L10 - Taj Hotels Case-Lec 10-Pre-Reading 7GJajBX24P PDF

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TAJ HOTELS: BUILDING SUSTAINABLE LIVELIHOODS
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Garima Sharma and David G. Hyatt wrote this case solely to provide material for class discussion. The authors do not intend to
illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of a managerial situation. The authors may have disguised certain names and other
identifying information to protect confidentiality.
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Copyright © 2013, Richard Ivey School of Business Foundation Version: 2013-10-18
It was Wednesday morning, November 28, 2012, at the corporate headquarters of Taj Hotels Resorts and
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Palaces (Taj) in Mumbai, India. Corporate Sustainability (CS) Manager1 Foram Nagori had just received
a phone call from the director of a partner non-governmental organization (NGO) within Taj’s sustainable
livelihoods initiative. The partner needed help to transport its product to one of Taj’s hotels.
As Nagori began making phone calls to the purchasing team at Taj, she reflected on the spectrum of
unique requirements and challenges brought by these partnerships. NGO partners in the initiative often
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replaced for-profit suppliers of hospitality products or services for Taj, but their organizational
capabilities were not always equivalent to those of the other suppliers. In such situations, it fell to Nagori
and the CS team to mediate between the NGOs and the internal teams at Taj. Nagori knew that the
ultimate success of the sustainable livelihoods initiative would depend on the NGO partners’ ability to
deliver business value, but the initiative currently entailed much handholding and partner capacity
building.
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Nagori grappled with many questions critical to the success of the initiative. She wondered how Taj could
balance the desire to create sustainable operations at the NGO’s end with the reality that, in terms of
delivering competitive offerings, it may take significant time for the NGO to match the capacity of its for-
profit competitors. Given the uniqueness of the partnership, Nagori deliberated on the various ways she
might sell the issue internally, not only to ensure buy-in but also to guarantee an active role from Taj’s
business units in nurturing the NGO partners into independent and reliable suppliers. She would soon
need to meet with Taj’s head of purchasing to seek the team’s support for simplifying the process and
charting a path that would answer some of these questions.
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BUSINESS RESPONSIBILITY TRENDS IN INDIA
India presented an interesting landscape for issues of corporate sustainability and responsibility. While the
terms “corporate social responsibility” (CSR) or “corporate sustainability” (CS) were relatively new, the
1
We are thankful to Foram Nagori, the CS Manager at Taj Hotels, for her assistance and insights in the creation of this
case.
This document is authorized for educator review use only by SATISH M KAJJER, Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS) until Jun 2018. Copying or posting is an
infringement of copyright. Permissions@hbsp.harvard.edu or 617.783.7860
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concept had always been present in the country’s rich cultural and literary heritage. Philosophical
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teachings found in ancient texts prescribed the use of ethical principles in business dealings, and
charitable acts served as the underpinnings for many of the country’s religions (e.g., Hinduism, Sikhism
and Islam).2
The country’s CS history evolved in three different stages.3 The pre-independence era (before 1947)
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followed what was termed as the Gandhian Model, where business voluntarily committed to the public
welfare based on an awareness of social needs. This stage was followed by the Nehru Model (after
independence, post 1947), when the country adopted a socialist and mixed economy framework. Large
public-sector and state-owned companies were common throughout this stage and were marked by
community and worker relationships dictated by labour laws. In 1984, the Bhopal gas leak, one of the
most deadly industrial disasters ever, led to increased focus on health, safety, accountability and
tightening of industrial laws. The third era (in the 1990s) was characterized by liberalization of the Indian
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economy. An open-market policy and entry of multinational corporations not only brought with it global
competition but also a renewed awareness of global standards for economic, social and environmental
responsibility.
In general, corporate philanthropy and social welfare remained a prevalent aspect of Indian corporate
culture, especially in long-standing business houses such as the Tata Group. For example, the group
embraced a unique business ownership model wherein various Tata Trusts held 66 per cent of shares of
