Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies

From chaos of steel cycles to the promise of “Joy of Building”: Tata Tiscon eyeing the next big leap
Sankalp Pratap Biswatosh Saha
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Sankalp Pratap Biswatosh Saha , (2016),"From chaos of steel cycles to the promise of “Joy of Building”: Tata Tiscon eyeing
the next big leap", Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies, Vol. 6 Iss 1 pp. 1 - 39
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 From chaos of steel cycles to the
promise of “Joy of Building”: Tata Tiscon
eyeing the next big leap
Sankalp Pratap and Biswatosh Saha
Downloaded by Indian Institute of Management at Calcutta, Professor Biswatosh Saha At 22:20 11 August 2016 (PT)
Sankalp Pratap and
Biswatosh Saha are both
based at the Department
of Strategic Management,
Indian Institute of
Management Calcutta,
Kolkata, India.
The authors would like to put
on record the active
contribution of Mr P. Anand,
Mr Somesh Biswas and Ms
Kavita Mahto of Tata Steels
marketing department towards
the writing of the case.
Disclaimer. This case is written
solely for educational
purposes and is not intended
to represent successful or
unsuccessful managerial
decision-making. The author/s
may have disguised names;
financial and other
recognizable information to
protect confidentiality.
DOI 10.1108/EEMCS-06-2015-0140
Introduction
It was the evening of 31st of December, 2013; the laptops on various desks at 15th floor of
Tata Center[1], which housed the marketing team of Tata TISCON, were being put to sleep
by eager officers keen to leave for home early and join their families to usher in the New
Year. Keshav Vishwanth, the Chief of Marketing of the retail business vertical, was brooding
about Tata Tiscon (www.tatatiscon.co.in/), the leading pan Indian brand of steel
construction rebars (termed sariya, chad, rods in different regions). He pulled aside his
senior colleague, the chief sales manager of northern region, Agam Gupta, who was in the
city for a meeting, for a conversation in his cabin. Gupta had been associated with the
brand TISCON in various capacities ever since its launch in 2000 and Vishwanath, who had
been with the brand for much shorter 30 months, valued his perspective:
“We were the first to launch a brand in this commoditized product category, and indeed we
have pioneered the concept of organized distribution channel for this product; but others
are catching up fast. How long can we sustain our lead? Vishwanath questioned
rhetorically. Gupta nodded in agreement “We have disrupted the market 2- 3 times in the
last 15 years – from trade to organized distribution, monthly pricing, selling by piece.
Somehow, we have to get the inspiration to recreate leaps like that. We haven’t been able
to come up with a step jump, a game changer in recent times”. Vishwanath sunk back “Oh
yes! Our initiatives in the last decade have all sharpened the organized distribution
network. We are reaching the limits of benefiting from what our seniors, the previous
generation of brilliant managers had set up.”
Gupta grimaced in agreement “With some of our officers joining competition, they have
accelerated the trend of copying our distribution innovations. There are growing murmurs
in the field that very soon we will not have a significant “extra” to continue commanding
premium. Most troubling though is the increasing trend of turnkey contracts being given by
IHBs[2] and the contractors then opting for cheaper rebars. In the same vein, some leading
cement companies are also gearing to offer home solutions whereby they will probably take
orders to supply all construction material. Increasingly busy owners will end up monitoring
only the brand of switches, taps and door locks, and the finish of walls and doors –things
which are visible”. Vishwanath thumped the glass top on his table “We need to change
gears by going beyond the product. Shouldn’t we be extending the value of our network
and brand by offering a fuller package involving construction services? Our network then
will also compete for turnkey projects and help increase our volumes without letting the
premium slide. In this decade, our services play could become central to the brand, not an
auxiliary distraction” he sounded determined, yet his forehead had distinct creases for
recent experiments related to services had delivered mixed results.
VOL. 6 NO. 1 2016, pp. 1-39, © Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 2045-0621 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES PAGE 1
 The professional distribution dream
Steel had been a controlled item in pre-liberalization India. For the government, it was an
“essential commodity”, whose prices needed to be regulated to avoid inflationary
pressures on the economy. The prices at which SAIL and Tata Steel, the large integrated
producers, could sell their produce was decided by the Joint Plant Committee (JPC), a
government body. Steel was in perennial short supply in the economy and customers lined
up at company doors to buy material. Given that the top line could not be influenced, the
focus of the commercial team in the pre-liberalization period had, thus, been to economize
on selling costs. Selling in bulk, minimizing inventory holding costs, reducing administration
costs, etc., were the levers for higher profits. Institutional buyers and traders, who could
pick up large quantities reliably, were the favourites of Tata Steel in the controlled era.
The wave of liberalization reforms unveiled in the early 90s to prop up the tottering Indian
economy swept away all controls, and steel producers were set free to install new
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capacities and price their produce. Yet having never needed to look beyond the large
traders who visited its offices seeking allocation of material, Tata Steel was handicapped
with a facile understanding of the dynamics of actual consumption centres and its
consumers; the company continued to depend on large traders to sell its material, at the
prices dictated by the trade network:
We had got trapped in our past relationships and were getting royally short-changed. We were
not used to travelling to the market and our understanding of the demand supply situation was
the version that the traders shared with us (Former Chief of Marketing).

