IA 2: CASE STUDY ANALYSIS

CASE STUDY 1 - DHIRUBHAI AMBANI AND RELIANCE

CONCEPT IDENTIFICATION

The Case Study examines the entrepreneurial and leadership skills of Dhirubhai Ambani
the head behind Reliance industries. Dhirubhai Ambani was born on December 28, 1932,
to Hirachand Govardhandas Ambani and Jamunaben Hirachand Ambani, his father was
a local school teacher in a village called Chorwad in the Junagadh district of Gujarat.
After his matriculation in 1949, Dhirubhai left for Aden, (now in Yemen) at the young age
of 17. His first job was to fill gas and collect money at a Shell petrol station, earning Rs
300 a month. Within a few years, he rose to the position of a sales manager in the same
company. After working for eight years in Aden, Dhirubhai decided to come back to
India and start something on his own. On December 31, 1958, he came back to Mumbai
and started the Reliance Commercial Corporation (RCC) with a borrowed capital of
Rs.15,000.
RCC was mainly involved in exporting commodities like ginger,
cardamom, pepper, turmeric, and cashew nut. Using his connections
in Aden, he exported a wide range of commodities to Aden. Aden,
being a free port, attracted a lot of exports. In the mid - 1960s, the
Government of India (GoI) introduced an export promotion scheme
under which the earnings from the export of rayon fabrics could be
used for the import of nylon fiber. This attracted Dhirubhai's
attention and he decided to switch from spices to textiles.

In 1966, Reliance Textiles Engineers Pvt. Ltd. was consolidated in Maharashtra. It built a
manufactured textures plant around the same time at Naroda in Gujarat. On 8 May 1973,
it moved towards becoming Reliance Textiles Industries Limited. In 1975, the
organization extended its business into materials with "Vimal" forming its image in the
later years.

The organization held its initial open offering (IPO) in 1977. Sidhpur Mills, a materials
organization, was amalgamated with Reliance Textiles in 1979. In 1980, the organization
extended its polyester yarn business by setting up a Polyester Filament Yarn Plant in
Patalganga (Maharashtra) with monetary and specialized coordinated efforts from E. I.
duPont de Nemours and Co., U.S.

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 In 1985, the name of the organization was changed from Reliance Textiles Industries Ltd.
to Reliance Industries Limited. Between 1985 to 1992, the organization extended its
introduced limit with regards to delivering polyester yarn by more than 145,000 tons per
year.

In 1993, Reliance went to the capital markets abroad for assets through a worldwide
depository issue of Reliance Petroleum. In 1996, it turned into the first private division
organization in quite a while to be appraised by worldwide FICO assessment offices. In
1995/96, the organization entered the telecom business through a joint endeavor between
NYNEX, USA, and advanced Reliance Telecom Private Limited in India.

In 2001, Reliance Industries Limited and Reliance Petroleum Ltd. turned into India's two
biggest organizations as far as all major monetary parameters were considered. In 2001–
02, Reliance Petroleum converged with Reliance Industries. In 2002, Reliance reported
India's greatest gas revelation (at the Krishna Godavari bowl) in almost three decades.
The setup volume of gaseous petrol was more than 7 trillion cubic feet, proportionate to
about 1.2 billion barrels of unrefined petroleum.

This was the first, historically speaking, disclosure by an Indian private company. In
2002–03, RIL bought a larger stake in Indian Petrochemicals Corporation Ltd. (IPCL),
India's second-biggest petrochemicals organization, from the administration of India.
IPCL later merged with RIL in 2008.

In 2005 and 2006, the organization revamped its business by de-merging its interests in
control age and appropriation, money-related administrations, and media transmission
administrations into four separate entities. In 2006, Reliance entered the retail showcase
in India with the dispatch of its retail location position under the brand name 'Reliance
Fresh'. By the end of 2008, Reliance retail had nearly 600 stores across 57 urban
communities in India.

