Published on October 21, 2024
Tata Tele Business Services (TTBS) is actively working towards setting up a robust data infrastructure, including a data office, strategy, governance, quality and fabric for the organisation. To gain insights and learn best practices, the company attended the Data Excellence Forum meet hosted by Tata Communications (TCL), in Pune.
This helped TTBS identify essential elements it needed from the following sessions which was the focus of the daylong proceedings. Key takeaways from the forum included:
- Karthikeyan Subbiah, VP, Global Operations - Technology & Platform Development, TCL, presented the company’s data and digital transformation journey, talking about AI use cases and approach to data-enabled AI adoption.
- Gurdeep Singh, GM, Global Operations - Technology & Platform Development, TCL, shared in detail the company’s AI project execution framework.
- Santosh Vuppala, Head - Analytics and Insights, Titan, presented AI use cases at Titan.
- Vikash Srivastava, Chief Data Office, and Dinesh Kumar, Head - Data Governance, Tata Steel, shared the company’s data excellence journey.
- Jiji Kunjan, Head - Data Governance Practice; Raja S, Chief Strategic Initiatives; and Fehrzard Patel, Chief Customer Centricity Officer, Tata iQ, shared the organisation’s best practices on data strategy and governance.
From these sessions, TTBS could pick up and implement learnings on ‘data strategy.’ A key takeaway for the company was the structure of data domains and modules set up by Tata Communications, which included a detailed breakdown of activities within each domain. This approach has helped TTBS create similar data domains given the business similarities between the two organisations. These practices had already been successfully implemented at TCL which fostered greater buy-in from the TTBS management team.
Additionally, the forum facilitated direct connections with data heads across Group companies, reducing bottlenecks typically faced when external consultants are unavailable. This improved information exchange has helped TTBS accelerate their project progress, shorten the learning curve and and minimise dependency on external expertise.
About Tata Data Excellence Forum
The Tata Data Excellence Forum was established in May 2024 in response to the increasing importance of data-driven decision making. The platform connects data practitioners from across the Group to share insights, best practices, and challenges related to data management, analytics, and governance. The forum’s inaugural meeting was hosted by Tata Communications that brought together over 70 data experts from more than 35 Tata companies to discuss AI use cases, data governance, and the creation of a hyper connected data ecosystem. By fostering collaboration and knowledge sharing, the forum aims to accelerate the Group's goal of data-driven transformation.
Participant speak
Every organisation’s data strategy journey starts at different times and is at a different stage at any given point in time. The Data Excellence forum is acting as a path finder for every group company to maneuver their obstacles by creating a platform of learning and questioning the cohorts on their experience which helps to clear bottlenecks every group company is facing at a particular point in time. Data domains and data marts for TTSL was the ask by the management in the month of April 2024 and the meet in May 2024 paved the way for TTSL to start the work and also complete the same within a quarter without running around or taking support from any of the consulting firms.
— Sheela Balasubramanian, Lead Data Officer, Tata Tele Business Services