Careers at Tata Group

Mission

Tata Group is a diversified, multinational conglomerate headquartered in India. It operates across multiple business sectors, including the automotive, financial services, telecommunications, hospitality, metals, and energy industries, among others.

History

Tata Group can trace its history back to Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata’s formation of a trading company in 1868. The backbone of the Group’s business activities was established during the late 19th Century and the early 20th Century. The Company established its first textile venture in 1877, and in 1892 created the JN Tata Endowment to encourage Indian scholars to take up higher studies. In 1903 Tata Group built the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai and just a few years later, following the death of Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, launched the Tata Iron and Steel Company, which remains an important part of the Group.

Tata Group continued to expand throughout the 20th Century and early 2000s, and is today one of the largest conglomerates in India, with interests diversified across numerous sectors and more than 600,000 workers worldwide. The Group’s 17 largest publicly-listed companies have a combined market capitalisation of more than $120 billion.

Business model of Tata Group

Customer Segments

Tata Group provides services to a range of customer segments, appropriate to its numerous companies and business divisions. The Group provides services across 150 countries worldwide, with operations outside of its native India accounting for the majority of its annual revenue. It serves consumers directly, including through its automotive and financial services divisions and through its dedicated consumer retail division, and serves various industrial and corporate customers, including those within the automotive, engineering, defence and security, shipbuilding, aerospace and agriculture industries.

Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Group’s most profitable company, serves high-profile companies such as Cisco, Commerzbank, British Airways, Sony, Qualcomm and Microsoft.

Value Propositions

Tata Group is one of the largest diversified business groups in India. Its brand name is associated with quality and reliable services and products, having operated across multiple business sectors for a number of years.

Tata Group provides a range of services both to consumers and to businesses. Its products are available through multiple channels, with consumers able to access its offerings through a range of online and physical retail outlets, as well as directly from the Group itself.

Channels

Tata Group operates through multiple business channels. The Group’s products and services can be viewed on its website at www.tata.com. The Company provides products directly to consumers through a chain of retail stores, auto dealerships, third-party and proprietary e-commerce platforms, and through authorised resellers.

The Group also provides services and products directly to corporate and industrial clients via its various sales teams, and sells specialised industrial products to various customers through licensed distributors.

Customer Relationships

Much of Tata Group’s products and services, notably those aimed directly at consumers, are available on a self-service basis, both through online channels and physical retail outlets, with no need to interact with members of the Tata Group sales team.

Other more technical products or services targeted at industrial and corporate clients can be purchased from the sales teams of Tata Group’s specific group companies.

The Group provides a range of online support and information resources through the individual websites of its numerous companies and business divisions, including case studies, white papers, FAQs and brochures. It also interacts directly with its customers through newsletters, press releases, blogs and a range of social media accounts, including with Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

Key Activities

Tata Group is a diversified, multinational conglomerate, operating across multiple business sectors and providing services in more than 150 countries worldwide. The Group provides industrial and manufacturing services, including the production of consumer products, air conditioning units, automotive parts and products, jewellery, chemicals and agricultural products; IT, business and consulting services, including educational solutions, systems integration and business process outsourcing solutions; and telecommunications services, such as cloud computing, connectivity, infrastructure and aged security solutions.

Tata Group additionally, operates data and colocation centers, a network of multi-brand electronics retail stores, e-commerce platforms, television channels and television channels, provides distribution and logistics services, and trades thermal, hydro, solar wind and geothermal energy.

Key Partners

Through its numerous companies and business divisions, Tata Group partners with a broad range of companies across multiple business sectors, including strategic alliances, technology partners, suppliers and distribution partners.

The Group has established a series of joint ventures. For instance, in 2010 Tata Sons formed a joint venture company with AgustaWestland to build helicopters in India, Tata Global Beverages entered a joint venture with Starbucks in 2012 to develop a network of Starbucks-branded coffee shops across India, and Tata Consultancy Services created joint venture company Nippon TCS Solutions Centre alongside Mitsubishi in 2014 to provide consulting services on the Japanese market.

Tata Consultancy Services also has strategic technology partnerships with Bosch, Citrix, Cisco, Symantec, Microsoft, IBM and Oracle, while Tata Motors collaborates with leading engineering companies such as Honda, Boeing, Bombardier and JCB.

Key Resources

Tata Group’s key resources include its manufacturing facilities, its logistics and distribution facilities, its IT infrastructure, its retail and supply chains and its personnel.