Reliance Industries is currently one of the biggest Indian multinational conglomerates

that has diversified into many verticals today. Reliance Industries headquarters is in
Mumbai, Maharashtra, of which, Reliance is the largest publicly-traded company by
market capitalization.
From various incidents etc. we get to learn many concepts like:

❖ “Dream Big But Start Small”

At first Dhirubhai wants to share the story of Ambani, Dhirubhai Ambani was the son of
a school teacher, but as said earlier that he was not interested in studies, but that does not
mean that he would ever do anything in his life Didn't want to, but actually once he told

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 his mother that one day II makes a lot of money. Sometimes he faced financial problems
at a house which was not liked by Dhirubhai Ambani, apart from this Dhirubhai Ambani
always thought about making money. Once he bought a box of ground oil, he became a
retailer as a wholesale store, sold that peanut oil to people on the street, from when he
made a profit and gave this money to his mother. Dia, since he was a kid, he used to sell
pakoda at the age of 12 or 13 (pakoda is Indian food) since he knew the value of the
business. At the age of 17, he got the opportunity to go to Yemen, He went to Yemen in
hopes of earning more. In Yemen, he worked at a petrol pump, some sources say, even
working as a clerk for many years, he earns much better than in India, but some situation
arose and He returned to India, and it proved to be the biggest turning point of his life.
That's why He started chasing his childhood dreams.
Now what you need to learn from this story is "Dream Big But Start Small”. Most people
fall into two categories. At first people never think big, they just go with the flow, the
way life is taking them, they flow with it, study, jobs, death. That is, they never think big.
And on the other side there are other types of people who just dream big, like do it like
this do it like that, but really they aren't able to do anything big in their life, because they
have a lot of unrealistic goals. Be like Dhirubhai, always think big, as big as you can, but
start with small goals and expect small results. Do not be a billionaire in the beginning,
think about business and its small profits, because if you learn to make profit from small
business then it will become easier for you to earn more.

❖ Skill Over Education

Dhirubhai Ambani became a billionaire in college with or without a degree because he
gave more importance to skills than education. He did not complete his studies which
does not mean that he was not learning anything.
In fact, while he was working in Yemen, he did some extra work and learned accounting,
learned to keep a book to prepare shipping papers and also dealt with insurance
company people, which led to a lot of improvement in his negotiation skills Which helped
him a lot in his business. So always remember that it is really important for you to have
skills and talent, you cannot get rich just by taking a degree or thinking about a business,
you must have some great skills and talents, at least in the beginning so that in the
beginning can earn by using it.

❖ Beating Problems
When Dhirubhai was starting his own mill at that time, he faced a lot of problems, such
as their partnership breaking up in 1965 and he was opening his own factory single-
handedly, which led him to move from Mumbai to Ahmedabad. Worked weekly so that
the issues could be resolved and in1966 suddenly the value of the rupee started to

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 decrease due to which his expenses increased but still he did not give up and was able to
start his own mill factory and started making cloth. Now the fabric was being
manufactured, but no wholesaler was willing to buy cloth from him because the
overbearing players, those who were already doing the same business, were not the
wholesaler to buy the clothes of Dhirubhai, the business man It was a throat problem, so
Dhirubhai did it, gave up, did he give up because of dominating the players, no
Dhirubhai did. He himself started selling his clothes to retailers, he moved from one
retailer's shop to another.
Everyone liked him because his product quality was very good and he was a stubborn
and courageous man and thus the VIMAL brand started getting publicity. Now the
reason for saying all this is because many people give up very easily in life, and blame
fate and density. But Dhirubhai was not like that, even you should not be like such
people.

FACTS OF CASE STUDY

Let's discuss a few facts of the Case Study on one of the most popular Indian
businessmen, Dhirubhai Ambani:

❖ Two friends were in discussion, the first friend said “I do not like to study, but I want to
earn a lot in my life, but I do not understand what I should do, thinking of doing a
business.” Another friend says, “You really want to do business?? Don't be silly, study
well, not everyone can be Ambani. If Dhirubhai Ambani had listened to others, I would
not have been studying this case, but the fact is that Dhirubhai Ambani was like us, he
was a normal boy like us and was interested in studies. He did not actually do college,
but still he became the richest and most popular person in India and his company was
the first private limited company in India to figure in the Forbes 5000 list. He built a
business empire of 75 billion rupees in his life (that too 20 years ago).