the group,4 with large a portion of earnings being meted out to civil society partners working with causes
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ranging from employment generation to health care and disaster relief, as well as many environmental
causes. The group’s founder, Jamsetji Tata, believed in giving back to the people what the business had
earned from them. Such values remain in evidence throughout Tata’s community and environmental
initiatives.
The intersection of such approaches with the Anglo-Saxon discourse — such as “the business case for
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social responsibility” brought forth by global companies — has led to much variability in the
conceptualization as well as practice of CSR in India. Another dimension was added in 2011, when a
parliamentary panel asked for the Companies Bill to be amended to make CSR spending mandatory for
businesses to the extent of 2 per cent of their net profits. Even though the bill was not passed, the move
exemplified the diversity in what CSR means to different stakeholders in India.
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TAJ CORPORATE BACKGROUND
The Indian Hotels Company Limited (IHCL) and its subsidiaries, collectively known as Taj Hotels
Resorts and Palaces, were recognized as one of Asia’s largest hotel companies. Founded by Jamsetji Tata,
Taj Hotels, Resorts and Palaces were headquartered in Mumbai. In 2012, Taj held 112 hotels in 55
locations in India and in 16 locations internationally. The company went public in the early 1970s as
Indian Hotels Company Limited and opened its first international property in 1980 in Yemen, with
subsequent forays into markets in the United States, Australia, Dubai, Maldives, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, the
United Kingdom, South Africa, Bhutan and Zambia.
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2
KPMG & ASSOCHAM report, 2008 www.in.kpmg.com/pdf/CSRR_Whitepaper.pdf, accessed November 27, 2012.
3
P. J. Goswami, CSR Trends in India,
https://doCSR.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:Esrz2mr8A18J:hvr.dk/Admin/Public/DWSDownload.aspx%3FFile%3D%25
2FFiles%252FFiler%252Finternational%252FSUSBIZ%252F6th%2Bworkshop%252FCSRR_trends_in_India.pdf, accessed
November 27, 2012.
4
www.tata.com/ourcommitment/articles/inside.aspx?artid=cZrbJBDWkRQ, accessed November 27, 2012.
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Since the group’s beginning in 1903, Taj hotels had expanded to cater to luxury, premium, mid-market
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and value segments. The Taj Group operated through its brand offerings, including luxury palaces, resorts
and hotels, such as Vivanta by Taj and the Gateway and Ginger hotels. IHCL’s portfolio also comprised
the Taj air catering services, the Jiva Spa brand, and Khazana boutique stores.
The group is recognized for its preservation and restoration of former royal palaces in India, while
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carving a space for quintessential Indian destinations on the world tourism map. It is also known for the
eclectic culinary experiences it delivers to guests through its vast repertoire of restaurants, recipes from
royal kitchens and myriad food festivals.
TAJ’S HISTORY OF CORPORATE SUSTAINABILITY
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All companies in the Tata Group, including Taj, subscribed to Tata’s commitment of giving back to the
community, albeit in their unique ways. Taj was no different, serving its local communities in a variety of
ways, such as furthering education and skills training among the underprivileged; preserving Indian art,
culture, and wildlife; and ensuring environmentally sustainable operations.5 Taj followed the United
Nations Global Compact guidelines to design a portfolio of environmental and social initiatives.6
In the area of environmental stewardship, Taj embraced the EarthCheck7 international benchmarking and
environmental certification program for travel and tourism, supported by internal policies and practices in
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energy, water and waste management areas to decrease the footprint of its operations.
In the realm of social responsibility, Taj was engaged in multiple projects. For example, funded by the Taj
Public Service Welfare Trust, the company actively responded to natural and man-made disasters. To do
this, Taj instituted long-term rehabilitation initiatives, such as micro-enterprises and vocational training
for families affected by Mumbai terror attacks. Along the same lines, Taj promptly responded to the bomb
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blasts in Zaveri Bazaar, Mumbai, and to the Bihar floods and the Ladakh cloudburst, supporting the
affected families with programs such as prosthetics, medical reimbursement, education, employability
training and employment support. Through a public-private partnership, Taj also set up a permanent
facility to train the youth of disaster-affected families. In 2011, it instituted an annual fundraiser to raise
money for veterans who had become paraplegic in the line of duty, while serving the Indian Army.
TAJ SUSTAINABLE LIVELIHOODS STRATEGY

