST community find it easier
to get a job than to start their
own enterprise. Encouraging
entrepreneurship involves helping
people with the registrations and
other legal requirements for setting
up a business, providing financial
assistance and giving them a steady
stream of orders to ensure that the
business is viable. In Jamshedpur,
TSPDL has developed 16 vendors,
with an aggregate turnover of `50
million, and a client list that includes
many Tata and non-Tata companies.
The sustained focus on AA
has enabled TSPDL to induct
a greater number of SC / ST
candidates into its fold. The even
greater achievement is the way
these employees have integrated
with the rest; people from the SC /
ST community feel at ease, knowing
that TSPDL and their colleagues
will give them every opportunity to
shine. As Mr Mitra says, “The buyin for AA throughout our company
is very encouraging. There has not
been a single instance of resentment
at any townhall meeting. The
support is wholehearted. People
believe that their company has taken
up a good cause.”
The fact that the top leadership
of the company is solidly behind
the AA initiative goes a long way
in fostering its adoption and
implementation.
Emphasising the role of
effective communication in
disseminating the philosophy and
concept, Mr Chakravortty says,
“Awareness is the most essential
part of our communication
Members of the TSPDL team with Group Chairman Cyrus Mistry, receiving
the award for best practices at the TAAP Convention 2014
July 2014
84 Tata Review „
exercise to our employees and
their families. The need for us to
engage in the four Es of education,
employment, employability and
entrepreneurship for the SC / ST
community is communicated in
detail to all employees to ensure
that there is inclusive growth in
society and that the company in
turn benefits from having employed
SC / ST candidates in equal
numbers as others.”
Not content to rest on its
laurels, the apex committee at
TSPDL is constantly looking for
ways to improve the programme.
Mr Mitra reveals that the most
recent development is the creation of
evaluators to measure the company’s
performance in AA. These evaluators
will be rolled out shortly.
Looking into the future,
Mr Chakravortty says, “We have
definite plans to increase the number
of SC / ST employees in the coming
years, but that is not enough. Most of
our initiatives are still concentrated
on skills training and increasing
employability at lower levels. “Additionally, we plan to
support bright persons from the
SC / ST community in higher fields
of academics like engineering,
medical, accountancy, etc through
scholarships and continuous college
support. We also want to encourage
them to rise up to state and national
levels in the fields of sports and
culture by offering grants to
individuals and organisations.”
TSPDL’s efforts in creating
a level playing field are adding
muscle to the Tata group’s TAAP
programme, and, in fact, to India’s
quest to provide equal opportunities
to all its citizens.
— Cynthia Rodrigues BOOK REVIEW
Managing the chimp
in your mind
W
a resident psychiatrist with the British Cycling
hen the Liverpool Football Club
team for more than a decade, has an interesting
(FC) had problems with one of its
concept relating to the working of the human
star strikers last year, it asked
brain. He describes the human brain as a system
Dr Steve Peters, a leading
of seven brains working together. Within his
consultant and sports psychiatrist who had
‘Chimp Management’ model, three of these brains
helped other violent sports celebrities manage
— frontal, limbic and parietal — combine to form
their anger, to counsel him.
the ‘psychological mind.’
Dr Peters, who has authored this remarkable
Dr Peters classifies these three brains as
book on ‘mind management,’ worked with the
human, chimp and computer. The human and
striker over a few sessions, helping him control
the chimp have independent
his mind and possibly taming his
personalities with different
‘inner chimp.’ Unfortunately, at a
agendas, ways of thinking and
FIFA World Cup finals match in
modes of operating, explains the
Brazil, the ‘chimp’ apparently repsychiatrist. “Effectively there
emerged in the football player.
are two beings in your head! It is
Luis Suarez, the ace
important to grasp that only one of
Uruguayan footballer, clashed
these beings is you, the human.”
with Italian defender Giorgio
But all humans have the
Chiellini on June 24 and allegedly
‘emotional machine,’ or the chimp.
bit him. Two days later, the FIFA
It thinks independently and
disciplinary committee banned
Title: The Chimp Paradox:
can make decisions on its own.