❖ Dhirubhai, being consistent, used to bravely fight all the problems he faced. Not only
human problems, but also the problems of nature. Once, he and his company faced the
problems of floods, earthquakes and other natural disasters. Once everything settled,
suddenly there was a cyclone in Jamnagar and Ambani’s factory had to be shut. At that
time, Dhirubhai again faced that problem with courage. When experts would say that
their work would take 3 days to complete, they would finish the same work in 3 weeks.

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❖ Dhirubhai never followed the textbook style of management. Instead, he evolved a
unique style, which combined the American style of entrepreneurship, with the Japanese
focus on the latest technology. And to this, he added the innate shrewdness of a Gujarati
businessman. Analysts feel that he was a perfect manager of time, money and men and
exhibited a passion to find solutions to problems. Dhirubhai started Reliance at a time
when most companies in India were owned by the government, and the private players
were given step-motherly treatment by the government while offering licenses and
permits. Similarly, when most Indian business houses depended on government – owned
financial institutions for funds, Dhirubhai raised capital from the public by offering
shares of his companies.

❖ Gradually, Reliance started manufacturing petrochemical intermediaries like paraxylene,

n-paraffin and mono ethylene glycol (MEG), and ethylene, the basic raw material for all
petrochemical bi-products and intermediaries. And finally it entered into production and
extraction of oil (Refer Exhibit V for Backward Integration). In 1991, Dhirubhai embarked
on his most cherished project at Hazira (Gujarat)-to build the largest single multi-feed
ethylene cracker plant in the world.

❖ Some of the characteristic features of the Reliance group were:

(i) Continuous vertical integration;
(a) From synthetic textiles into the manufacture of polyester fiber and filament yarn;
(b) From yarn and fibers to intermediaries like purified terephthalic acid and mono-
ethylene glycol
(c) Further upstream into basic building blocks like paraxylene;
(ii) Consolidation of internal capabilities generated in this process: Through related
horizontal diversification into petrochemical end-products such as detergent
intermediates, for example, linear alkyl benzene (LAB), or thermoplastics like high
density polyethylene (HDPE), low density polyethylene (LDPE), polyvinyl chloride
(PVC), polystyrene (PS), polypropylene (PP) and styrene butadiene rubber (SBR -
synthetic rubber) and their intermediates and basic building blocks; and
(iii) Efforts to complete this process of integration through investment in an
NGL/naphtha cracker and in oil extraction itself.

❖ Dhirubhai's biggest contribution to the nation was the development of an equity culture.
Having understood the psychology of the Indian capital markets and the mindset of
Indian investors, he was instrumental in introducing the equity culture in India.
Dhirubhai gave importance to the small investor and his contributions, and by doing so,
he involved millions of middle - class investors. Reliance went public in 1977 and had its

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 first annual general meeting (AGM) in 1977. Reliance Industries had 58000 investors in
1977. So large was Reliance's investor base that at times executives had to go to small
cities, with the share certificates, annual reports and other such correspondence, as
personal luggage, and post them locally.

❖ Reliance holds the record for bringing out the single largest domestic issue of more than
Rs 21 billion in convertible bonds for Reliance Petroleum in 1993. The market
capitalization of Reliance was Rs 1.2 billion in 1980, which rose to Rs. 9.96 billion in 1990,
and shot up to 96.2 billion in 1995, making Dhirubhai one of the richest men in the world.
The end of the High Unit Value scheme of 1978 brought about a dip in the profits of
Reliance. In spite of this, Dhirubhai declared a dividend of 27 %. Whenever Reliance
needed money to fund its expansion purposes, Dhirubhai opted for a public issue. From
1979 to 1982, Reliance brought out several issues for different purposes like: financing a
worsted spinning mill, modernizing its already existing textile mill, financing a PFY
plant, and to overcome the bear syndicate crisis respectively.