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Aligning with the Tata Group’s belief in creating self-sustenance through work, Taj instituted a variety of
projects under its sustainable-livelihoods initiative.
‘Building Sustainable Livelihoods’ constituted the centrepiece initiative of Taj’s social-responsibility
agenda. Underpinned by Taj’s objective to create a lasting impact by employing its core competences, the
initiative embraced the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals and the Prime Minister of
India’s Social Charter. Three key programs under this initiative were: (1) hospitality skill-training centres,
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5
Clause 10 of the Tata Code of conduct states that, “a Tata company shall be committed to good corporate citizenship, not
only in the compliance of all relevant laws and regulations but also by actively assisting in the improvement of quality of life
of the people in the communities in which it operates. The company shall encourage volunteering by its employees and
collaboration with community groups.… The company shall not treat these activities as optional, but should strive to
incorporate them as an integral part of its business plan,” www.tata.com/aboutus/articles/inside.aspx?artid=nygnnlhkaac,
accessed September 10, 2013.
6
Taj Hotels’ “Beyond the Numbers” Communication on Progress Report 2011-12, www.tajhotels.com/About-Taj/Company-
Information/Communication-on-Progress-new.pdf, accessed November 27, 2013.
7
EarthCheck is an environmental management and certification organization focused on the travel and tourism industry.
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apprenticeship opportunities, and workshops for under-privileged youth and people with disabilities; (2)
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promoting indigenous arts, and crafts for the development of local economy; and (3) supporting the
income-generation opportunities of NGOs by sourcing hospitality items and services, each one described
briefly below. Exhibit 1 shows the locations of one of the projects under this initiative.
Taj partnered with government institutes and national NGOs to set up skill-training centres where
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underprivileged youth could be trained in hospitality-related skill-sets. Since 2009, Taj-supported centres
had trained more than 7,500 youth with skills to make them immediately employable. Additionally,
various hotels provided training and apprenticeship opportunities to more than 90 disabled youth, the
majority of whom went on to obtain employment in various business outfits, such as coffee shops and
restaurants in malls. Along the same line, Taj partnered with the Integrated Child Development Scheme
(the government’s mother and child-care program) and regional NGOs in the Nandurbar district of
Maharashtra (a state in India) to train workers managing government daycare centres in rural areas and to
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train mothers from these areas in food diversification, cooking and personal hygiene.
Under the same umbrella, the company supported various indigenous arts by allowing the artisans and
cultural troupes to showcase their work in Taj hotels and boutiques. When possible, the company also
procured artifacts from these groups as gifts for Taj guests. Every year, Taj supported more than 350 such
artisans and cultural troupe members.8
Finally, a major program under this initiative was the sourcing of hospitality-related items and services to
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support the income-generation programs of NGOs and Self-Help Groups (SHGs).9 Some of the items
sourced were table mats, newspaper bags, table napkins, shoe bags, laundry bags, mops, candles, pickles,
cafeteria snacks, gift items for guests/associates and other daily consumables. In 2011-12, Taj sourced
INR 4 crores (approx. US$800,000) worth of goods and services from these organizations.10
Impacts from these programs were made possible because of significant efforts of various teams within
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Taj, especially when it came to the sourcing of hospitality-related products and services from cause-based
organizations. The CS manager took on the critical role vis-à-vis finding synergies between explicit or
latent business requirements and organizations that could fulfill these requirements. Starting with initial
discussions with NGOs and SHGs to figure out what they could offer Taj, Nagori would subsequently
make a proposal to the central purchasing team. If accepted, Nagori would then work with the individual
hotel units to iron out the implementation issues. Given her education in commerce as well as social
work, Nagori ensured that any such partnership was defined not only as giving but also as receiving. She
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described the approach as supporting the social cause of the NGO through the business activities of Taj:
We would relook at simple products like candles, bags, table napkins, etc. that we were buying
from commercial vendors, and ask; “Can we substitute commercial vendors with those working
for a cause — whose work supports their NGO [operations] — without compromising our
business requirements? What kind of training and capacity-building would be required as a part
of such endeavours?”11
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8
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Self-Help Groups are usually village-based financial intermediary arrangements between small groups of women, often
micro-entrepreneurs from similar social or economic backgrounds. Acting collectively, members can save, spend, loan, or
contribute to member emergencies. SHGs can be registered or unregistered.
10
11
Unless otherwise indicated, all quoted material from Nagori came from personal interviews on June 28-29, 2012, as well
as from follow-up conversations conducted expressly for the development of this case.
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But this endeavour was not without challenges. Substituting conventional vendors with cause-based
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organizations required significant involvement and effort from the CS team, hotel volunteers and
purchasing teams. Most NGOs and SHG partners did not have the systems and processes in place, at least
initially, to organize and operate with the efficiency and effectiveness of a for-profit vendor. Further, the
