Besides the Tata code of conduct (TCoC), a comprehensive set of tenets that all employees of the group have to adhere to, the Tatas have a process known as Management of Business Ethics to ensure that their enterprises and people adhere to the highest ethical standards.

The TCoC-MBE dual mechanism has a variety of components. The most important of these are:

• Internal initiatives to communicate and train companies and employees on ethical issues.
• Listening-post procedures to address concerns and dilemmas that companies may have to confront.
• Framing and disseminating policies and guidelines specific to individual companies.
• Vigilance and whistle-blowing issues.

The chief executive officer of a Tata company is also its 'chief ethics officer'. An 'ethics counsellor', nominated by the chief executive officer, is the process owner of the TCoC-MBE methodology. Typically, each company also has an 'ethics network' comprising ethics counsellors from different functions and geographies. The ethics counsellor is TQMS's window to the TCoC-MBE process in each company. Business ethics are also assessed on an annual basis.

The Tata Group has an 'assurance module' that captures how executives perceive their own company's progress on the MBE chart. This module provides objective feedback to the management of each organisation as well as the Group Corporate Centre on the perceptions of company insiders on the progress made in business ethics.

Implicit in this approach is the belief that the Group's wide-ranging ethics methodology will enable Tata companies to become exemplars on ethical parameters in their respective spheres.