6 months of Chandra: One Tata & more

Swift hirings and consolidation of group companies are in the works

In April, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull visited Tata Consultancy Services’ Banyan Park campus in Mumbai to explore tech partnerships. Turnbull’s visit created a buzz at TCS, but there’s more. This centre, for long a hub for India’s largest software exporter to showcase its digital capabilities to global customers, is witnessing “much more traffic” from within the group. Top executives cutting across the Tata Group companies are visiting the centre now like never before.

That change came gradually after NChandrasekaran, the former TCS boss, took over as the Tat a Sons chairman on February21. Sixmonthslater, insiders say it’ s an outcome of the‘ One-Ta ta’ focus that Chandra, asheispopularly known, has set for the $104- billion salt to-steel group with more than 100 companies. This new approach is one of the main pillar soft he new chairman' s strategy—That is, no company should work in isolation and all of them should harness the skill that is available at the group level to avoid confusion and duplication of efforts.

People in the inner circles point out that Chandra’s style of functioning in the first six months is a giveaway of how he would run the group in future. The next six months would start showing results, they believe. While it’s too early to look at financial numbers of the group companies to assess Chandra’s performance, though profits of TCS (the jewel of the group) fell in the last quarter, his speed of execution is at the centre of it all.

Fast execution The swift hirings, primarily on the finance side, show what the new man at the helm is working on. ‘’It’s not business as usual,’’ is how a person aware of the developments described it. The process of consolidation of group companies, with stress on areas like defence, infrastructure and retail, is already in the works. ‘’The idea is not to rationalise the workforce, but for Tata companies to be among the top three across all business segments,’’ a source said.

At the leadership summit on JRD Tata’s birth anniversary last month, Chandra asked executives to introspect whether they are following group’s pioneering spirit. He reminded them that the Tata Group strives for leadership positions in the businesses it operates in. He asked the executives to behave like leaders not only with product and services in the market place but also financially.

The focus is also on retention and attracting talent, while opting for flatter and delayered structures, a source pointed out. Cyrus Mistry spoke about it and did not implement. Crack finance team Helping Chandra achieve those goals is a freshly acquired core finance team. Hiring a CFO (a position that lay vacant for years)—Saurabh Agarwal— soon after taking charge is a sign of M&As that are likely to unravel in the months to come, a source said.