By the late 90s, the company, on the verge of substantially increasing its capacity, had
come to realize the importance of having a dedicated distribution network to sell its
produce reliably and profitably. It was also becoming clear that on account of nearly a
century of responsible corporate presence, with widely advertised social face (Exhibit 1),
Tata Steel had developed as a strong corporate brand with high recall and equity. This, the
company envisaged was going to be useful in launching brands and breaking away from
the perils of commodity markets that steel products seemed to be consigned to.
It was in this context that the company appointed a management consulting firm of
international repute to design country-wide professional distribution network for various
products. What followed was an intensive exercise during which a project team, the
outbound logistics (OBL) task force, comprising company officers and consultant
representatives studied various distribution networks existing in the country and decoded
the psyche of the channel intermediaries who were essential for taking the material to the
consumption centres. With no network of note in comparable industrial products,
the distribution network of P&G and Asian Paints among others held special lessons for the
OBL task-force. The neat distributor–retailer model was seen as the ideal model to sell steel
as a premium branded item in retail markets. It took the OBL team nearly two years to
articulate the distribution vision, to identify and formally appoint channel partners. The
journey had begun with the following dream:
To create a Professional Distribution System through an Organized Retail Network focussed on
servicing Natural Local Markets that Captures Value of TATA STEEL brand.

Advertisements inviting applications for distributorship of Tata Steel were placed in national
dailies by the OBL team. Predictably, thousands applied and the task force had to earmark
rooms to store and sort the applications. OBL task force had formulated a list of criteria, with
detailed scoring rule for each criterion. Some of the criteria like turnover and market
knowledge favoured large established businesses but crucial others like number of
retailers served directly, number of sales personnel employed, etc., rewarded those who
had invested time and energy in developing a network. The list of criteria also included
quality of office infrastructure, computer literacy and educational background of the
proprietor. Market reputation, willingness to align with the company’s vision for the future

PAGE 2 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES VOL. 6 NO. 1 2016

 were also to be rated. It was through the discerning lens of these criteria that distributors
were chosen for various territories across the country. The company demanded exclusivity
from the distributor for it argued that over a period of time, it would invest heavily in training
and development of the distributor and his organization, and it could not share the
envisaged benefits of this investment in capabilities with competing steel manufacturers. In
exchange for its demand of exclusivity from the distributor for a particular product class, the
company reciprocated by vesting exclusive rights of selling the company’s material in the
territory that formed part of distributorship.
Along with the appointment of distributors, the brand Tata TISCON, which had earlier found
mention only in trade journals, was re-launched in December of 2000 with an eye on the
vast retail market (Exhibit 2). At the turn of the millennium, the organized network and
the retail brand together held the promise of attractive market shares and premiums for the
company.
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Reaching out to retailers: Knowing the customer’s customer

Formal contracts between Tata Steel and distributor organizations notwithstanding, there
was no shared understanding on the specifics, whether it be related to pricing or complaint
handling or the nature of second-tier channel itself. Many questions remained unanswered
at the infancy of the retail distribution network:
I would say that this phase was a continuation of the earlier trading of steel that was happening
except that now there were specific names as distributors, with defined territories. The
wholesalers and dealers who were getting our material through the distributors were
undercutting at will, selling opportunistically in each others areas, basically there was no
discipline and there was no way to exert control. There was chaos in many territories (Former
Sales Manager).

As the network grappled with cross-flow of material, hoarding and opportunistic pricing,
controversies and blame games became the order of the day. The larger market,
comprising numerous supply networks, would perennially be in throes of violent steel
cycles. It was thus easy for channel intermediaries to paint their versions of reality of the
retail markets in a bid to try and extract rebates and additional benefits for pushing the
company’s product. The perennial confusion resulted in ad hoc decisions on pricing and
supply, belittling the organized distribution dream of the company:
We were not able to capture value from our retail play. Probably it was in reaction to this that the
initiative to look at the entire distribution setup holistically, the Retail Value Management (RVM)
program was introduced with Paresh Agarwal at the helm. I remember clearly that battling
demand and price cyclicity was one of his key concerns. We knew that we had to go beyond
the distributors to get out answers (RVM taskforce member).

Around this time, in FY 02, the company posted a dismal result, a PBT of little over Rs 100
crore. Right through the 90s, after the opening up of Indian markets, the performance of the
steel company had been average at best (Exhibit 3). At the macroeconomic level, financial
analysts had pointed out that the Indian steel sector was destroying value for its
shareholders, posting results far below the risk adjusted return expectations of the
investors. The pattern was predictable: company’s fortunes rose and dwindled with steel
cycles (Exhibit 4). The top management had identified this inherent cylicity of steel industry
as the reason it was not able to deliver strong shareholder returns, which in turn was
keeping its share prices and thus the Enterprise Value at undesirably low levels:
I feel sorry that the share today is only priced at Rs 100. I think it should atleast be double that
figure (Outgoing Managing Director at the time of his retirement in 2001).

The management articulated its desire to protect its top line from the vagaries of price
cycles. And this is where intangibles like investment into strong brands and customer
relations were expected to act as shields to the violent steel cycles:

VOL. 6 NO. 1 2016 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES PAGE 3

 We have to neutralize the cyclical nature of our products. The price of steel should be irrelevant
to us (Former Managing Director in 2002).

In 2002, with the company’s continued below par performance in the backdrop, the
company unveiled its new vision which articulated leveraging branded products to improve
profitability as the core of the marketing strategy. It was in this context that the RVM
program was unveiled to look at the retail value chain in its entirety. It would examine the
distributors and the retailers, their way of functioning and the structure of competition in
various markets. It would study the role of influencers and how to best leverage their sway
and, finally, decode the consumers buying behaviour and needs. The aim of the program
was to examine each lever of the retail chain, creating and capturing value at each stage
for itself and the stakeholders in the chain. In the process, it was to help the newly launched
brands occupy leadership position and establish a benign influence of the company over
the larger network.
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At the time of articulation of the new vision though, volatile price cycles, channel’s demand
for rebates, price cuts and special schemes, confusing accounts of market situation, etc.,
were the order of the day undermining the company’s targets. Yet the company was not
sure where to begin; for though it had some understanding of macro-level data, granular
and actionable information was absent from the files and lexicon of the company
managers:
We wanted to do something, but what and how were the questions staring at us. Consultants
don’t have a magic potion. They bring and induce structured thinking. And they help speed
things up by breaking through the hierarchy. Here too, they brought this value on the table. The
team moved in the markets together and it was an eye opener for all of us. As data and
information accumulated, we developed a perspective and theory about what needed to be
done. Details of the RVM program were literally finalized on the road, during the pilot study (RVM
taskforce member).