CS team at Taj was quite lean and could manage only a limited number of projects. Finally, the business
requirements of rate, quality, and timely delivery on short notice could not be compromised, irrespective
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of the initial capacities of the NGOs to meet these requirements. Taj’s partnership with two such
organizations — Arz and Women’s India Trust — exemplifies the issues faced as well as the solutions
that would be critical to the success of such arrangements.
ARZ-SWIFT WASH LAUNDRY SERVICES
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Arz, a renowned social-work organization in India, established Swift Wash (see exhibit 2) in Goa, a city
that thrived on tourism. Arz set up this project with the realization that the group of beneficiaries it
targeted — commercial sex workers and their families — had no alternate source of income and, thus,
often fell back into human trafficking.12 Given Taj Hotels’ presence and reputation in the area, Arz
approached Taj in December 2006, asking the group to provide the training and support that would be
required to operationalize Swift Wash.
After the initial proposal was submitted, a group from Taj, including the CS manager and the local human
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resources and housekeeping teams, assessed Arz’s potential to see whether it met Taj’s business
requirements. Laundry is an integral part of any hotel’s operations, with the bulk of it coming from guest
rooms but also from other areas, such as employee uniforms and spa linens. Upon touring the Swift Wash
facilities, the Taj team realized that Arz did not have adequate machinery or power backups to ensure in-
time delivery. The operation had only one set of machines, which left it vulnerable to shutdown of
operations and delays in delivery, something that the time-sensitive hospitality industry would not accept.
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The Taj team recognized that Arz was in the nascent stage of the Swift Wash project, and the members
could envision the contribution Taj could make simply by extending their own business know-how and
operational inputs. Volunteers from Taj dedicated thought and time over a period of eight to 10 months to
develop business acumen in the Swift Wash organization, conducting trainings on customer relations,
communications and team work and providing technical inputs for stain removal, laundry load and cycle
time management.
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In 2007, Taj and Arz took on the challenge of pilot testing the Swift Wash team’s learning through an
inaugural commercial order for 25 per cent of Taj’s spa linen. An order from Taj could not only serve as a
morale booster for the Swift Wash team but also as a useful client reference for soliciting more business
from other corporates. Despite the endeavour’s enthusiastic beginnings and underlying social cause, it
was hard to persuade potential clients to equate Swift Wash with a regular laundry. In the words of the
HR manager at one of the hotels, “Being the star hotel here, laundry is maintained at a very high standard
of quality; hygiene and quality of washing should be high. We could not expect that [standard] from a
new laundry of an NGO.”13
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The beginning of this business relationship was not without its difficulties. At the outset, Taj’s
housekeeping staff was not fully satisfied with the quality of the wash, but through the interventions of
the CS manager and volunteer teams, the hotel staff adopted a handholding approach such that Swift
12
Arz conducted many other social activities with the rescued sex workers, such as counseling and education, as well as
providing daycare for their children.
13
Personal interview with Nanjappa Byregowda, HR Manager, Taj Aguada, Goa, on June 30, 2012.
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Wash came to understand the delivery expectations. The staff mentored the Swift Wash workers in their
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day-to-day interactions. The HR manager described this effort as Taj’s willingness to accommodate the
NGO in order to meet its pledge of corporate responsibility toward the community:
If it was another vendor, we would not be soft. If the quality was not good, we [would simply say
so] …. [But with Swift Wash], we are taking an initiative from our side, a social responsibility
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where the aim is to provide jobs or give livelihood to people who are rescued from the trouble
they were in such as sex trafficking or domestic abuse. We are a part of it, and we compromise on
that a little bit; we treat them like our own.
Throughout the tenure of this partnership, Taj employees volunteered to help Swift Wash identify the
sources of its inefficiencies and manage its costs. Even though some of these suggestions were not
immediately actionable, Swift Wash increasingly developed business acumen and operational efficiencies
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through such efforts.
Commitment from both sides led to improved performance such that, within a month of operations, Swift
Wash secured 100 per cent of Taj’s spa-linen business. With further negotiations and facilitation by the
CS manager, Swift Wash managed to attain a quantity and quality of work that would make the
relationship financially sustainable. Juliana Lohar, coordinator and team leader for Swift Wash, described
the relationship as transcending a normal transactional relationship, where each party took into account
the needs of the other partner:
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They [Taj] don’t look at us completely as a vendor; neither do they look at us completely as a
social-work organization — a charity type of thing. This relationship has built up over time. It’s
something on which we have mutually agreed; there is discussion, there is space, and there is
openness. They share their viewpoint and we share our viewpoint.14
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In spite of the social mission focus of the NGO and the associated challenge in performing as any other
vendor, Taj paid Arz the going rate for its laundry services. Ashish Seth, central purchasing head at Taj,
believed that to meet business requirements he could not compromise by paying higher rates to support
the NGO’s social focus. At the same time he supported the NGO partners through CS initiatives in order
