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Sujata
Agrawal
Circa 1903
One wintry December
morning, the city of Bombay got a new landmark with the opening
of the Taj Mahal Hotel. It was the culmination of a visionary’s
dream. Jamsetji Tata, the founder of the Tata Group, wanted
to give Bombay a magnificent hotel, the finest in the country.
The remarkably luxurious hotel with
30 private suites cum apartments and 350 double and single
rooms boasted of electrical lights, passenger lifts and refrigeration
— things unheard of at the time. The innovations were a result
of Jamsetji Tata’s visits to major international cities in
his endeavour to offer guests the comfort that was on par
with the best in the world.
Circa 2003
Hundred years later, the management is walking the global
road once again. The world has changed significantly; India
has embraced globalisation, along with other countries. The
scale of operations in the company has increased. From one
hotel in Bombay, the Taj Group has gone on to 53 in India
and 12 at various international destinations.
To maintain its status as the very
best hotel chain across the globe, the Taj Group is preparing
to equip itself to meet the challenges of the next 100 years.
"The challenge for an organisation that has a tradition
of a 100 years lies in how to revisit what you do and improve
it so that you don’t become stagnant, that you keep up with
the trends in the world today," says Raymond Bickson,
managing director of Indian Hotels.
The Taj is already present in most
of the key Indian cities and the scope for domestic growth
is limited. Outside India it has hotels in Sri Lanka, Dubai,
Oman, Nepal, UK and Maldives. Now the company seeks to expand
its vision. "The Taj brand is a high profile business
for the Group. We want to become important global players
in the Hospitality industry and leverage the Tata brand on
an international scale," says Mr Bickson
Mr Bickson ticks off the target expansion
list: "From India we move westwards to the Indian Ocean
(Maldives, Mauritius, Seychelles), then there is Africa and
the key gateway cities like London, New York, Shanghai and
Beijing." The Australasian and Gulf markets are also
opportunity regions.
The success of the Taj Exotica Resort
& Spa in Maldives has boosted the confidence of the management,
reinforcing that they can compete with the best international
brands. For the Taj Group, it is the prototype resort of the
future. They have already signed agreements for Mauritius
and Seychelles and will soon set up a similar property in
Sri Lanka.
Mr Bickson avers, "Our strategy
to be asset-light will allow us to move in quickly. We are
looking at management contracts. Four Seasons works on the
same model. They have many hotels around the world but own
only a few. But the level and standard of service is the same
everywhere. That is what we are trying to do too."
His vision for Indian Hotels is to
be atop the pyramid of the hotel business today and a benchmark
in the luxury segment among brands such as Four Seasons and
Ritz Carlton. "These are aspirational brands and we want
to be among them."
According to Mr Bickson the attributes
for a successful global hotel Group include emphasis on core
competence and the basics of the service or the product. "You
must focus on a few key points that will help reach the goal,"
he says. The legendary Taj hospitality forms the core competence
for Indian Hotels while the key focus areas are renovation,
brand building, technology and people training.
Globalisation, like most important
matters, begins at home. As the luxury hotels constitute over
70 per cent of the company’s profits and attract international
guests, the focus is increasingly on revving up the product
and the service.
"In the last five years, some
of our competitors have raised the benchmark for luxury. We
feel that the quickest way to showcase our hotels is to renovate
our luxury palaces," says Mr Bickson.
The Taj Mahal Palace and Towers, Mumbai;
Taj Lake Palace, Udaipur; Rambagh Palace, Jaipur; and Falaknuma
Palace, Hyderabad; are being refurbished and repositioned
in the first step to building the Taj as a global preferred
brand and offer global luxury standards and best practises.
Luxurious state-of-art spas are replacing the old-fashioned
‘health club’ concept. A personalised butler service seeks
to evoke the lifestyle of the erstwhile Indian maharajas.
The ongoing revolution in cuisine has
been accompanied by innovations as well. Though the Group
was the first to introduce international cuisine in India,
today its Food and Beverages business is competing with free
standing, niche restaurants. Thus, new concepts such as contemporary
Indian cuisine have been introduced. Internationally recognised
chefs and restaurants will also be introduced into the Taj
properties.
She is the Taj
"The name Taj evokes luxury, splendour, warmth and
hospitality. And that’s what we want to offer to anyone who
stays with us," emphasises Mr Bickson.
The challenge in this is that the Taj
brand appears on diverse properties from the luxurious Taj
Mahal in Delhi to the touristy Taj Gateway in Chiplun. "These
products are dissimilar or of very different service standards.
The brand does not have a very clear cut luxury connotation,"
says Ajoy Misra senior vice president, Sales and Marketing.
