A Journey Towards An Ideal - Tata · PDF filecommitment of Tata companies, their management and especially the work of CS ... nsform e r o f V l u e R e l a ... • Nature of commitment

– Enhancing Stakeholder Engagement through Sustained Relationship

A Journey Towards An Ideal

Controlled & Internal Document(For Tata employees and select partners)

www.quadrumltd.com Quadrum Solutions (P) Ltd., Krishnamai, 33B,

Sir Pochkanwala Road, Worli, Mumbai 400 030. Tel.: +91 22 2496 8210 / 11

Team Quadrum Ms. Ashlesha Shirodkar, Mr. Mrityunjoy Burman,

Mr. Suryakant Thikrul

Support team for A Journey Towards an Ideal:Mr. Vasant Ayyappan, The Taj Group of Hotels

Mr. K. Shankar Marar, Tata SteelMr. Shubhenjit Chaudhuri, Tata Steel

Mr. B. Sudhakar, Tata ChemicalsMr. Sumant Sood, Titan Industries

Mr. G. S. Uppal, Tata MotorsMr. Vinod Kulkarni, Tata Motors

Mr. Ajit Maleyvar, Tata Power Delhi DistributionMr. Sudhir Hasamnis, Tata Motors

Ms. Priyadarshini Sharma, Tata SteelMr. Ajit Pattnaik, Tata Housing Ms. Margaret D’souza, Voltas

Mr. Anand G. Rao, Titan IndustriesMs. Foram Nagori, The Taj Group of Hotels

Content Coordination:Mr. Lucas Saldhana

© Copyright 2012 Tata Services LimitedFor restricted circulation only. All rights reserved (This Document is mainly for the purpose of

Training and Internal use in the Tata Companies and for our Partners) For permission for the use of this material, please contact Vice President, Group CS, TCCI, Tata Services on [email protected]

explaining the contemplated use and its purpose. Our acknowledgement will act as consent.

TCCI – Mitigating Risks, Enhancing Opportunities & Innovations, to serve

1

Leadership must necessarily get wholehearted acceptance for itself, for its programmes and for its workers from the society where it wishes to implement these programmes. A prerequisite for achieving this acceptance is to convince

oneself and the co-workers to work ‘with’ the people and not ‘at’ them or ‘for’ them

- K. A. Chaukar, Chairman, TCCI

Prologue: ‘A Journey Towards an Ideal’

is a story about the more recent social

commitment of Tata companies, their

management and especially the work of CS

Facilitators for over a decade. It resonates the

vision of our group chairman, Mr. Ratan N. Tata,

that came to us through his annual address at

the AGMMs:

a. It started with the need to be and to be

seen as a group that is on the forefront

of whatever it does. Towards this TCCI

marshalled the group’s synergy to develop

common CS guidelines for the first time in

India and perhaps globally on ‘who’ we are

as a group;

b. To question the unquestioned and to

address new contexts of a reforming

India. We reflected on our present work

and brought in perspectives on human

development bridging diverse activities to

see how wellbeing is ultimately enhanced;

c. Forge strategic alliances with global

agencies to aim at strengthening our

capacities. TCCI partnered with GRI, SAI,

AA1000, United Nations and internalised

their capacities while some of us served on

their Boards!

d. TCCI was first to develop the Tata Index /

Protocol and build a functional – extension

around the TBEM on CS. We also

addressed the group’s focus on innovation

partnering with the UNDP to fuse a

business-model with human-development;

e Inspired by the Founder’s vision, TCCI

undertook stakeholder-engagement to

address risks and account for abatement

costs of negative impact towards

sustainability;

f. CS Workouts have further helped to build

a CS Leadership approach and the process

for co-creating sustainable value that offers

opportunities to understand more about

what comes from the people, what goes to

them in abundance!

As a Transformer of V

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Toolkit 2


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g. Inspired by the Chairman’s call to lead

and never follow, TCCI has nationally and

globally learnt and influenced the subject

of CS on the frontiers of development,

invited to make over 80 presentations in

nearly 25 countries addressing thousands

of students, teachers, business leaders,

media, a number of authors and CS

thought-leaders.

h. To the group’s strategic focus on base of

the pyramid, TCCI campaigned on CSR to

CS to focus on enterprise solutions and

extension of core-competencies to reach

the underserved.

TCCI has had the opportunity to nationally and

globally learn from and to influence the subject

of CS on the frontiers of its development.

Based on demand, some extracts from the

document are prepared for user-groups for

application.

Enhancing Stakeholder Engagement

through Sustained Relationships: This toolkit

focuses on Stakeholder Engagement so that

CS does not operate from small portions of

profit, and would rather operate out of an

abundance of whole business mitigating risks,

enhancing opportunities and innovation to

serve – particularly through inclusion of the

unserved masses who are really a fortune

without opportunities. The essence of

Stakeholder Engagement is to extend long-

term ownership and governance as widely as

possible and acknowledge that people are in

fact the purpose of profit and so the existence

of an enterprise.

