A book titled'Making the Elephant Dance
Dr. Mukund Rajan, member, Group Executive Council and brand custodian, Tata Sons; S Padmanabhan, executive chairman, Tata Quality Management Services (TQMS), and author of the book, Dr Sunil Mithas, professor at the Robert H Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland participated in a panel discussion on the book.
The book carries a foreword by Ratan N Tata, Chairman Emeritus, Tata Sons.
Dr. Sunil Mithas' book reveals the transformational journey of the Tata Group and its companies' over the past 20 years, a journey of persistence to achieve business excellence.
It provides a roadmap for corporate transformation and renewal, using the levers of business excellence, innovation and globalisation by documenting the Tata Group's transformational journey from a USD 5.8 billion Indian firm in 1992 to a USD 103 billion global powerhouse in 2014.
It provides a formula using the Tata Business Excellence Model (TBEM), a framework used by the Tata Group to help companies achieve global competitiveness and excellence in their business performance.
The methodology of TBEM is modelled on the US-based quality initiative, the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.
The book explains the sequence of leadership and management interventions that Tata used following the liberalisation of the Indian economy in the 1990s to become the largest private-sector employer in both India and the United Kingdom, and acquire iconic brands such as Jaguar, Land Rover and Tetley.
It profiles the transformational journey of incumbents such as Tata Steel, Jaguar Land Rover, Tata Consultancy Services, Titan, Indian Hotels, Tata Power and Tata Chemicals to provide a framework for almost any organisation to rediscover its potential and charge ahead.
It argues that one key factor for the group's giant success has been the relentless focus on tracking and improving every measurable attribute of corporate excellence, from customer satisfaction to employee morale to strategy development and implementation.
It further elaborates on lessons of leadership, execution, analytics, disciplined autonomy and serving society, that other organisations and incumbents can follow from Tata to transform themselves.
Dr. Mithas said, "Tata group's success, due in part to its commitment to business excellence, globalisation and innovation, demonstrates that even giants can dance, if they combine the discipline of consistent processes with autonomy needed for innovation. The book provides concrete ideas for executives to set and achieve an agenda for transformation based on lessons that apply to virtually all companies around the world."
Dr. Rajan said, "We are humbled by this body of work of Dr Mithas and are grateful to him for his remarkable illustration of the business excellence journey of the Tata group. This book, with a foreword by Mr Ratan Tata, is particularly timely as on July 29, the birth anniversary of JRD Tata, we celebrate 21 successful years of the business excellence movement in the Tata group. We expect this focus on business excellence to play a critical role in helping us to achieve the Tata group's vision for 2025, namely that by 2025, 25 percent of the world's population will experience the Tata commitment to improving the quality of life of customers and communities."
Mr. Padmanabhan said, "The core purpose of TBEM is to enable performance enhancement through the business excellence journey. It has become the glue that binds Tata companies, bringing them together in their quest for excellence. It helps the Tata group at different levels: for Tata Sons, it enables leveraging of synergies; for the company boards, it brings a balanced view of the company; for Tata companies, it represents an opportunity to learn from others and become an industry leader; and for all Tata employees, it is a leadership development movement.