RVM’s pilot study turned out to be a storehouse of revelations for the project team. It
became clear that the distributors neither yet have the organization nor the mindset to put
in the effort to supply in small lots to retailers, to cultivate relations with them. Instead, they
were content offloading bulk of their material to wholesalers who took steel back to the
mandi, to the old practices, far away from the organized distribution dream of Tata Steel.
Consumers were a harried lot, moving from one outlet to other in search of “correct” price
and reliable quality. The forces at play treated sariya like a commodity, creating violent
price cycles and the associated confusion was an anathema to the premium positioning
that the brand was aiming to capture. RVM took on such forces head on.
In each territory, the RVM exercise collected data and perspective through market visits on
which the distributor would accompany the working team. As the team listened to voices at
various consumption centres and local retail markets, both the deficiencies in the existing
network as also the possibilities for the future started to reveal themselves. Team members
would take notes and soak in the retail world, and once, back in the car or the hotel lobby,
they would parry and debate, challenging each other’s reading of the specific market. It
was through these debates that the RVM program drew its robustness and acceptance:
Despite the agreements with distributors, the rules, processes and systems were very fluid.
RVM helped us negotiate them face to face, in the markets, with solid evidence at our disposal.
After every day of market visit, we would argue on what we had heard and seen. In a review
meeting, MD told us that if RVM has managed to get the distributor to travel the market and meet
small retailers, it had met its objective – now, things would begin to change (RVM taskforce
member).

As RVM gathered traction within the organization and in the larger network, it became
buzzword, a justification for change. For some, it also became something to be feared, for RVM
always meant a thorough audit of the territory, impending change and an extended period of

PAGE 4 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES VOL. 6 NO. 1 2016

 The RVM process
The RVM exercise aimed to lift the veil of confusion. It required the frontline sales officers of the
company visiting various consumption centres in the market, along with the distributor. The team
collected data on actual consumption, assessed the need to appoint a retailer in the area,
evaluated existing retailers for their business style and reputation in local markets, understood the
consumer voice, the extent of influencers role and came back with a granular understanding of the
market. While detailed information was stored in a particularly detailed excel sheet designed for
the project, the medium to present the findings and recommendations to senior officers was the
powerpoint presentation (PPT). It was through these PPT sessions that in small bits, information
and understanding of individual markets and its dynamics filtered into the organization and
decision-making regarding the distribution business became more assertive.

The RVM PPT gave information on market size estimated through field visits, correlated it with
consumption of related material like cement, compared it with channel estimates and arrived at a
final “market size” figure. It analyzed presence of competitors, spoke of consumer behaviour and
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attitudes, of distributor organization capability and what could be done to improve it and, finally,
the role of influencers in the market. The “RVM pack”, as the presentation was called, was
structured to take a holistic “360 degree view” of the territory and then recommended a context
specific action plan to improve market share and premium position in respective markets:

Market share and Premium are recent additions to our lexicon. We never talked about these
earlier because the organization did not need to know of all these things in the control era and
just because the controls are taken off one fine day didn’t instantly enlighten us as well. Our
“market reports” of the earlier times used to have just the volumes and prices sold at (former
sales manager).

The recommendations of the RVM pack were also fait accompli in some sense because the
distributor was made to participate in the deliberations from Day 1 of the project. In any case, its
50-70 odd slides were so full of information that at the end of presentation, all that the doubters
could do was to accept its recommendations. The exercise not only recommended the number of
retailers to be appointed to meet market share aspirations; more importantly, it also identified
specific retailers for appointment. In many cases, if suitable retailers were not available in a
particular centre, then the exercise recommended appointment of a person of local market who
was engaged in another trade but matched the personal and behavioural profile preferred by the
program. It was disconcerting for the distributors to be told who to do business; for implicitly, it
meant that they would now have to deal with new partners, give them credit, support them in
various initiatives, forge relations with them and also deemphasize existing relationships.
Nonetheless, the RVM pack had a life of its own, and it drove decisions.

hard work, targets, monthly reports monitoring progress against targets and unyielding focus of
the senior management.

Some distributors were very closed in the early days. One strategy was that the distributor who
came forward to welcome RVM in his territory, we highlighted them so others felt left out and
then they came forward. There were many traditional gaddi distributors. We stated giving prizes
for RVM implementation in distributor meet, so then others came forward. Also, distributors
started getting categorized as “RVM” and “Non – RVM” distributors with the former getting
subtle preferences [RVM taskforce member].

As RVM was implemented in one territory after the other, it seeded initiatives and systems
which would go on to create value by setting the stage for evolution of a strong capable
distribution network. Amongst many, some of the significant ones were as follows:

New relationships
The RVM exercise highlighted the deleterious effect of wholesalers in the network. Not only
were they adding on to the cyclic effects, they were also becoming a hindrance to any
professionalization attempts made by the company for the channel. Their size gave them
the lever to bargain hard:

VOL. 6 NO. 1 2016 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES PAGE 5

 It was a painful time. We bid goodbye to many wholesalers who had helped us move our
material in the past. Actually, small retailers were less of crying babies. Wholesalers always tried
to negotiate price because they had volumes with them. The big player, the wholesaler was still
full of ego and wasn’t interested in our initiatives – so it became clear to us that it is better to
supply to smaller ones if we can manage the logistics. They ganged up and made
representations to the top management but we were all clear about our plans (Chief Sales
Manager).

