Published on December 29, 2021
Entrepreneurship is an essential aspect of the Tata Affirmative Action Programme (TAAP). TAAP’s affirmative action (AA) framework emphasises the development of vendors from the SC/ST community, both within and outside the organisation’s ecosystem. Tata Business Excellence Group (TBExG) regularly conducts best practice sharing sessions between Tata companies to help them strengthen their AA programmes.
Accordingly, TBExG invited a team from Tata Steel Utilities and Infrastructure Services (TSUISL) and Indian Steel and Wire Products (ISWP) to conduct a best practice sharing session for members of the Supply Chain Management (SCM) team of Tata Communications to fortify its AA vendor development initiatives. TSUISL and ISWP have been doing remarkable work to support the development of AA vendors in their organisations. TSUISL helped a vendor enlisted under the AA programme increase its total business volume from Rs 10 crore to Rs 21 crore in the last decade. Likewise, ISWP has provided 19 vendors with a total business volume of Rs 1.2 crore.
A total of nine officials from Tata Communications’ SCM and CSR team participated virtually in the session held on December 6, 2021. Sachin Deo Prasad - Head Procurement from TSUISL, Manprit Shrivastava from ISWP’s procurement team and Awtar Singh - Head CSR –ISWP, provided valuable inputs on their respective organisation’s practices.
The workshop focused on critical aspects such as:
- Recognising the significant role of service providers in supporting the AA agenda through the identification of job segments and spend analysis for the AA vendors
- The role of the procurement team in developing entrepreneurs from the AA community and subsequently integrating them in the organisation’s value chain through a long-term strategy
- The significant challenges that arise in the identification of a vendor within the AA framework
- Collaboration and strategic tie-ups with Government and non-Governmental stakeholders to leverage a predesigned programme for AA vendors
- Skill development, capability assessment, robust review mechanism and reward and recognition programmes for AA vendors
- A strategic long-term vendor development plan with a 2x2 matrix
- The social entrepreneurship development programme
- The analysis of business requirements and potential vendors, with particular reference to their share of business
Tata Communication’s SCM team actively participated in the discussions, appreciated the insights and indicated that the company would work on adopting the best practices of TSUISL and ISWP.