Anant G. Nadkarni Vice President, Group CS, TCCI


3

An important assumption in Corporate

Sustainability is that: Business – as a

whole is a force for good. And, the purpose

of business is to enhance the wellbeing of all

those who are connected or impacted – called

by one name stakeholders. The community

at large co-creates the enterprise – and what

comes from them, now and in the long run,

should go back to them, in abundance.

Translated into practical terms, Stakeholders

gradually become “long term owners” of the

enterprise in different ways; they have access

to mechanisms and practices at various levels

to govern the enterprise; stakeholders assume

leadership and commitment to co-create

sustainable value for themselves and the

people at large.

The practice of co-ownership, co-

determination, long run commitment and stake

is the essence of sustainable value generation.

In more practical terms, stakeholders have

processes that variously help improve

communication and dialogue that results into

deeper forms of engagement, strengthens their

‘voice’ and influences each other symbiotically.

On another level, stakeholder–relationship is

a multiple connect of networks. At one level

it is about the core–materiality, technological

and functional contributions; at the next or

medium term, it is more about pricing, business

policy, credibility built over time on costs, quality,

delivery and logistic efficiency. It includes how

conflict is resolved; risks of disruption anticipated

and abated and also how well matters are dealt

with towards building lasting working relations.

At a still deeper level, it is more and more about

how certain values and higher aspirations in

business excellence develop into a ‘culture’. So

procedures to exchange ethics, share social

and environmental responsibilities, deeper

institutionalisation of creating a purpose for profit;

equitable distribution of wealth and knowledge

begins to happen over a common journey,

perhaps spanning decades. Businesses like Tata,

put people first and this promise is kept through

formal procedures as attempted below; and more

importantly the spirit is alive through behavioural

and various modes of consistent practice.

It is increasingly being recognised that business

operates in a complex and highly inter-connected

environment, and building Community of

Stakeholders on ‘Relationships with Trust’ is

imperative. Stakeholder Engagement is an

important business strategy to promote inclusive

and sustainable growth. The maturation from

Communication to Participation is influenced

by evidence that tacit forms of interface help

exchange learning and co-create knowledge. This

is about that core growth factor.

PRIoRITy KEy STAKEhoLDERRISKS

oPPoRTuNITIESINNovATIoNS

MITIGATIoN DEvELoPMENT

PLANS

MoDES oF ENGAGEMENT

Communication Dialogue Participation


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SR.No. KEy STAKEhoLDERS RISK MANAGEMENT wITh CoMMuNICATIoN / DIALoGuE /

ENGAGEMENT oPPoRTuNITIES

1 Employees and Employee Relationships (Trade Union) (Points : 125)

• Low Employability – Competency profile (25)

• Wages / Industry Standards (50)

• Average age (25)

• Temporary / Permanent ratio (25)

• Volunteering schemes, Social media platforms and other forms of tacit engagement to build culture

• …add or subtract more ideas but adjust the total points

2 Customer (s) – Sales and After Sales Relationships (Point: 125)

• Changing technologies (15)

• Sustainability wave (10)

• Regulatory changes (20)

• Competition (20)

• After Sales Service (20)

• Price policy (20)

• Methods of financing (20)

• Warranty meets / newsletters and other forms of dialogue to foster two-way engagement


Below mentioned is more of a ‘mental –

model’. It looks at the way Relationships

deepen into more meaningful, purpose-driven

and sustainable convertors of value. Firstly, it

is about attaining a high level of congruence

in the main area of technology, materiality

and business. Secondly, something that

happens overtime about deliveries, training,

no new cost-surprises, quality and so on. This

adds to credibility. Finally, a Relationship is

a ‘sustained contract of shared values’. The

first layer of business can grow, change and

transform over time. So also, new factors to

build credibility come by. But what seems

to emerge from research on long-lived

companies and sustained business relations

is that deepened, intense culture-based or

value-driven Relationships leads to a more

fulfilling and satisfying business deal. This is

being increasingly recognised in terms of a

sustainability factor.