As the team mapped the structure of Tiscon’s retail presence and the untapped sales
potential of various markets, the need and utility of appointing small retailers and actively
removing the wholesalers from the network became clear. Shorn of the comfort of supplying
a large portion of material to wholesalers, the distributor was now forced to deal with many
new and small business partners. To sell the same volume, he had to build multiple
relationships deep in the hinterland. Sales was no more about dealing with a few large
wholesalers but about managing a large flock of small retailers, of helping these retailers
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establish a new identity of authorized retailers of brand Tiscon. This involved providing
credit at crucial times, counselling and motivation during tough market conditions and
various other support to help the retailers sell “premium” steel rebars in a “commodity”
market. RVM also directed the development of relation and goodwill among influencers like
masons and engineers.

Active first-hand engagement with the consumption centers

The control era’s shortages had divorced the organization and steel traders from the steel
consumption centres. They could operate from the comfort of their gaddis and earn rent for
their privileged access to the scarce material. The RVM program took the distributor and
sales officers to the nooks and corners of the market and revealed its nuances and
associated value-creating opportunities. Apart from the RVM-related visits, the organization
also warmed up to the broader point about the utility of market visits as a tool to help them
keep their ear on the ground, thus started the company’s insistence on market visits by
distributors and sales officers. The frequency of visit to the retailer counter became a matter
of debate and an important indicator of the engagement. Till the time it became a habit and
a way of life in the network, the frequency was monitored and formally reported to highlight
its importance. The concept of customer visit reports (CVRs) where sales officers were
required to log formal reports of their visits to the markets onto the Lotus Mail system,
became part and parcel of regular working.

Evolution of distributor organization’s capability

The RVM program saw the distributor organization as the central pillar of its plans to build
a strong network, powerful brands and to command premium at the marketplace in a
commoditized product category. For this, it needed distributor organizations which would
have the capability to understand, match steps and contribute to its initiatives. This
required these small organizations to have systems and processes and professionals to
follow them. Multiple interactions in market needed personnel on the ground who could
handle those interactions meaningfully and also bring back actionable insights. All this
needed more feet on the ground, but many distributors were still stuck in the old times when
their organization comprised a few loyalists, drawn from their family and community
networks. Appointing professionally qualified sales representatives in their organizations
was an expenditure which did not make business sense to them:
To overcome the initial resistance and to show them the value of having educated sales force,
we said that we would compensate 50 per cent for these guys and 50 per cent distributor used
to pay. Because distributor did not have mindset of appointing good guys – they wanted the
gaddi people saying “haan babu, boliye” and all that, who don’t know business, who don’t know
sales they will only do babuji. So we said we will help you recruit good guys, we will pay part
of the salary, we had to walk that journey initially (RVM taskforce member].

PAGE 6 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES VOL. 6 NO. 1 2016

 In a few years, the number of sales boys increased significantly at distributor organisations
and their education profile improved dramatically. Today, the sales boys’ importance is
unquestioned and central to the sales and dealer engagement processes.
Over a period of nearly two years, as RVM covered the length and breadth of the country,
the relationships in the network, between the company and the distributor as also between
the distributor and the retailer, moved beyond the simplistic exchange of material and
money, into more nuanced exchanges and mutual commitments.

Tata Tiscon network: capturing the trust platform

The RVM PPTs also brought with them an understanding of the angst of the consumer. Most
revealingly, it was found that the consumer was spending a lot of time going from one shop
to the other looking for the “correct” price. More disconcertingly, despite the consumer’s
wariness, he was being regularly fobbed by unscrupulous retailers who would find some
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way of shortchanging the customer on supplied weight. Once the consignment, typically
weighing hundreds of kilograms, reached the site of construction, there was no way for the
consumer to recheck and verify its weight. Consumers could be cheated at the time of initial
weighment, during transportation or, more benignly, the rebars supplied could be thicker
than required as per design, making the consumer purchase more steel than required,
increasing his project cost:
The engineer, when estimating the requirement of rebars for a project, calculates in terms of
length of various sections. But while communicating their requirement to the consumer, they
would convert the length in to weigh for the market sold only in terms of weight. Manufacturers,
retailers, transporters, masons, all were involved in the loot that was going on (former Sales
Manager).

With reports on these accounts streaming in from across the country, the marketing team
along with the RVM taskforce, undertook concrete steps over a period of time which went
a long way in helping Tiscon capture the hitherto unclaimed platform of trust and
dependability in the rebar product category. First, it came up with the concept of
christening its retail outlets as “authorized dealer outlet” in brand colours, thus providing
identification to outlets which were stocking Tiscon (Exhibit 5). Next, it undertook an
exercise to build up a pricing model which would ensure that the retail prices of Tiscon
would be uniform across a territory. Printed price charts were displayed at retail counters
(Exhibit 6) and advertisements were put in newspapers informing the consumers of the
existence of a rate chart. Equally importantly, it was decided to maintain prices at least for
a month. This was in sharp contrast with the loha mandis where the prices fluctuated on a
daily basis. A few years later in 2006, the marketing team introduced the revolutionary
concept of selling rebars by piece as opposed to selling it by weight. The consumer now
had to only count the number of pieces delivered at his home, taking away yet another IHB
anxiety related to getting cheated (Exhibit 7):
There was panic amongst the retailers. They said that everything will collapse. 3 - 4 joint
meetings on the “selling by piece” concept, in the presence of company officers helped. I also
travelled a lot, meeting my retailers at their counters, at their homes over a cup of tea. In initial
days they would weigh the pieces, double-check. Slowly, things settled down. Today they have
forgotten what a weighing machine looks like! (Distributor).