❖ He was considered to be a symbol of all that was wrong with the Indian economy. It is
said that Ambani used his connections with key politicians and bureaucrats to obtain
licenses and approvals for projects. He is also said to have induced government
intervention by offering bribes and using other forms of lobbying prevalent in the US.
Reliance was known to engage politicians, journalists, and others to increase its sphere of
influence. Some businessmen described Reliance as "an out-of-control monster, a bubble
that would burst any moment."7 However, not all analysts would agree to that. They felt
that Dhirubhai was quick to recognize and exploit opportunities. Dhirubhai believed that
"business is nothing but a web of relationships and obligations."

❖ Dhirubhai maintained good relations with Mrs. Indira Gandhi, and obtained several
licenses and permissions during her prime minister ship. However, after her
assassination in 1984, her son Rajiv Gandhi became the prime minister, and things
changed drastically. In May 1985, Vishwanath Pratap Singh (V.P. Singh), the Finance
Minister in Rajiv Gandhi's cabinet, decided to shift PTA imports from the open general
license (OGL) category to the limited permissible list.9 This could be the beginning of a
new problem for Reliance as it solely depended upon PTA imports for its PFY plant.
Dhirubhai sniffed the news about the imminent change and moved very fast.

❖ Between May 27th – 29th, he tied up with a host of banks, like the Bombay branches of
the Standard Chartered Bank, Société Générale and the State Bank of India, the Canara
Bank and the Banque Indosuez to issue letters of credit for almost a year's supply of PTA,
which was approximately 60,000 tons. These banks issued LCs worth 1.1 billion.

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❖ The last LC was opened just a few hours before the government announced the changed
policy. The Finance Minister was not too happy with Dhirubhai and the result was a 50
per cent import duty on PTA. This further nullified Dhirubhai's gains. In June 1986,
Reliance was considering the conversion of its non-convertible debentures into
convertible ones for the second time.

❖ In 2002, the Reliance group with a turnover of Rs 620 billion, assets worth Rs 564.85
billion, and a workforce of over 85,000 people accounted for 5% of the Central
Government's total revenue. It contributed 3 % of India's GDP, 5 % of the total exports,
and 9 % of the GoI's indirect tax revenues. Reliance also accounted for 25 % of India's
total private sector profits. Reliance secured nearly 10 % of the profits of the entire
corporate sector in India. Moreover, one out of every four investors was a shareholder of
Reliance. Reliance acquired IPCL10, the Indian petrochemical giant. This acquisition gave
Reliance a sound footing in the global petrochemicals market.

❖ Reliance Mobile, the new venture of Reliance provides cellular telephony services in 13
Indian states, and Reliance Basic holds the license to provide fixed line telecom services
in the state of Gujarat. With the launch of Reliance Infocomm, Reliance has taken another
major step in its continuous search for growth and excellence. It was Dhirubhai's dream
to provide information technology and communication facilities to the common man, at
affordable prices. The Infocomm revolution will cover thousands of villages across the
country by 2003. Reliance Power intends to pursue opportunities in the power sector with
an objective to achieve over 10,000 MW in the next decade. With Reliance General
Insurance and Reliance Life Insurance, the group has also entered into the insurance
sector. Dhirubhai's entrepreneurial abilities enabled Reliance to progress on the roads to
success both in the licensing era as well as in the era of liberalization, privatization and
globalization.

❖ The extraordinary growth of the company was based on the vision, energy and lobbying
power of Dhirubhai as well as the willingness and ability of the Indian government to
promote its expansion. The competition now is with major multinational players whose
ability to influence governments in various ways is well known. Right from the time he
suffered his first stroke in 1986, Dhirubhai groomed his sons Mukesh and Anil Ambani
to take care of the day-to-day operations of Reliance. It was from Dhirubhai that his sons
imbibed the quality to think big. Mukesh's skills were quite evident from his successful
management of the Patalganga and Jamnagar projects and Anil was adept at the finances.
Despite their elite education, their most important training came from Dhirubhai.

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❖ He provided them with a strategic vision. His sons always considered themselves as co –
builders rather than inheritors of Reliance. Dhirubhai's words way back in 1993 reflected
the immense confidence he restored in his sons, "Reliance can now run without me." After
his demise, Mukesh was appointed the Chairman and Managing Director of the Reliance
group while Anil became the Vice Chairman. It remains to be seen whether Reliance will
maintain its lead and growth over large multinationals in years to come.

