R Gopalakrishnan
The author is executive director, Tata Sons

I revel in the thought that several companies are moving in the right direction to become more customer savvy in novel ways which are uniquely suited to them. Some lessons I have learnt are perhaps worth sharing.

a) Spend 20 days a year on 35 Going out to meet customers means different things to different CEOs- a trucking centre for a truck maker, neighbourhood grocery stores for an FMCG player, farmers’ hangouts for an agro-inputs marketeer. For all, it means 3S, ie Sweaty, Sticky Stuff. The HLL Chairman has always done this ever since I can remember. I know that my colleagues who are the directors and SBU Heads in Tata Engineering are doing so more and more.

It should not be an occasional ceremonial visit with the camera unit near at hand. It must be as per a budgeted time allocation, it must be intensive, and it must involve a great deal of serious listening to be meaningful.

Tata Engineering recently realised some home truths about rear axles. Although engineers had rightly designed the axle for a rated load, the reality was that the truck operators would carry a higher load to manage their economics. Through a study of overloading patterns and the direct involvement of an operator, Telco mounted a ‘Kulbir Singh project’ to produce an axle of greater value to the customer. I can confirm that this came out of very careful listening during intensive customer visits.

b) Promote multi-functional customer contact on a systematic basis It is so common to see salespeople as being functionally responsible for customer contact and markets. Based on their feedback, design and development teams would deal with customer problems. Wrong all the way.

Sales people have their own limitations and biases - and anyway, customer contact is not their exclusive preserve. Let me share the Telco experience, when the company went through a life-threatening loss situation during the last two years. Telco was what many engineering monoliths tend to be - engineer-dominated, not always savvy to the customer, operating in silos seeking functional excellence, and proud.

Today, Telco is a vastly different organisation - listening to customers, operating its sales force to market segments. During the last 18 months, the Panthers, a team of over 250 plant engineers, have worked in the marketplace during 3-6 months projects few even made career shifts.

As part of a customer-driven New Products Process, the company’s new Quality Functional deployment (QFD) teams included thirty engineers from plant and Engineering Research. The company even deployed 500 plant engineers’ man weeks to assist in a augmentation of the dealer network! That is, in my view, a great example of making marketing everybody’s business.

c) Differentiate/brand as far as you can Even a commodity product like steel can be branded. Tata pipes and Tata bearings have existed for some time, but they are now being aggressively promoted as brands. Between 1992-2000, each year on an average. Tata Steel sold per year Rs.500 crores of branded steel products like bearings and tubes. In the last financial year, this increased to Rs.1200 crore and in the current year, the company expects to achieve 25 per cent of their turnover (ie Rs.2000 crore) as branded steel.

These are not mere numbers for presentations, the company has actually earned a premium of Rs.35 crore out of such branding. It’s great to note that in a traditional steel been conducted (covering 350 officers in the last two years), brand health checks are undertaken periodically, and business decisions take on the basis of such research. All this in a company that was rationing out its production only a few years ago!.

d) Get involved with your customer’s customer Traditionally, urea is sold to dealers who sell it to farmers at government controlled prices. But farmers do have needs beyond urea.

This is an interesting example of how technology can actually be used to reach your customer’s consumers. The Tata Kisan Kendras are an innovative project pioneered by Tata Chemicals to help small farmers harness sophisticated modern technology, such as satellite mapping and geographical information systems, to enhance the yield from their land.

These TKKs or farm centres, provided end-to-end solutions, right from what crops to grow to how to sell them for the maximum returns. What does this do for Tata Chemicals? It not only enables them to reach new consumers but also gives them direct access to their consumer.

These TKKs not only solve agriculture-related problems and run crop clinics but also provide library services, farm-related newsletters, training workshops, research facilities, and finance and insurance facilities. They stock seeds, pesticides and fertilisers that farmers can buy at a affordable prices, and lease out farm equipment and implements to farmers who cannot afford to buy expensive modern machinery.

The kendras also have exhibition halls where special events - educational, social or just pure entertainment - are held for members of the Tata Kisan Parivar, an organisation promoted by the TKK network to build relationships with farmers and their families. These TKKs cover the states of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab. Currently, 11 mother TKKs and about 300 franchisee TKKs are in operation, covering a total area of 39 million hectares.