This particular change was indeed a dramatic one, but yet it was effected with minimal
conflict for the channel design was amenable to the organization’s plans. Distributors were
all handpicked and exclusive to the company. Further down the chain, a significant
proportion of retailers dealt primarily with the brand Tiscon with many dealing exclusively
in Tiscon. With large and powerful wholesalers purged out of the network, the company
could now implement various initiatives meant to create a strong brand and a dedicated
network:

VOL. 6 NO. 1 2016 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES PAGE 7

 Even so many years later, now that many others have followed us in the distribution game, none
have truly managed to get their retailers to sell at fixed price. Discounts still form an important
part of selling lever. And most have tried selling by piece but failed to do it consistently –
because their channel is not truly with them. You can’t just make rules – you have to have the
relationships, the goodwill in the channel for them to follow those rules when you are not
watching. You can’t have one guard at each retail counter, like we have at ATMs! (Former
Head – Retail).

Through all this, the brand captured the trust platform, supported by a distribution network
whose strength and fidelity was seen as exemplary in the marketplace. In 2006, the brand’s
tagline was changed to Atoot Jod (unbreakable bond) (Exhibit 8) acknowledging and
celebrating this reality. This tagline signified two things – one that Tiscon combined
unassailably with cement, the supplementary key ingredient in construction, giving strength
to the structure and the other that the relationships in the Tiscon distribution network were
unbreakable.
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Period of consolidation and growth

In the first decade after brand launch, the Tiscon network grew stronger as evidenced by
the robust premium and market share figures of the retail business (Exhibit 10). The
distributor and dealer organization of today are a far cry from that of late 1990s or even of
mid 2000s, having attained a sophistication and maturity behooving their association with
the market leader.

The competition landscape

Real competition is not between brands but actually between two ways of doing work. One
based on trust and relationships and the other on pure commercialism, discounts and
commissions (Former Chief of M&S).

The loyal network

The OBL team, tasked with creating an organized distribution network, had “exclusivity” as its
foremost demand from the distributorship applicants. Its condition stated that Tata Steel’s
distributors could neither, directly or indirectly, share physical assets or the channel with
competing products nor could they enter into any kind of partnership with competitors. Terming
it as a “Termination Offence”, the team argued that given the investments and effort that the
company would put in enhancement of distributor organization’s capabilities, exclusivity was but
a natural criterion.

A few years later, the RVM program, searching for ideal retailers, categorized retailers on
dimensions of “Loyalty” and “Potential” with loyalty being measured as the “Share of Business”
that Tata Steel commanded at the particular retail outlet. Those agreeing to maintain high SOB for
TSL products (⬎80 per cent) were deemed to be ideal and got many formal and informal benefits
in comparison to other retailers. Over time, the concept of exclusive retailers, one with 100 per
cent SOB, gained strength. A retail identity program (RIP) aimed at giving a distinct identity and
a singular look to exclusive outlets was launched in which the company, the distributor and the
“exclusive” retailer shared the expenditure to create the RIP shop in line with the product’s brand
manual (Exhibit 5).

In addition to the standard loyalty programs, Tiscon manages “Parivaar” (family), a socialization
and communication platform for its distributors. The annual Parivaar conference held at exotic
locations like Bali, Beijing, Cape Town, etc., is a elegantly organized affair where all the
distributors, the M&S officers and each participant’s spouse travel and stay together for a week
(www.tisconparivaar.com/). The conference introspects the year gone by and strategizes on the
future. It also treats the participants to exotic tours and performances organized by event
managers (Exhibit 9).

Taking a leaf from the company’s books, distributors too organize such events, at a smaller scale
but with same intent and passion, for the retailers and their families.

PAGE 8 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES VOL. 6 NO. 1 2016

 A typical project to construct an individual house takes 6-12 months. The actual ideation
and planning by the family though begins much ahead in time. In a country where a family’s
honour and social status is often linked to the house it inhabits, where “family” and “home”
are used interchangeably (Parivaar and Ghar), the construction of the house is its most
treasured project. Understandably thus, the dreaming, planning and budgeting for the
home begins months in advance. Neighbours and relatives get to know of it and discuss it
passionately, offering advice on design, number of rooms, the size of the kitchen, the
material to be used and much more. It is not only the neighbours and relatives but also
various other institutions which are alerted of the impeding project. The local BDO knows
of it for the building plan has to be passed. The bank manager is aware of it, for the loan
application reaches him. Also, in the know are the local engineer who prepares the plan for
submission and the local mistri (mason) who is approached, typically through a reference,
to check for his availability for the projects a few months down the line. Through one or more
of these information sources, the local retailers too get to know of the upcoming project.
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For their respective business, the house builder is pursued by the local engineer, the
mason and the retailers. The engineer and the mason, apart from hoping to bag the
contract for providing their respective services, also have an interest in recommending
certain brand or retailer with whom they identify with and are close to in the local area. The
retailer on his part makes innocuous trips to the head of the family promising good quality
material, best price and at times some “free gifts”. Where possible, these influencers
employ their previous customers and well wishers to indirectly recommend their case to the
house builder.
Separately and at times conflictingly, the engineer and the mason advocate a particular
brand and through this they put the entire weight of their personal reputation and credibility
behind the recommendation. Their interest in this recommendation could be a varying
combination of friendship with a particular retailer, conviction about the usage of a
particular brand of material, a desire to associate oneself with a particular brand, an interest
in being part of the network which provides benefits like training or plainly some
commission that is to be earned.
Between the two, it is the mason whose financial needs are more immediate and exigent,
who tries to recommend a product through a retailer who offers him immediate and high
commission on the evening of the sale, but there are engineers who are more calculating

The opinion makers (Exhibit 11)

Right from the RVM days, it had been identified that local engineers and masons played a
significant role in informing, educating and influencing the consumers with regards to various
decisions related to construction of his house. Engaging with these key influencers had been the
endeavour of various steel and cement companies operating in retail markets. Tiscon had
developed specific programs that targeted these groups in a focused manner:

 Masons: The major needs of the masons were identified as security and social recognition. A
comprehensive loyalty program christened Mitr (friend) offered the masons long-term
association with the brand, accident and life insurance, health check-ups, skill development
training, etc. It commanded wide appeal in the mason community and gaining access to this
“limited membership” club had become aspirational. Each of the brand’s 36 territories had
instituted a Mitr Club, which held meetings periodically.
 Engineers and architects: The influencer research showed that the professional influencers
seek inputs in terms of professional recognition and exposure to best practices across the
world. Individual distributors conducted “engineer meets”, where knowledge sharing sessions
on best practices in construction, new developments in material science, discussions on new
products, etc., were organized. Responsible Architectural Initiatives & Structural Engineering
(RAISE) is a pan Indian platform designed to engage the “professional influencers”, that is,
engineering and architectural community. Knowledge sharing sessions and competitions are
held under the RAISE umbrella.