"Also, in terms of image, what the brand stands for today
may not necessarily be what we want it to stand for in the
future".
The Group has recently commissioned
Landor Associates to ideate on the brand architecture. The
issues being debated include bringing about a change in the
existing strategic business units, changing the personality
of the basic brand (should it be associated with only some
hotels?) and the branding of a future international acquisition
under the Taj flagship. Mr Misra hopes to get these answers
and more by early 2004.
Alongside, Mr Misra is focusing on
creating awareness in key and emerging markets and raising
levels in existing markets. The marketing and sales team have
been strengthened overseas and are supplemented by PR agencies.
"We need to strengthen what the brand stands for in terms
of quality and luxury," he adds.
Mr Misra believes that globally the
Taj should be reinforced as an international luxury hotel
with an Indian soul and touch to it though the degree of Indianness
would vary in each country. "Our target segment, globally,
is the frequent individual traveller who seeks that mix of
warmth and efficiency," says Mr Misra.
A room with more than just a view
Technology is adding new dimensions and increasing efficiency
in the Hospitality business. "A room is essentially a
plain vanilla product. We are trying to add in differentiators
through technology. While front-end systems lead to customer
satisfaction and product differentiation, the back-end leads
to process efficiency and cost savings, " says Prakash
Shukla, vice president, technology, and chief information
officer.
In the last three years, the Group
has focused on creating the infrastructure and platforms to
drive efficiency at both the front and back end. A Wide Area
Network (WAN) now connects all properties allowing for better
communications and incorporation of centralised reservation
and customer applications. The Taj is also the first chain
in the world to have wireless Internet access in most properties.
Technology is also helping the Group capture guest trends
and preferences to provide more personalised services.
The star in the technology arena for
the Taj is the interactive system being rolled out in the
heritage wing of the Taj Mumbai. A 42-inch plasma display
with surround sound, a personal computer with a wireless keyboard,
digital streaming movies or mp3 music gives the guest his
private entertainment centre. A cutting edge of product development
in hotels, the facility is offered by a select few, like the
Dorchester Group.
The Group is leveraging IT resources
in the Tata Group to benchmark against the best globally.
The Wildfire project, a value driven model catering to what
Mr Bickson considers a greatly under-served market is based
on design and technology. It is utilitarian but contemporary
in efficiency and looks. Coming up in areas such as IT parks
and industrial towns, the model is scaleable as well as replicable
in emerging markets like Afghanistan and Iraq.
The movers and shakers
"While infrastructure and technology can move this
industry, it is the people who make it run," says Bernard
Martyris, vice president, HR.
To this end Mr Martyris is focusing
on three key issues. The first is upgrading the bench strength.
"A different mind and skill set is required to go global
in the hospitality industry." Positions that call for
a global make up have been identified.
The global manager’s position is crucial
to such a set up. Global managers bring with them first-hand
experience of global quality and luxury. This leads to cross
learning and builds confidence that the Group can compete
with the best in the world.
Mr Martyris is also working on creating
a talent pool of people who will be as comfortable working
in Shanghai as in New York or Mumbai. According to Mr Martyris,
global managers should be able to understand the nuances of
international business, to build a team of people from different
cultures and most importantly, to imbibe the Tata culture
of compassion and concern. They should be a people's people
and culturally sensitive.
High calibre international general
managers are being brought into India and underpinned with
one or two top Indian managers to enable mentoring. In this
way, when the expatriate manager moves to another property,
one of the Indian managers can move into his position. About
12 expatriates have already been brought in. An interesting
twist to this strategy is to bring in the best global manager
who is also an Indian.
Mentoring is followed up with training.
The intellectual input involves sending executives for the
Harvard general manager programme. "Working with an expatriate
combined with intellectual training from Harvard can completely
change the way people think," says Mr Martyris. The final
building block is for young managers to gain overseas work
experience when an international property opens up.
Mr Martyris is working on bringing
an international mix of senior executives into Indian Hotels.
Their induction and cultural integration are critical areas.
In all this, the biggest challenge
lies in managing the internal system. The mentoring process
or the buddy system was started to counter the anxiety within
the company. A Personal Development Plan (PDP) for individuals
provides the road map for their career growth. A talent management
process is also in place with the help of which every individual
has been charted according to potential and ability, and is
groomed accordingly. "My greatest conviction is that
it is not salaries that drive people at work but learning
and career goals," concludes Mr Martyris.
With people, products and properties
being groomed on this footing, the Taj is ready to take on
the globe. Circa 2103, the Taj may well be the jewel not only
in India's but the world's crown as well.
Other articles on the Tata Group
and globalisation:
Uploaded on January
5, 2004
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