ANALYSIS OF CASE STUDY

BUILDING RELIANCE
Reliance a Spice exporter?
The growth of Reliance Industries did not happen overnight. It has been a step-by-step
process starting from the late 1950s when Dhirubhai Ambani decided to come back to
India from Yemen and start something on his own. On December 31, 1958, he came back
to Mumbai and started the Reliance Commercial Corporation (RCC) with a borrowed
capital of Rs.15,000. At first, RCC was mainly involved in exporting commodities like
ginger, cardamom, pepper, turmeric, and cashew nuts. Dhirubhai decided to switch from
spices to textiles when the Government of India introduced an export promotion scheme
under which the earnings from the export of rayon fabrics could be used for the import
of nylon fiber. In 1966, he set up a spinning mill at Naroda and registered it as Reliance
Textile Industries. The High Unit Value Scheme introduced by the Government in 1971
allowed the import of polyester filament yarn against the export of nylon fabrics.
Reliance exports constituted more than 60% of exports under this scheme which gave a
tremendous boost to Reliance textiles.

Reliance brand - VIMAL

In 1975, Dhirubhai Ambani established the Vimal brand under which Reliance Textiles
sold its fabrics in India. To promote its brand, Reliance tried to emphasize the superior
quality of its fabric in all its advertisements. When Reliance entered the domestic market,
it faced a lot of resistance. To overcome this, Dhirubhai decided to move away from the
traditional wholesale trade and opened his own showrooms. For this to happen, he -
❖ Appointed several agents from non-textile backgrounds,
❖ Adopted the concept of company stores from its main competitor, Bombay Dyeing
and pursued it on a grand scale,
❖ Offered franchises to shareholders,
❖ Promised to provide financial and advertising support.

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In this process, Dhirubhai identified a new market - the non-metro urban segment.
Within 5 years, Reliance had 20 own retail outlets, over 1000 franchised outlets, and over
20,000 retail stores.

BACKWARD INTEGRATION
Reliance wanted to produce its own fibers. Dhirubhai planned to set up a polyester
filament yarn (PFY) manufacturing plant at Patalganga and started to work on the plant
in 1981. But the demand for polyester declined when the government decided to protect
small-scale weavers. As a result, the bigger mills were compelled to use cotton. To
overcome this problem, Dhirubhai announced a Buyback scheme under which Reliance
would sell its 'Recron' brand of yarn to small powerlooms. These powerlooms would then
sell the cloth back to the company for finishing and eventually the company would sell it
under its brand Vimal. All these efforts facilitated at making Reliance the lowest cost
polyester producer in the world. In 1984, Dhirubhai got the license to manufacture
purified terephthalic acid (PTA), one of the chemicals to make polyester.

Gradually, Reliance started manufacturing petrochemical intermediaries. And finally, it

entered into production and extraction of oil. In 1991, Dhirubhai started to work on a
project at Hazira (Gujarat)-to build the largest single multi-feed ethylene cracker plant in
the world.

THE STOCK MARKET ADVENTURE

Dhirubhai was instrumental in introducing the equity culture in India. He gave
importance to the small investor and his contributions. Reliance went public in 1977 and
had 58,000 investors. Whenever Reliance needed money to fund its expansion purposes,
Dhirubhai opted for a public issue. From 1979 to 1982, Reliance brought out several issues
for different purposes like: financing a worsted spinning mill, modernizing its already
existing textile mill, financing a PFY plant, and to overcome the bear syndicate crisis
respectively.

CORPORATE BATTLES OF DHIRUBHAI AMBANI

Dhirubhai Ambani and Reliance faced a lot of criticism. People said that Ambani used
his connections with key politicians and bureaucrats to obtain licenses and approvals for
projects. Dhirubhai was of the opinion that business was not all about ethics and morality;
it was about expansion and success. His amazing ability to use the state and its policies
to his advantage was responsible for the expansion of Reliance. His immense success
earned him a number of enemies.
Nusli Wadia, the Bombay Dyeing chief and Dhirubhai were well-known rivals. Both of
them were stubborn in using their business and political connections to reach their goals.

