ABOUT THE BOOK
“Designed to Win—The Tata Elxsi Story” is a book that gives insight into the success of the Tata Group company. The company is quietly revolutionising the fields of transportation, media and telecom, and healthcare.
The book has great components as to how Tata Elxsi delivers innovative solutions across electric vehicles, connected cars, design-led passenger experiences, and software-defined vehicle platforms.
What drives Tata Elxsi’s success? What strategies has it employed to overcome significant challenges and emerge as an exceptionally successful organisation that benefits shareholders, investors and consumers alike? What lessons can readers draw from Tata Elxsi in entrepreneurship, sales, marketing, strategy and other key management disciplines? This book seeks to answer these and many other questions, offering insight into a relatively little-known yet distinctive company within the Tata Group.
EXCERPTS
Strategy 6: Building the Tata Elxsi Brand
After joining Tata Elxsi, my first outstation trip was to meet Tata Steel, then a prospective customer, in Jamshedpur. This trip brought home some tough realities. Here’s what happened.
My Calcutta office was manned by three good salespersons. J K Jain who was the Regional manager, Salil Saha and D K Das, his teammates. They requested that I come over and meet with the general manager of the management services division of Tata Steel. Our guys had met him a few times but had yet to be successful. I was told that if we are in a position to penetrate and close a deal at Tata Steel, we would be well entrenched in the city of Jamshedpur with all the other Tata entities there, with our products and solutions. I readily agreed to make this trip, and after a flight into Calcutta and overnight there, my regional manager from our Calcutta office and I took a cab and drove to Jamshedpur. It was a four–five-hour- drive from Kolkata. So we started very early and reached there by about ten-thirty in the morning. On reaching Tata Steel and completing all the entry formalities at the factory, we waited in the general manager’s anteroom.
At the appointed time, he entered his large office and was seated in the far corner of the room. The atmosphere was somewhat intimidating. We shook hands and exchanged pleasantries. I told him that I had just joined Tata Elxsi from another Tata company and looked forward to doing business with Tata Steel and building a long-term association with them.
After offering me a choice between tea and coffee, he asked me why I had joined this company and that it was defunct from the day it started. He also asked me why we were calling it Tata Elxsi when Elxsi as a company had ceased to exist. I was utterly taken aback by his attitude and the cold welcome. I seriously attempted to defend my case, but it was quite futile. He even mentioned that we should either shut down Tata Elxsi or merge it with TCS.
It was disappointing that a senior executive of a Tata company was so insensitive. On further discussion and probing, I realized that Tata Steel was not even in the run for the solutions that we were offering. In fact, they were looking for solutions in the process control space, and we had nothing to do with that business.
I was disappointed not only with the gentleman at Tata Steel but also with my sales guy, who was rather clueless and had knocked on the wrong door for business opportunities.
It was a wasted trip, but I came back with a lot of learning.
People did not take us seriously. There was no hope in sight when a peer from another Tata company did not want to bet on us. I was not looking for a concession or even empathy. My company should stand with respect. We were a Tata company. With that name, I should hold the flag high and command respect.
And for that, I needed to rebuild the Tata Elxsi brand all over again.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
S. Devarajan is a former Managing Director of Tata Elxsi and one of the youngest Directors in the Tata Group, best known for successfully transforming Tata Elxsi into a high-performing technology company. He later founded Transmation Consulting, a strategic management firm that helps technology companies drive business transformation, improve operational efficiency, and scale growth through CXO mentoring.
He currently serves as an Independent Director on the boards of Quess Corp, Tata Play, Prime Focus, Prime Focus Technologies, DNEG India, and GVS Software, and has previously held board and chair positions across several leading technology firms. Mr Devarajan was also Managing Director of Cisco Systems India, where he led Cisco’s largest R&D centre outside the US and played a key role in scaling the organisation and its global development capabilities.
A former president of MAIT and a charter member of TiE, he has advised multiple government and industry initiatives. Beyond business, he is an award-winning photographer with over 45 international honours and has a deep interest in music and travel.