VOL. 6 NO. 1 2016 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES PAGE 9

 and there are masons who are more conscientious. As a house is constructed, reputations
are built and compromised, and this game moves on to the next project:
Nobody knows what happens after the rod goes the pillar. You never see it again. For a common
man, it is one person’s word against the other with regards to the choice of rebar – so he goes
with the recommendation of person he trusts, and the reputation of the local retailer becomes
another barometer (Area Sales Manager).

Meeting various stakeholders builds a familiarity that is valuable. We don’t talk about sales when
we call upon them– there is a lot to discuss in terms of market trends, construction practices etc.
They have realized that we are here for the long haul, not for next quarter’s sales. This
investment in trust-building is crucial. Their recommendation follows automatically once they
start trusting the conduct of our network. It helps that the technical inputs that we provide in
meets and conferences is best in class (Sales Officer – Distributor employee).
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Moreover, in a continuing push, retailers have been encouraged to appoint sales boys who
could move about in the market gathering information, building relationships and credibility
for the brand and the retailer outlet. For masons and engineers, Tiscon has embarked upon
professionally managed programs which aim to expose the participants to the cutting edge
of their professions. It also invests in causes which help establish a goodwill for the brand
through long-term relationship-oriented investments:
I recommend Tata TISCON to my customers because I know that it is the best and this
association also helps my personal standing. In other networks, various favours including
commission changes hands for recommendation. Here only a cup of tea is enough (Local
Engineer).

Branding
Steel construction rods had traditionally been a standard commodity, being sold by weight
with hard negotiations around its price and credit terms. Its look and feel, low technological
content in production method, means of storage and transport as also its final usage,
wherein it remained hidden from the eyes confirmed its commodity status:
I remember a senior telling us youngsters to work hard and with sincerity to move up in the
organization. He joked that if he found some of us to be having too much fun, he would transfer
us to sell sariya. For engineers and especially metallurgists, being asked to deal in sariya was
a demeaning thought (Former Head – Retail recounting his early days in the organization).

All this began changing once the brand Tata TISCON was launched for the retail markets
and over time got an identity of its own. From being a punishment posting to a revered
Superbrand, Tata Tiscon covered significant distance in the 2000s. Other organizations too
have sought to seize upon the opportunity that lies in India’s construction industry and
starting early 2000s, have launched their own brands and invested in developing their own
distribution networks. Employing famous film stars and sports persons as brand
ambassadors has been the dominant branding theme in this industry (Exhibit 12). In rural
India, the volume of promotional space on walls and billboards captured by TMT brands is
second to none and comparable only to telecom service providers.
Even as there was intense competition amongst various rebar manufacturers, Tata Steel
was now noticing a threat to its business model from an unexpected quarter. In recent
times, some cement manufacturers have taken lead in positioning themselves as provider
of home solutions. Aspiring to provide “end – to – end” solutions to house-builders, they
have tied up with lesser known sariya manufacturers and feature them as partners in their
home solutions endeavour. Some cement manufacturers are also beginning to provide a
host of services to house-builders like cost estimation, standard designs, technical advice
through a network of local engineers, etc. Notable amongst such initiatives by leading
cement companies were launched by names like Home Help Line and Home Solutions:

PAGE 10 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES VOL. 6 NO. 1 2016

 See people are getting busier everyday. They find it convenient if someone can direct them to
various products and services – some kind of single window service. Currently, some
companies are experimenting around this though but all this in rudimentary phase. Customers
look for specific advice but most such services are generic in nature and are yet to be
monetized in any significant way. In the future I see a war amongst construction product and
service providers to lock in house-builders early in the construction cycle and then mediate all
their purchases (Architect).

Consumer insight focus: – springboard to the next big leap?

The TQM background
Tata Steel won the Deming award in 2008, becoming the first steel company outside of
Japan to win the award:
No other activity made us think so deeply about our business and relationships than the process
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of applying for the Deming Prize. TQM is a fundamental way of managing business and every
organization can gain from institutionalizing the culture necessary to win this prize. We won the
award because we were the first to take sure steps towards quality movement; our efforts to
challenge the Deming Prize and the questions the Deming examiners asked us during the
assessment process has made us realize that we now have a tool and a system with which we
can improve everything we do on a continuous and predictable basis (Former Managing
Director).

The Tiscon team too followed the TQM drill, drawing mainly from the Customer Visit Reports
which were being logged mandatorily since long by the sales officers who visited the retail
markets. The specific problems and findings would find their way into a master excel sheet
and then onto a 2 ⫻ 2 matrix of “attractiveness” and “ease of implementation”. While many
ideas would filter through, they would invariably die down at some stage of evaluation in the
larger organization once they transcended the confines of the small marketing team.
Regular meetings, some cross-functional, were held to make headway. Top management
in its weekly meeting would have a slot for officers to share their version of the “voice of
consumer”. Yet ideas which would look pretty on excel sheets and power points would not
finally get “legs to walk”:
We have to get and act on consumer insights for service and product innovations. And we do
have processes charts and evaluation models on paper – but they don’t seem to be delivering.
At times I wonder if we are lacking in some skills, or some knowledge or urgency, or maybe our
incentive structures. – we have many ideas, but we have to convert them into feasible projects
(Chief of Marketing).

