Tanishq Sets the Gold Standard

Harish Bhat

Description

From steel to beverages and from supercomputers to automobiles, TATA companies have broken new ground and set new standards of excellence over the past two decades. Written by a TATA insider, TATAlog presents the hitherto untold stories about the strategic and operational challenges that TATA companies have faced, and the forward thinking and determination that have raised the brand to new heights. This is one of the eight riveting and inspiring stories from TATAlog that reveals the DNA of every TATA enterprise. Be sure to check out the other seven: *Tata Indica *Okhamandal *Tata Finance *Second Careers for Women *The EKA Supercomputer *Tata Tetley *Tata Steel

Sujets

• Histoire
• Strategic management
• Economics
• History

Informations

• Publié par: Penguin Books Ltd
• Date de parution: 15 septembre 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9789351183020
• Langue: English

Extrait

HARISH BHAT
Tanishq Sets the Gold Standard Eight Modern Stories from a Timeless Institution -->
Contents Dedication
Foreword
A Path Well Paved
Tata Indica, the Very First Indian Car
Uplifting Tales from Okhamandal
The Tribulations of Tata Finance -->
Tanishq Sets the Gold Standard Second Careers for Intelligent Women
EKA: Birth of an Indian Supercomputer
Tetley Enters the Tata Fold
Tata Steel Wins the Deming Prize
Epilogue: One Day in Kolkata
Acknowledgements -->
Copyright Page
Tanishq Sets the Gold Standard
Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.
-C.S. Lewis, The Unquiet Grave
Belief in the Indian consumer opportunity was the source of our courage.
-Bhaskar Bhat, managing director, Titan Industries Limited
Tanishq almost shuts shop
Clara Lobo manages the beautiful Tanishq showroom on Turner Road, a busy high street in the upscale Bandra area of Mumbai. Inside the store, a family is buying gold jewellery for their daughter s wedding in a few weeks time. A young couple has just walked in to look at engagement rings. Saleswomen, dressed in elegant brown sarees, are navigating the couple through an assortment of styles. At another counter, two women look visibly excited while making a selection of a set of diamond-studded bangles. Soft music plays in the background. Lobo explains to me how the scenario has changed.
All Indian women want to own Tanishq jewellery today. Our brand has connected so well with them. We have the happiest customers in the world. But it was so different when we began, for many years. I joined Tanishq fifteen years ago, in 1997, just a year after the brand had been launched. We would wait for hours together for a single customer to walk in. Often, a whole week would pass by in silence, and we would feel very depressed. Our performance was so poor that sometimes we even heard that this brand would be shut down.
Two thousand kilometres from Lobo s store, in the garden city of Bangalore, sits Xerxes Desai, the man who founded Tanishq. Now retired, he speaks slowly but clearly in his refined Oxford accent.
Yes, for some years there certainly was pressure to hive off this business. There was mixed support from some people in the Tatas. There was also an opinion that the jewellery business could only be run by family jewellers, that it never could be corporatized.
But I was firm in my view, and I said that any such hiving off or closure would happen over my dead body. We saw the huge opportunity, we had belief and we persisted.
Tanishq is the largest and most successful brand of jewellery in India today, serving nearly a million people (mostly women) each year and generating annual revenues of approximately Rs 10,000 crore, making it one of the glittering jewels in the Tata crown. It is a much-celebrated success that is steadily transforming the second largest consumer sector in the country. In terms of sheer size, only the food industry beats jewellery.
This is the story of Tanishq, the vision and courage that powered it, and how it overcame all its early errors and struggles to set the gold standard for India.
Wristwatches and jewellery
Titan Industries, the company which launched Tanishq, was founded in 1984 as a joint venture between the Tata Group and the government of Tamil Nadu. In April 1987, it launched Titan watches in India.