Tata Tea to shift office to Mumbai by April 1, 2006

Tata Tea is planning to shift its corporate office from Kolkata to Bombay House, Tata Group headquarters in Mumbai by April 1, 2006. The SAP operations would be shifted to Bangalore. However, sources said the registered office of the company was likely to be in Kolkata itself.

When contacted, Percy Siganporia, managing director, Tata Tea declined to comment. According to company sources, the move was in sync with the company's strategy to focus on branded operations rather than on plantations.

Recently at the company's extraordinary general meeting (EGM), Siganporia had said the company was looking at changing its profile. He had however, refused to elaborate on the changes.

However sources said the company was planning to increase its branded operations which accounted for more than 80 per cent of Tata Tea's revenues. The move to divest its plantations at Kanan Devan was a step in this direction. Further, the implementation of SAP would make it possible to shift operations away from the plantations.

The company recently announced the successful "go-live" of the my SAP enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions for its branded tea operations.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) helped the company implement financial accounting, controlling, materials management, production planning, quality management and sales and distribution modules across 50 locations.