TQM at Tata Steel

TQM as an improvement tool had been adopted by TSL in the late 1980s. Over the years, and
especially since early 2000s, TQM had jostled with various other quality and improvement
philosophies like Quality Circle, TPM, Six Sigma, Knowledge Management among others. This
changed in the mid 2000s when the company decided to integrate various improvement activities
under the TQM umbrella and opened itself to audition by the Union of Japanese Scientist and
Engineers (JUSE) by vying for the Deming award.

The Deming award is named after W E Deming, who is credited with being the pioneering force
behind the TQM philosophy. Purported to be one of the highest awards for excellence in TQM, it
is owned and managed by JUSE. Tata Steel set up a central TQM department to coordinate all
activities related to embedding the TQM culture and challenging the Deming award.

Soon enough, it became common for frontline managers of various departments to be seen
discussing animatedly over large charts, which would show the logic of a customer-facing
initiative, its outcomes, benefits, etc. Employees carried hard copy documents for Deming-related
assessments as documentary proof to be shown to hard-nosed examiners. Senior officers would
stand in queue waiting for the examiners to call them and query them. Junior officers would rush
with loads of files to aid their seniors in “passing the exam” (Exhibit 13).

VOL. 6 NO. 1 2016 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES PAGE 11

 Rebar brand to construction brand
Amidst all discussion around the “changing face of competition” and “voice of customer”,
the one big idea which consistently stayed with the team was that the consumer had to
interact with multiple service providers, that constructing a house was a project of great
complexity and that he was apprehensive of the quality of service and advice being
provided at various stages. For nothing was explicitly planned or documented on paper;
instead, the project proceeded episodically, full of surprises. It was this gap that the team
Tiscon was hoping to address by providing reliable and expert service, en-route their
journey to the construction brand destination:
One thing was clear – the consumer was always in tension during the house building project.
That there is a clear opportunity to capture his mindspace through the services route was
obvious. The “How” of it was the problem (Sr Manager, Construction Cell).
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The team dabbled with the idea of an online material calculator along with FAQs of
construction. The idea of a “one stop shop” which would aggregate all kinds of construction
material and also connect buyers to engineers and masons was also discussed. Finally, the
idea of a design studio, one which would help the customer plan his project in technical,
aesthetic and financial terms, found traction with the senior management and was pursued
with serious intent.
The design studio. Market survey into the current construction practices, including FGDs
with consumers, had revealed that while all construction activity was preceded by a local
engineer preparing the “plan”, it was primarily done to satisfy the regulatory requirement of
submitting the same to the local municipal office. In some evolved markets, structural
designs were prepared but in most, the very concept of preparing it was absent and seen
as superfluous. Again, the estimation of bill of material was prepared but in a perfunctory
manner and without any accuracy for it was for the purpose of submitting to the bank for
loan purposes and was thus inflated. The actual requirement got revealed as the

The individual house builder (IHB)

A family man in India is thought to have two major challenges in his life. One, to find a suitable
groom for his daughter, and the other to build a house for his family. In broad terms, his life
revolves around saving industriously for these two high cost projects.

The house building project is typically initiated by the family head in his 40s. As the IHBs typically
operate on a constrained budget, the house building project is an uncertain one which progresses
in spurts separated by extended periods of inactivity. The project is a protracted venture spread
across years, if not decades. Its pace is not a pre-determined certainty but a lived experience
which mirrors the fortunes, the monetary gains and losses of a family. It factors in the birth and
marriages a family celebrates and the deaths it mourns, the additions it rejoices in and the splits
it endures. This uncertain project is visible in the form of pillars without walls, half built staircases,
unplastered exteriors and various other signs of incompleteness that dot the Indian individual
housing landscape. It involves fair bit of financial jugglery, loans from multiple sources and
deferred payments to various agents.

The IHB contends with confusion and uncertainty at all stages of the project, not only because of
the financial constraints but also because the numerous imponderables related to municipal
permissions, availability of material, manpower, construction process, etc., which continually test
him. All the confusion and financial hardships notwithstanding, the house building project is a
labour of love for the IHB which he attends to untiringly and with great care. He seeks information
from family, friends, neighbours, local grapevine, the daily newspaper and anyone else who is
interested to talk to him about his house. He pieces all this together to make sense of the project.

As the project progresses, he hires a range of people like architect, civil contractor, plumber,
electrician, carpenter, etc., and deals with agent and suppliers who provide various construction
materials. In addition, he has to take out time for managing and co-ordinating between various
local service providers.

PAGE 12 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES VOL. 6 NO. 1 2016

 construction activity progressed. Details of plumbing and electrical works were singularly
absent from all plans. The front elevation on the other hand was mostly present because the
customer always wanted to know how his house would look like from the front.
Considering such gaps in the market, it was decided that the design studio would provide
the customer with all drawings including those which would specify the plumbing and
electrical connections. It would also provide a scheduling plan and a bill of material. The
project evaluated the possibility of partnering with local engineers, but the cost of providing
customized plans, to a customer base which was not used to paying for such service, was
seen as a non – starter. Looking for a low-cost scalable model, the concept of offering
standard designs in collaboration with a design firm was finalized. This envisaged that
designs would be prepared in advance and the customer based on the size of the plot
would choose from the design library. Each primary design had around 5-10 variants in
terms of modulations in room size, etc.:
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You will be able to serve much large customer base with small number of designs. We were very
confident that this would work. We were quite headstrong on the “standard design” thing also
because it was bringing our cost down. We could offer the entire package for Rs 15,000
(Sr Manager, Construction Cell).