to help Arz achieve competitive capacity: “I cannot increase my rates since I have a business to run. But
what we can do is help the NGO meet that rate. Also, if an NGO shows similar enterprise and capabilities
as a regular supplier, we will always prefer to give business to them.15
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Meeting the rates paid by Taj to a for-profit vendor meant that the NGO had to build capabilities and
capacities equal to those of any other laundry business in the area, a unique and challenging goal. Despite
this challenge, expectations from both ends were clear: the support provided (by Taj) and sought (by Arz-
Swift Wash) was aimed at increasing the latter’s ability to increase its business. Swift Wash hoped to
expand its commercial operations and its business with Taj. As the team leader for Swift Wash, Lohar
was confident that Taj would provide ongoing support for any future expansion to the project.
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WOMEN’S INDIA TRUST
Women’s India Trust (WIT) was an NGO that worked with women from less-privileged backgrounds to
impart vocational skills of stitching, tailoring and product-making, as well as marketing to sell these
14
Personal interview with Juliana Lohar on June 30, 2012, conducted expressly for the development of this case.
15
Personal interview with Ashish Seth on June 29, 2012, conducted expressly for the development of this case.
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products (see Exhibit 3). The model that WIT followed was such that women came to its centres in
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Mumbai for vocational training and workshops on topics such as microenterprises. The objective was to
develop skills in these women that would result in the participants’ ability to support themselves. The
products they made were sold either through WIT’s own retail shops in Mumbai or in occasional
exhibitions and art venues. The participants were primarily engaged in activities of stitching and tailoring,
where the cut fabric was provided by WIT and the women were paid a set rate per piece. Most women
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took the materials to stitch in the flexibility of their own homes, given that the members of the target
group were essentially traditional, household-bound women, most of whom were the first generation in
their communities to venture outside the home for income generation. WIT trained a constant stream of
woman: some continued their working relationship with WIT, and some sought other employment after
learning the necessary skills from WIT.
Taj began its association with WIT in the 1980s by occasionally sourcing food items from WIT, such as
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orange marmalade and jams. When the CS team at Taj became aware of new products being developed
for Taj’s premium category hotels (now known as Vivanta by Taj hotels), they invited WIT to meet with
their operations head to explore whether any these products could be co-developed. It took several months
and iterations to settle on the products that Taj could source, given the existing skills and capabilities of
the beneficiaries employed by the NGO. They settled on cosmetics, sandals and newspaper bags for the
guest rooms. The initial support from Taj entailed regular communication with WIT to ensure that the
quality of the products they made would match that of the existing products in Taj’s guest rooms. Nagori
connected WIT’s chief executive officer (CEO), Shyamla Nath, to the relevant teams at Taj. Nagori
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described the situation as being an extended process of capability- and capacity-building, as indicated by
the various kinds of support that Taj provided for WIT:
We supported [WIT] in terms of product knowledge and shared samples. We organized their
design team’s visit to our hotel rooms to expose them to how our set-up works, and to meet our
housekeeping teams to get ideas for product designs. We suggested various raw materials that
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could be looked at, and sometimes provided inputs for getting the raw materials at a lower cost.
That’s the kind of support we provided to build [WIT’s] capacity to meet our expectations.
After multiple rounds of revisions, the expectations for quality and delivery time were established and a
prototype for each product was created. Taj’s investment toward capacity-building and WIT’s own efforts
led to sourcing of INR 0.76 million (approx. US$15,200) worth of products in 2010-11.16
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Similar to Swift Wash, Taj insisted on paying WIT the same amount it would pay for similar products
from existing vendors. It expected WIT to match the rates of other vendors. As an organization with a
social focus, WIT incurred expenses for social activities and staff salaries that were not incurred by for-
profit vendors. Matching rates made it difficult to recover all of the related expenses but WIT was
committed not only to maintaining this business but also to increasing its quantity over time:
The way Taj can support us is by giving us more and more business. We have to meet the rates,
and we use other sources to cover all other related expenses. The women are earning and gaining
self-confidence — that is the most important. [Taj is] happy with our performance. We are
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hoping for more business as time goes by.17
16
Taj Hotels’ ‘Beyond the Numbers’ Communication on Progress Report 2011-12,.www.tajhotels.com/About-Taj/Company-
17
Personal interview with Shyamla Nath on June 29th, 2012 conducted expressly for the development of this case.
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Before the question of gaining more business, WIT faced the task of sustaining the existing level of
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efficiencies, year after year. This effort involved an extensive process of contract renewal every year,
where WIT competed with other vendors in the market. Nath acknowledged the CS manager’s guidance
in the process and understood that the company’s efforts had to be directed toward providing better
quality at competitive rates.
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TASK MASTER OR NURTURER? A BALANCING ACT
Taj’s sustainable-livelihoods initiative was underpinned by capacity-building efforts by teams at Taj’s