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Ramnath Goenka, the proprietor of the Indian Express Group had often tried to act as a
mediator and solve the conflict between the two corporate giants; but in vain. Goenka
backed Nusli Wadia and urged Dhirubhai to end their rivalry. Goenka launched a series
of press campaigns against Reliance. But Reliance stood strong and Dhirubhai never
failed to retain public confidence.

POLITICAL BATTLES OF DHIRUBHAI AMBANI

Dhirubhai maintained good relations with Indira Gandhi and obtained several licenses
and permissions during her rule. He faced problems when Vishwanath Pratap Singh, the
Finance Minister imposed new laws. But once the Finance Minister was transferred to the
Defense Ministry, all his obstacles were cleared.

MILESTONES OF RELIANCE
In 2002, the Reliance group had a turnover of Rs 620 billion, 3 % of India's GDP, 25 % of
India's total private sector profits. Reliance secured nearly 10 % of the profits of the entire
corporate sector in India. Moreover, one out of every four investors was a shareholder of
Reliance. Reliance acquired the Indian petrochemical giant. This acquisition gave
Reliance a grand entry into the global petrochemicals market. He faced the toughest
battles with the toughest of politicians and bureaucrats and was eventually successful in
gaining a victory over all his political and corporate rivals. The extraordinary growth of
the company was based on the vision, energy and lobbying power of Dhirubhai Ambani.

CONCLUSION
Reliance Industries is the manifestation of a Dhirubhai Ambani’s dream. He said “Only
when you dream it you can do it”. He was a person with no business background. He
started a business with a few thousands which is worth trillions now. Reliance started to
export spice but with Ambani’s vision, it diversified to retail, electronics, media, e-
commerce, oil and gas, etc. In Spite of facing a lot of challenges, he stood strong and turned
those challenges into opportunities. This is the reason why the entrepreneurs look up to
him and take him as an inspiration and role model.

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 CASE STUDY 2 - THE TAJ'S PEOPLE PHILOSOPHY AND STAR SYSTEM

CONCEPT IDENTIFICATION

"The employee at Taj is viewed as an asset and is the real profit center. He or she is the
very reason for our survival. The creation of the Taj People Philosophy displays our
commitment to and belief in our people. We want an organization with a very clear
philosophy, where we can treasure people and build from within."
- Bernard Martyris, Senior Vice-President, HR, Indian Hotels Company Limited
(IHCL).

In March 2001, the Taj Group launched an employee loyalty program called the 'Special
Thanks and Recognition System' (STARS). STARS was an initiative aimed at motivating
employees to transcend their usual duties and responsibilities and have fun during work.
This program also acknowledged and rewarded hard-working employees who had done
excellent work.

The Taj Group had always believed that their employees were their greatest assets and
the very reason for the survival of their business. In 2000, to show its commitment to and
belief in employees, the Taj Group developed the 'Taj People Philosophy' (TPP), which
covered all the people practices of the group. TPP considered every aspect of employees'
organizational career planning, right from their induction into the company to their
superannuation. TPP offered many benefits to the Taj Group. It helped the company
boost the morale of its employees and improve service standards, which in turn resulted
in repeat customers for many hotels in the group. The STAR system also led to global
recognition of the Taj Group of hotels in 2002 when the group bagged the Hermes Award
for Best Innovation in Human Resources in the global hospitality industry.

THE TAJ PEOPLE’S PHILOSOPHY

Since its establishment, the Taj Group has had a people-oriented culture. The group
always hired fresh graduates from leading hotel management institutes all over India so
that it could shape their attitudes and develop their skills in a way that fitted its needs
and culture. The management wanted the recruits to pursue a long-term career with the
group. All new employees were placed in an intensive two-year training program, which
familiarized them with the business ethos of the group, the management practices of the
organization, and the working of cross-functional departments.

The employees of the Taj Group were trained in varied fields like sales and marketing,
finance, hospitality and service, front office management, food and beverages, projects,

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 HR, and more. They also had to take part in various leadership programs, so that they
could develop in them a strong, warm and professional work culture.