Suarez for nine international
The mind management
“It offers emotional thoughts
matches. Dr Peters, the ‘brain
programme for confidence,
and feelings that can be very
mechanic,’ had worked with Suarez
success and happiness
constructive or very destructive; it
last year in Liverpool after the
Author: Dr Steve Peters
is not good or bad, it is a chimp,”
club felt the need for a psychiatrist
Publisher: Random House,
points out Dr Peters.
to deal with the player, who had
2012
The book aims to help the
earlier had two such ‘biting’
Pages: 346
reader
manage the chimp and to
incidents.
Price: `499
harness its strength and power
The author, who has been
July 2014 „
Tata Review
85
BOOK REVIEW
when it works for an individual, and to neutralise
it when it does not. According to Peters, chimp
management is based on scientific facts and
principles, which have been simplified in the
book into a workable model for easy use.
HARMONISING YOUR
PSYCHOLOGICAL UNIVERSE
The Chimp Paradox tackles seven different
topics: your inner mind; understanding and
relating to others; communication; the world
in which you live; your health; your success;
and your happiness. Interestingly, Dr Peters
has represented each of these themes as seven
different planets with their moons, which
together form ‘the psychological universe’
within an individual’s head.
“Just as the sun is the centre of the physical
solar system, your sun is the centre of your
psychological universe and represents selffulfilment and what you believe to be the meaning
and purpose of your life,” notes the author. “The
sun has the best chance of shining when all of
the seven planets in your universe are spinning
correctly and in harmony.”
And to make your sun shine, you have to
work on each area in your life and get it into a
good place.
Dr Peters illustrates the book with real
life examples to explain the functioning of this
emotional brain. For instance, in the chapter
titled The Divided Planet — the first of the sevenplanet system — he notes that it represents your
inner mind and the battle that goes on inside your
head. The divided planet is where the human and
the chimp live.
Since the chimp is far stronger than the
human, it is wise to understand it and then
nurture and manage it. Dr Peters gives a simple
example — John and the parked car — to
demonstrate the differences in thinking between
the chimp and the human. John tells his wife
Pauline that their neighbour had blocked his car
by parking it across the driveway and he had to go
and tell him to move the vehicle.
Pauline asks him why he is making such a
big deal of the issue. The human and the chimp
in John’s brain respond differently to her reply.
July 2014
86 Tata Review „
While the human part has remained calm, the
chimp in John takes it as a provocation and gets
agitated. The chimp being more powerful, it takes
over the mind and the conversation with Pauline
goes downhill. Had the human part taken control,
the matter would not have got aggravated.
Another illuminating example is of the taxi
driver and the chimp. You leave home late for
the station and catch a taxi as you could miss
the train. The driver proceeds sensibly, slowing
down at junctions. Sitting in the backseat, the
human in you will admit it was your fault as you
left late, and reasons that even if you miss the
train it will not be the end of the world.
However, the chimp in your mind takes
over and gets angry when the driver slows down
at junctions and even blames him for your
being late. “In your head the two of you are now
battling for control,” explains Dr Peters. “The
human will decide who wins but only if it knows
what to do. If the human has the skill then it
can calm the chimp down and deal with the
situation. If the human hasn’t got the skill then
the chimp will take over and the human may feel
upset by the way the chimp acted.”
Dr Peters extends the human and the
chimp examples to areas outside the mind
including the corporate world. He gives the
example of Mitch, the chimpanzee, who wants
to become the alpha male. In the jungle there
are no laws, so the chimp screams, shouts and
trashes the ground with a stick. Any other chimp
that gets in the way is attacked; once Mitch
becomes the alpha male, he beats others savagely
if they dare to get out of line.
Similarly, at the work place, a person
wanting to dominate others behaves like the
chimp, but an ideal leader develops the group
and encourages others with incentives, instead of
using the stick.
In conclusion, Dr Peters says: “Your chimp
will always be alive and kicking and you must
accept that fact and work with it. It is not bad, it is
not good: it is a chimp. It brings every emotion to
your world. It can be your best friend and worst
enemy. It is the chimp paradox.”
— Nithin Rao