individual locations, facilitated by the company’s CS manager and her team at Mumbai. Liaising between
the NGO partners and Taj’s internal teams, Nagori had to translate the needs and requirements of each to
the other without compromising on the benefits of either. She knew that Taj’s CS efforts had to be
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focused on delivering mutual value for all parties in the initiative. It was not a philanthropic effort, and
Taj would not compromise on the business requirements, including the annual renewal of partner
contracts. Nagori emphasized the organic and hands-on nature of the support she and her team provided,
emphasizing an overarching goal that partner organizations eventually become self-reliant: “We support
our partners case by case. The idea is to make [the NGOs] self-sustainable and not dependent on us. If,
tomorrow, Taj exits the relationship, [the NGOs] should still have the capabilities to thrive on their own.”
Such organic engagements required Taj to use broad criteria for selecting civil society partners. They
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worked with medium- and large-scale NGOs that had the bandwidth and infrastructure to absorb and act
on the inputs provided by Taj. Even then, the systems and processes for interactions with business were
far from formal in most NGOs. In most cases, there was no initial business proposal submitted to Taj. The
CS team members had to work from scratch, exploring their initial interest in partnership and the products
and services that the NGO could offer. This process required commitment and patience from different
internal teams to work through the “teething” issues and bring the NGO partners up to speed. Seth
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rationalized the efforts by explaining that they were “embedded in [the] Tata culture; contributing to the
community is the way of doing things here. We look for points of synergies. I cannot compromise on my
[requirements], [but] I am willing to provide [the NGOs] with help to meet those requirements.”18
The effort and time invested yielded tangible and intangible benefits for Taj. Involvement in volunteering
produced higher engagement and leadership skills in the employees. The products and services
underpinned by social responsibility produced goodwill for the business: Each such product or service
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had a humane story with potential to be shared with hotel guests, thus serving to differentiate the
experience offered by the hotel vis-à-vis its competitors. Finally, aggregation of multiple such
partnerships led to a wealth of benefits for Taj, including a diversity in vendors, alternate sources of
supply, reduction of dependence on conventional suppliers in the market, and enhancement of the level of
compassion and volunteering drive among Taj’s associates.
Despite Taj’s efforts at capacity-building, not all of its partnership efforts turned out to be win-win
success stories. One reason for this outcome derived from the fact that workers in these kinds of product
and service operations were generally disadvantaged and possessed far less capability compared to the
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skill sets of the conventional workers who worked for other suppliers in the market. Because of this
reality, compared to the mainstream workforce, certain target groups sometimes took a disproportionate
amount of time and effort to learn and deliver. As a result, even after potential partners were selected, Taj
often had to invest significant time and effort towards building a given partner’s capability and capacity
18
Personal interview with Ashish Seth on June 29th, 2012 conducted expressly for the development of this case.
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before seeing the results of those efforts. As the CS manager, Nagori described the internal discourse for
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grappling with these interim issues:
How do you merge the need for quality with the ability to support each partner? It is like playing
two roles: the role of a task master and role of a nurturer. How many years of investing can the
business do before [the NGO partnership] can give you products that satisfy you? What do you
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call that project? It’s a waiting game; you need to say it’s all right to develop capabilities. What
do you do with that period: do you call it a CS project? Quality training? What do you call it? The
business can’t immediately start asking, “What am I getting out of it?”
The CS manager struggled with many such issues. Nagori wondered:
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How she could get the decision-makers within operations to perceive the sustainable-livelihoods
initiative as an apprenticeship model, where the supporting company acted as a mentor for those with
little experience, with the objective of developing them into reliable business partners.
 How could she effectively sell the issue internally to ensure collective buy-in as well as encourage
each hotel unit’s role as a facilitator that integrates social impact with business requirements?
 How could she maintain the dynamic give-and-take nature of these relationships without succumbing
to the tendency to assume undertones of charity and philanthropy?