Through these programs, the group was able to assess the future potential of the
employees and the training required to further develop their skills. The group offered
excellent opportunities to employees both on personal as well as organizational front. To
achieve 'Taj standards,' employees were made to undergo a rigorous training program.

FACTS OF CASE STUDY

❖ The Taj Group of Hotels is run by IHCL, a part of the Tata Group. IHCL was founded by
Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata on April 1, 1902. The hotels in the Taj Group fall into three
categories – hotels owned by IHCL and its subsidiaries; hotels owned by associate
companies; and hotels with third-party management contracts in which IHCL has no
stake.

❖ The 'Hermes Award' is decided by a 22-member jury, which includes representatives

from top hospitality chains from all over the world. This is the only award given for
human resources in the hospitality industry and is also one of the most prestigious
awards in the hospitality industry. 120 applications were received for the award for the
year 2002, among which five were short-listed for the final round. The Taj Group won the
award for its innovative 'STAR' program.

❖ On the personal front, the Taj Group offered its employees personal counseling and
empathized with their problems. On the organizational front, it offered its employees
ample scope for career advancement, training programs, excellent opportunities for
learning and sharing, and self-development programs.

❖ The strategic and tactical management of talent in the organization. Talent Management
is a strategic business function that involves an organization's ability to attract, recruit,
hire and retain the right talent at the right time and align it with its business goals.

❖ TBEM provides guidelines for the introduction of business systems into the organization
and correlates business performance and rewards to individuals. The TBEM includes
systems for reviewing talent and offering opportunities across various functions within
the group companies.

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❖ Performance management is the process of creating a work environment or setting in
which people are enabled to perform to the best of their abilities. Performance
management is a total work system that begins when a job is defined as needed. It ends
when an employee leaves the organization.

ANALYSIS OF CASE STUDY

TPP was based on the key points of the Taj employee charter. It was developed in line
with the Tata Business Excellence Model. Explaining the rationale for implementing the
philosophy, Martyris said, "It is to achieve international benchmarking in hospitality, and
HR must fit into it."

According to him, the three major areas of TPP included work systems and processes;
learning and development; and employee welfare. As part of the TPP, the Taj Group
introduced a strong performance management system, called the Balanced Scorecard
System (BSS) that linked individual performance with the group's overall strategy.

BSS was based on a model developed by Kaplan and Norton and focused on enhancing
both individual as well as enterprise performance. BSS measured the performance of
employees across all hierarchical levels against a set of predefined targets and identified
their variances. Martyris explained, "We are looking at a matrix form of organization that
cuts across the hierarchy. It is important to understand the potential of people."
Therefore, BSS was implemented even at the lowest levels of the hierarchy.

The BSS included an Employee Satisfaction Tracking System (ESTS), which solved
employees' problems every quarter. As a part of ESTS, Taj carried out an organization-
wide employee satisfaction survey in mid-2000 of about 9000 employees. According to
this survey, the reported satisfaction level was about 75 percent. The group aimed to
increase this level to 90-95 percent, and eventually to 100 percent. The group also took
strong measures to weed out under-performers.

The group adopted the 360-degree feedback system to evaluate the performance of all
top officials, from the Managing Director to departmental managers, in which they were
evaluated by their immediate subordinates. The 360-degree feedback was followed by
personal interviews of individuals to counsel them to overcome their deficiencies. The
Taj Group also established Centers of Excellence for its 14,000 employees at five locations
in India including Jaipur, Bangalore, Ernakulam, Chennai, and Hyderabad.

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 CONCLUSION

The pandemic has catalyzed a major shift in customer consumption, behavior, and
expectation. Similarly, businesses should switch focus from their shareholders to
stakeholders. customers also tend to lean towards brands that contribute towards the
greater good, which in turn translates to strengthen brand loyalty

Empowering employees should be a business strategic focus. There is intense competition

among enterprises to elevate their customer experience, either through services, products,
or processes. the group has multiple mobile and contactless solutions making the guest
experience both secure and seamless.

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