RELATIoNShIPS STRATEGIES To IMPRovE QuALITy oF RELATIoNShIPS

Stakes and Technology related

Credibility and Operational

Cultural and Value driven


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3 Suppliers/Vendors Relationships

(Points : 125)

• Fairness in price negotiation (15)

• Vendors ability to cope with technology (15)

• Workers employability & training (15)

• Renewal of assets and machinery (15)

• Business model risks (15)

• Working conditions at the workplace (20)

• Your company’s share of business (15)

• Extent of tacit engagement / Culture building between the two parties + platform for engagement such as Vendor meets (15)


4 Dealer Relationships

(Points : 125)

• Fairness in negotiating commission and product pricing (15)

• Ability to cope with changing market demands (15)

• Calibrate employee training / motivation (15)

• Strategic investment in land and space management (15)

• Business model risks (15)

• Working conditions at the workplace (20)

• Nature of commitment to the company (15)

• Extent of tacit engagement / Culture building / motivating brand loyalty platform for engagement such as Dealer meets (15)


5 Contractor Relationships

(Points : 125)

• No steady income (25)

• Constituents of the contract policy (25)

• Fairness of Actual payment to employees (25)

• Cultural bonding (25)

• Minimum working conditions (25)

• Passing on expertise / employability / Culture to Contractors to improve quality of life


6 Banks/Financial Institutions Relationships

(Points : 125)

• Social credibility of the institution & leadership (25)

• Employee Union relationships (25)

• Technological upgradation & access to finance for the underprivileged communities (35)

• Record of Ethical behaviour affecting operations seriously (40)

• Methods of deeper engagement with key investors to foster higher standards of ethics and cultural responses

• …… add or subtract more ideas but adjust the total points

7 Opportunities to address the underserved stakeholders

(Points : 125)

• Potential core competencies not explored / deployed (30)

• Opportunities for specific inclusion not considered as part of business (30)

• Poor engagement with community due to high technology nature of the company (30)

• Skill sets among youth limited to low levels of deployment for employability (35)

• … add or subtract more ideas but adjust the total points

Examples -

Tata Metaliks - Driver training for the youth along with the RTO

Titan - Myrada – Empowering Women, Kanya – Educating the Girl Child

Tata Motors and Telcon - Leprosy

Tata Steel - HIV

Tata Motors - Driver training


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8 Further opportunities to serve the underserved and stakeholders typical / pecu-liar to situations

(Points : 125)

• Unemployable youth in significant numbers (20)

• Alienation of Women from development (20)

• High rate of unemployed women (20)

• Lack of basic infrastructure / amenities and access to (Education, Health, sanitation, Child welfare etc.) (20)

• High skilled artisans with very poor organising or negotiating skills / oppressed by lobby (20)

• Generally, level of corruption in the essential services sector / land dealings (25)

• … add or subtract more ideas but adjust the total points

* (Points: 1000) – The total out of 1000 should be divided by 4 in order to fit in the summary framework where 250 points are allocated to stakeholder engagement.

Concrete Steps for Action:

1. The Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO)

is the owner of this process. The CSO

obtains the buy-in from the CEO and top

management team and conducts this

Review annually to develop an integrated

and a strategic matrix on Stakeholder

Engagement for the total business. This

is reviewed annually at end of May so

as to become part of TBEM Assessment

/ Application as well as the CS Impact

Assessment Process. This is shared with

CQH or Head of Business Excellence and

the TCCI Secretariat.

2. The CSO identifies key stakeholders and

the concerned functional heads. With

the help of the top management these

stakeholders are prioritised. The CSO would

be best supported if the Head of Business

Strategy or Business Development could

guide the process.

3. The CSO holds annual review meetings

with the above team assisted by those

in-charge of environment, safety and

community / social development. If the

company feels so, external help could be

sought.

4. Against each stakeholder group present

business risks would be already plotted.

With the help of CS Facilitators and

external help additional social and

environmental risks would be brought in.

5. The entire team could brainstorm to

identify solutions, a way forward in

terms of concrete action which can be

developed into short, medium and long-

term programmes. The costs of these

programmes are factored into not only

annual budget plans in the short term, but if

required they would be taken as long term

venture costs. These costs would then be

treated like other long-term investment

costs which are already considered.

6. On the Action front, against each

Stakeholder, one could plot existing

strategies for Communications, Dialogue

and Participation. It is here that further

brainstorming would be required to

ensure that new set of actions are

suggested for improvements in these

three modes of action. The Company

would then have a complete matrix and

roadmap of key stakeholders including


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the Community where Risks are assessed in

the multiple contexts of economic, social and

environmental issues.

7. At a deeper level, one could look at the other

model for each of key stakeholders or at least

the top three to understand the depth and

extent of the quality of tacit participation and

building up of relationships, exchanging culture

and value systems beyond work practices.

One could develop action plans with measures

on how to improve the degree of learnings

from both sides and draw specific timelines to

address concerns, if any.

8. The team could develop parameters on how

to enhance the knowledge base, competitive

edge and higher degree of sustained

engagement on both sides. These synergies

could perhaps help both side to develop

capabilities required for taking bolder risks,

make radical costs adjustments and other

forms of accommodation which one cannot

otherwise attempt if the engagement is purely

transactional, short cited and superficial.


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Notes

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A Journey Towards An Ideal - Tata · PDF filecommitment of Tata companies, their management and especially the work of CS ... nsform e r o f V l u e R e l a ... • Nature of commitment