Published on March 20, 2021
Tata Steel is working on developing three key levers of people, process and technology to create an experience beyond expectations for its consumers. It expressed an interest to learn practices around call centre automation, channel/network model for service (sales & service model vs. franchisee model of operations), service partner ROI, field installers/technician capability development, spare part/accessory hub management, reverse logistics and defective handling methods, sales to service personnel ratio and new ways of service during the pandemic situation.
Tata Pravesh is a part of Tata Steel’s portfolio, offering a complete range of home solutions, from steel doors to windows. It wanted to get insights into product and channel management from Voltas around:
- Product traceability - Product nomenclature logic and method to establish end-to-end traceability
- Route to market - Channel length and various modes of product distribution
- Channel pricing structure - Product pricing logic with DP to MRP structure
- Channel schemes and reconciliation - Channel scheme modalities and scheme reconciliation by digital or manual means
- Sales and marketing structure - Ground sales force hierarchy structure and modus operandi (both on and off roles)
- IT systems - Understanding of end-to-end connectivity through digital systems
To assist Tata Steel in its improvement endeavours, in September 2020, Tata Business Excellence Group (TBExG) facilitated two sessions in which Girish Shah, UPBG - Customer Service Head, Voltas (Retail Business), shared the company’s practices around service network management with Tata Steel. In these sessions, Voltas talked about its mission and philosophy, customer satisfaction model, empowerment to front line, mindset and cultural change with technology adoption, customer satisfaction initiatives across direct customers, key accounts, dealers and service franchisees, 10 cube NPS, customer-connect initiatives, skill enhancement and training, mobile-training platforms, cost savings, spare part management, call centre management for service, safety procedure for partners, field service personnel capability development, training using mobile applications and other best practices at site.
Thereafter, in December 2020, Deba Ghoshal, Vice President & Head of Marketing, Voltas, and Jogesh K Jaitly, Vice President & Head of Sales, Voltas, shared their practices around product and channel management with Tata Steel. In this session, Voltas shared practices undertaken during the COVID-19 lockdown. In terms of product innovation, Voltas augmented their product line and changed their working style to ‘survival of the quickest’. Digital alignment was done for customer care and engagement with safety videos, essential service support and adjustable stories. Voltas focused on Tier 2 & 3 towns as Tier 1 cities were under severe lockdown.
Tata Steel found these sessions extremely useful and will now be evaluating some of these learnings for implementation in Tata Steel’s B2C business.
Participant Speak
By virtue of being part of the Tata Group, we have the unique advantage of being able to leverage the immense knowledge that resides within the ranks. This is especially critical for us at Services & Solutions, being a new division with a need to be consumer centric and have a service orientation. We have just set out on our journey towards business excellence, and we believe that the pace of this journey could be accelerated by adopting and building on the best practices prevalent in organisations such as Voltas with a significant service orientation. The session we had, exposed us to the Voltas philosophy of customer ownership and would shape our own initiatives going forward. I would like to thank TBExG and point out the criticality of your role in driving new businesses towards the path of excellence.
P Anand, Chief - Services and Solutions, Tata Steel