Tata Group has a number of patent applications filed with the US Patent and Trademark Office, the majority of which are in the name of Tata Consultancy Services. These patents include applications entitled ‘Loop abstraction for model checking’, ‘Method and system for creating and maintaining unique data repository’ and ‘System and method to provide management of test data at various lifecycle stages’. The Group is also reported to have patent applications filed in India; however, applications are searchable online only by application number.

Cost Structure

Tata Group incurs costs in relation to the operation of its manufacturing facilities, including the management of the supply chains; the operation of logistics, distribution and warehousing chains; maintenance of its IT infrastructure, including servers and data centres; and the management of its partnerships.

The Group also employs a workforce of more than 600,000, accruing costs in relation to salaries and benefits, and operates a network of offices across more than 100 countries, accounting for fixed costs in relation to rent and utilities.

Revenue Streams

In the year 2014 to 2015 Tata Group recorded a total annual revenue of $108.78 billion. The Group generates revenue through its portfolio of more than 100 companies worldwide, providing a range of products and services such as mining, consumer products retail, logistics, renewable energy, financial and investment services, and engineering. Tata Group’s international operations accounted for more than 70% of the Group’s total revenue.

Tata Group’s largest revenue generator was its engineering business – including engineering services, factory automation services and water treatment services, which accounted for around 41% of total revenue in 2014/2014, followed by the materials division – including material handling equipment and operation and maintenance services – and the IT and communications division – including software development, business support services and hosting and storage services – which accounted for around 21% each. Services and energy operations accounted for 5%, consumer products accounted for 4% and chemicals accounted for 3%.

Tata Group was reported in December 2015 to derive 90% of its profits from just three companies: Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Steel and Tata Motors.

Our team

Cyrus Mistry,
Chairman

info: Cyrus has served as Tata Group’s Chairman since 2012, having served as a director of group holding company Tata Sons since 2006. He also serves as Chairman of Tata Group companies such as Tata Steel, Tata Motors, Jaguar Land Rover Automotive, Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Power Company, The Indian Hotels Company, Tata Global Beverages, Tata Chemicals, Tata Industries and Tata Teleservices. Additionally, Mistry is the co-chair of the India-US CEO Forum and the India-UK CEO Forum, and is a member of the Presidential CEO Advisory Board of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Prior to joining Tata Group, Mistry served as Managing Director of Shapoorji Pallonji Group, another leading Indian conglomerate, where he was credited with growing the group’s construction business. Mistry graduated with a degree in Civil Engineering from Imperial College, London, in 1990, and went to earn a master’s degree in Management from the London Business School in 1997.

Maddu Kannan,
Head of Business Development and Public Affairs

info: Maddu joined Tata Group in 2012, and currently serves as the Group’s Head of Business Development and Public Affairs. Kannan also sits on the boards of several Tata Group companies, including Tata AIG General Insurance Company, Tata AIA Life Insurance Company and Tata Business Support Services. Kannan has previously held a number of roles within the financial space. He held various positions at New York Stock Exchange Euronext. During his stint at NYSE Euronext, including Senior Vice President and Head of International Listings in Asia Pacific. Kannan went on to join Merrill Lynch, joining the firm the company in 2008 as Managing Director of Strategy and Business Development. In 2009 he was appointed Chief Executive Officer of the Bombay Stock Exchange, his final role before joining Tata Group. Kannan holds a bachelor’s degree in Electronics, and a master’s degree in Economics from BITS, Pilani, India. He also holds an MBA in Finance from Vanderbilt University.

Mukund Rajan,
Brand Custodian and Chief Ethics Officer

info: Mukund serves as a member of the Tata Group Executive Council and is the Group’s Brand Custodian. He also serves as Tata Group’s Chief Ethics Officer and oversees the Group’s corporate social responsibility activities as Chairman of the Tata Global Sustainability Council. Rajan also serves as a non-executive director on the boards of Lakshmi Machine Works and Tata SIA Airlines, and is a member of the national advisory boards of AIESEC India and Enactus. Rajan is a long-serving Tata Group employee, having joined the Group in 1995. He has held a number of positions within the Group, including Managing Director of Tata Teleservices Head of Private Equity Advisory at Tata Capital, and has served on the boards of Tata Teleservices, Tata Communications, Roots Corporation and Piem Hotels. Rajan graduated from the bachelor of technology programme at the Indian Institute of Technology in 1989. He also holds master’s and doctorate in International Relations from Oxford University.