How is the organisation’s managerial pool, the Tata Administrative Services (TAS) evolving in the new set-up?
TAS has been a high quality talent pool for many decades, but it needed to be redefined in the emerging corporate environment. From an era of positioning TAS like an IAS or ICS talent pool, we are now moving towards positioning it like a premium employment brand on b-school campuses. As a source of entry level talent, the linkage has been established between the best business schools and brand building for the group. The exercise, which was launched on campuses about two years back, positions the organisation as a premium recruiter on Indian campuses and engages young grads with the history of the group.

What shape is the brand building exercise on campus taking?
There had not been enough information available to the young people on campuses about what was happening inside the Tata group. We are now trying to transform our image from a fuddy-duddy brand to a knowledge driven, new economy company. In fact, we run a two-tier business leadership competition across the 10 best campuses in the country, involving a Tata group case study. Through the in-campus and national level event we engage at least 50% of the students in a learning exercise about the group. The judges panel in the finals of the event also provides us a chance to show-case in-house talent before the B-school students. Positioning TAS as an entry brand has paid off and we have found Day 1, slot 1 positions at premier B-schools.

Could you elaborate on the new role of the Tata Management Training Centre?
In an effort to position TMTC as the group’s centre for excellence in learning we appointed one of our senior most HR directors Vijay Rao to head it. TMTC is now helping to take the best practice in early talent spotting in different group companies and positioning that as the best-in-class model. It is netting the pool of talent available at the junior levels of various companies and identifying thought leaders within the group. On another level, it is also picking the best practice within group organisations and working as a forum for sharing them.

What is the learning track followed within the organisation? Who leads the efforts?
The new breed of young CEOs within the group are focussed on demanding and creating value around people development. While the minimum threshold of quality in managerial resources continues to be high, the new CEOs won’t settle for good enough in creating an environment of learning. The foundation is provided by the Tata Business Excellence model, a guideline for the way performance and reward are co-related in the organisation.

Are you tying up with B-schools for executive training and education programmes?
We are working with many partners to identify executive training needs. For executive education the basic needs are world class, multi-module development programmes which provide for work experience in between the modules. We are scouting for the best available programmes in various segments and are looking at diverse institutions like Harvard, Ashridge, instead, the University of Southern California, ISB and the Aspen Leadership programme. Programmes targeted at different segments of senior and middle management could have a high level of customisation or could be open and off-the-shelf. The selection process, thus, is very important.