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How could she balance her company’s desire to create sustainable operations at the NGO’s end with
the reality that the NGO may take significant time to match the capacity of for-profit competitors in
terms of delivering competitive offerings?
 Finally, how could she maintain the organic nature of the development of each partnership without
forgoing the opportunity to replicate Taj’s own learning across partnerships? That is, how could Taj
keep from “reinventing the wheel” each time it engaged with a new partner?
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EXHIBIT 1: LOCATIONS OF HOSPITALITY SKILL TRAINING PROJECT UNDER “BUILDING
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SUSTAINABLE LIVELIHOOD”
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Source: www.tajhotels.com/About-Taj/Company-Information/Communication-on-Progress-new.pdf, accessed September 30,

2012.
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EXHIBIT 2: ARZ’S SWIFT WASH LAUNDRY: VIEW OF OPERATIONS
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Source: SWIFT Wash team.
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EXHIBIT 3: WOMEN’S INDIA TRUST AND THEIR TRAINING CENTRE
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Source: WIT website and photos by the lead author during site visits.
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L10 - Taj Hotels Case-Lec 10-Pre-Reading 7GJajBX24P PDF

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TAJ HOTELS: BUILDING SUSTAINABLE LIVELIHOODS

Copyright © 2013, Richard Ivey School of Business Foundation Version: 2013-10-18

BUSINESS RESPONSIBILITY TRENDS IN INDIA

TAJ CORPORATE BACKGROUND

TAJ’S HISTORY OF CORPORATE SUSTAINABILITY

TAJ SUSTAINABLE LIVELIHOODS STRATEGY

ARZ-SWIFT WASH LAUNDRY SERVICES

WOMEN’S INDIA TRUST

hoping for more business as time goes by.17

Taj’s sustainable-livelihoods initiative was underpinned by capacity-building efforts by teams at Taj’s

The CS manager struggled with many such issues. Nagori wondered:

Source: www.tajhotels.com/About-Taj/Company-Information/Communication-on-Progress-new.pdf, accessed September 30,

Source: SWIFT Wash team.

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