COVER STORY
‘Individually excellent,
collectively brilliant’
Tata Global Beverages (TGB)
has been on a transformation
journey in recent years,
evolving from a plantations
heritage to a global beverage
business with a portfolio of
strong brands. HR is playing
a significant role in facilitating
this transformation, says
KS Srinivasan, head of
human resource management
at the company, in an
interview with Sujata Agrawal.
What are the focus areas for HR in
TGB’s transformation journey?
TGB’s vision is to become a global leader in
branded ‘good-for-you’ beverages. Given this,
the focus areas for HR is to build a culture that
will enable and fuel our global growth plans. We
intend to conduct road shows across various
regions to bring organisational alignment,
especially in terms of organisational culture.
The second focus area is to make the
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COVER STORY
company future ready by identifying and building
capabilities that are critical for the success in the
years ahead. We will concentrate on not only
building best-in-class functional teams but also
global leaders who can work effectively in a matrix
structure and in a project-led enterprise.
Could you detail some of the specific
challenges and opportunities that
TGB faced as it evolved globally?
One of the key challenges lay in changing the
mindset within the company, to bring about a
‘consumer focus’. Since the company had to face
the risk of market fluctuations in tea prices, we
had to ensure that we built strong brands and the
organisational capability to perform well in highly
competitive markets.
We also had to integrate our operations
in India (North India plantation division and
South India plantation division) into a single
branded operation, focusing on both national
and regional brands. This involved consolidating
marketing and sales structures and managing
people’s expectations through the transition.
TGB has integrated the global
operations of Tata Tea, Tetley and the
other subsidiary companies. What
were the challenges here?
Being a global organisation with different ideas
and cultures makes TGB a vibrant and exciting
About Tata Global Beverages
Tata Global Beverages is a global beverages
company headquartered in Mumbai. It owns
popular brands such as Tata Tea, Tetley, Good
Earth, Tata Coffee and Himalayan mineral water.
Has alliances with PepsiCo and Starbucks.
Consolidated revenues of `66.31 billion in the
financial year 2011-12.
Number of employees: 3,000 plus.
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place to work, but this diversity also brings
with it some challenges. For instance, when
launching new global processes and systems, we
have to be sensitive to the possibility of cultural
misinterpretation. We minimise this by working
in global teams with cross-cultural representation.
To create a common culture that everyone
at TGB can identify with, we have five directional
themes that reflect the aspirations of our company
and describe the tactics that we will need to
pursue at an individual and organisational level
to achieve those aspirations. We have built a
consumer-focused structure to enable global
working. The three sales and marketing territories
are managed regionally to enable local market
responsiveness. Functional teams such as HR,
communications, finance and global information
systems are centrally and globally organised. This
structure breaks down silos; team members from
all regions work together under one functional
head on the development of global initiatives.
The structure also gives talented employees
the opportunity to take on bigger or more
challenging roles with international reach. The
cross-pollination of talent across regions and
the sharing of best practices help develop global
leaders. We have also put in more relevant
mechanisms to measure and reward performance,
such as a global reward strategy and the global
talent management process. These initiatives have
been in place for the last three years and are now
institutionalised as a part of our DNA.
You have talked about developing
leaders with a global mindset. How
are you managing this at TGB?
We are working on developing a future-ready
pipeline of global leaders who can take forward
our ambition to be the global leader in goodfor-you beverages. Our large global presence has
given some of our key talent global exposure;
since 2008 about 30 employees have been given
international placements.
Our ‘organisation resource review’ process
(a global talent and succession planning tool) has
helped us identify 120 critical roles across the
company that are needed to deliver our business
plans over the next two years. We have built an
COVER STORY
internal talent pipeline for 65 percent of these
roles. In addition, we have been leveraging the
leadership programmes of the Tata Management
Training Centre.
HR open houses and involve senior leadership
in policy decisions involving changes. Such
interactions have led to changes in medical
benefits and policies relating to travel.
Could you share with us what is being
done to encourage teamwork and
create a culture of collaboration?
At TGB we believe that teamwork is the
responsibility of every manager. In fact, one of
TGB’s directional themes is ‘individually excellent,
collectively brilliant’. An example of this is the
‘Culture champion’ initiative. Each region has
about 10 culture champions who drive various
initiatives to engage their colleagues and provide
catalysts for change. Centrally coordinated but
regionally accountable, they can ensure that the
initiatives are culturally appropriate and global
in context. Each year there’s a new set of culture
champions. The idea behind this initiative is to
have more participatory communication rather
than a top-down approach. The role of HR is
to support the champions and ensure that the
process works effectively.
The term work-life balance is in vogue
these days, but is particularly difficult
to achieve. What is your view on this
and how do you manage it at TGB?
We try our best to help our employees find
an ideal work-life balance. We have launched
many initiatives in the last two years, including
flexible work arrangements that allow employees
flexibility on the time that they come to work (as
long as they complete the mandated hours and are
present at the office from 10am to 4pm); paternity
and adoption leave; working for two-and-a-half
days in a week from home for a period of two
months after returning from maternity leave;
offering professional counselling to employees
and their families; and so on.
How does employee engagement
manifest itself at TGB? A good example of employee engagement is the
‘Think big’ initiative; a contest that is run across
geographies, it invites innovative ideas for
positive change at TGB. The initiative generated
more than 1,300 new ideas, it captured the
imagination of our employees and reinforced
a culture where creativity is encouraged and
rewarded. It also provided opportunities for
people to learn new skills and collaborate across
functions. The top five teams were invited to
New York to present their business plans to a
panel of judges.
We also have a structured mechanism for
gathering employee feedback that helps target
initiatives and communications better. We
conducted a pulse-check employee engagement
dipstick survey after completing the integration
process; our overall engagement score was 68
percent (with 88 percent participation across
regions), which is better than the average score
among global companies. We also conduct
What do you see as the HR challenges
of the future for TGB? Given that TGB is continuously transforming,
it is a challenge to keep employees energised
and engaged. It is also a challenge to manage
changing employee demographics. Gen Y and
Z are very different and we have to ensure that
our leaders are well equipped to manage these
people. Talent management and succession
planning will become more critical and at the
same time more complex. We also need to be
able to help employees update and develop their
skill sets quickly.
To what extent do Tata companies
share HR best practices?
There are many platforms within the Tata group
that enable sharing of best practices. There is a
forum where chief HR officers meet regularly with
a predefined agenda; the Tata Rem Club is very
active and shares knowledge internally or through
thought leaders. The revamped group HR site
gives an opportunity to HR leaders to connect
with their peers within the group. I’m sure that we
will see more synergies and sharing between the
different companies in the future. ¨
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