The city of Dhanbad was seen as an attractive market for the project’s launch, as the supply
side, in terms of professional services for construction planning, was deemed inadequate
for the level of construction activity projected for the market. A survey was conducted in the
city, and it was found that the bulk of the plots could be slotted into 35 different sizes. Thus,
around 40 primary designs and 250 odd variants were created. The first studio was
launched with fanfare and highlighted in company’s internal forums and the press.
As the euphoria died down and customers started steaming in the design studio, it started
becoming clear that they were not open to choosing standard designs from the library.
They would demand changes in size of the rooms, in having an extra puja room, a store
room, etc. As customers started demanding their respective customizations to the basic
design, the purported logic of the service failed:
Our model was that you compromise a bit on customization but we will give you really good
package. But people said no we will take headache of going to various agents but we will not
compromise on customization. The whole plan collapsed (Sr Manager, Construction Cell).

As a reaction, the service was next offered by tying up with local agencies which would
create designs as per customer’s specific requirement. Not only did costs rise dramatically,
the quality of service and delivery schedules suffered as well with the local agents not
adhering to their commitments and the store’s reputation taking a beating.
Pushed into a corner, the team deliberated on buying a software package which would
allow customizations or developing one internally but baulked at the upfront investment that
was required, putting the project on hold.
Superlinks. At the time the design studio was being conceptualized, the team was also
testing the consumer’s willingness to purchase readymade stirrup[3]. One of the early
targets of “services push” was the process of onsite rebar fabrication, which the team had
identified as time consuming, being handled by unskilled labour and where the monitoring
of quality was a challenge. Traditionally, in India, the stirrups had been made manually at
the construction site by bar benders using rudimentary practices. The initial response to the
concept of ready-made stirrups, branded as TISCON SUPERLINKS (Exhibit 14), was
encouraging and the team set up automated machines at select distributor’s premises.
Manufacturing of stirrups was decentralized to optimize on logistics and productivity. Local
engineers and masons were updated about the product and the natural advocacy route by
key influencers was chosen to promote the product. As the consumer lapped up the saving
of labour time and energy at construction site on account of Superlinks, its sales picked up.

VOL. 6 NO. 1 2016 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES PAGE 13

 With its success codified in a process, Superlink’s ramp up across the country was smooth
and successful.
Supervisory services. A year after the disappointment with the design studio, the team
targeted another apprehension of the consumer – the uncertainty around the reliability and
quality of construction activity carried out on the site. It planned to offer to the customer the
assurance of supervision of the construction activity at important junctures with an aim to
ensure that there were no gaps between the structural design on the paper and the actual
structure on the ground. The visits to the construction site were envisaged to be carried out
by the technical personnel employed by the distributor and the service itself was to be
“sold” through the retail outlet when the customer visited the outlet to purchase sariya. Very
soon it became clear that by the time the customer visited the retail outlet for purchase of
rebar, he had already decided upon the mason who would build the house and the
engineer who would provide various other services including informal supervision.
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Next, as it tried to approach potential customers directly without waiting for them to come
to the retail counter, it realized that while the customer was appreciative of service of this
kind, he wanted it for free:
People have never paid for such a service so their first reaction is that this is an additional cost.
Maybe we have not been good at structuring this service and communicating it. Customer says
local engineer is my friend, he comes when required – so why should we give 10,000 for this
kind of work (Task force member).

The team was baffled when it found that consumers mistrust for local engineers and the
reluctance to accept Tata Steel as a service provider existed simultaneously. To learn more
about the consumer and how it could position its supervisory service, the team offered free
supervisory service to a few house builders. It found that the expectations and the needs
of the consumer were dynamic; also, the project schedules were erratic and the
supervision visit often went waste. Moreover, the customer would seek explicit advice on
aspects related to construction, not just supervision report. With standardization and
scalability of the offering appearing suspect, the team decided to put the project on hold
and decided to return to the drawing table after some time.

In search of “Joy of Building”

It was already late evening on the 31st of December, yet Keshav Vishwanath was in deep
thought in his office chamber. The direction that Vishwanath had been receiving from his
superior, the Chief of Marketing and Sales about Tiscon’s future was unambiguous. Tata
Tiscon would no longer limit itself to being a product brand:
We have done enough of mother-product branding, competitors are catching up. We slowly
want to graduate to segmentation of markets and consumers and pamper them with service and
solutions that they find difficult to access. Our stores of future will not just sell steel products, but
offer a bouquet of services that make them one-stop-shops for constructing one’s own house
(Chief of Marketing & Sales, Retail).

Tata Tiscon was a well-established pan India steel rebar brand. As it began experiments
with solutions and services related to house construction, it found that the taste and
preference of consumers, with respect to service requirements, varied across the country
making it impractical to think of standard offerings and neatly documented process charts
to deliver them. Additional variance was introduced by the nature of services, wherein
employees of the Tiscon network would themselves be the “product / offering” for the
customer. The organization was well versed with quality control of steel products; now, it
had to grapple with the quality of interactions that its network’s employees had with house
builders. Moreover, all this uncertainty was to be reconciled with the omnipresent pressure
to deliver timely results with robust EBIDTA, the daily ongoing competitive pressure from
other manufacturers.

PAGE 14 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES VOL. 6 NO. 1 2016

 The push towards transforming Tata Tiscon into a construction brand for IHBs was
articulated by a fresh branding initiative which sought to associate Tiscon with the joys of
building one’s home. In the last quarter of 2013, the company’s Managing Director had
unveiled Tata Tiscon’s new tagline “Joy of Building” (Exhibit 15), consistent with its intent to
evolve into a construction brand. Tata Tiscon was the largest brand in the Tata Group with
a turnover of around US$1.7bn, and Vishwanath knew that the interest that the brand’s
moves evoked within and outside the organization was enormous. Before leaving his office
for the last time in 2013, he began typing an e-mail for his team, exhorting them to press
forward in the New Year:
We are a cohesive unit, our engagement with distributors and dealers is beyond compare. But
we can’t pat ourselves on the back and stop at that – that will be the end of our leadership. We
now need to move beyond the basic product offering to customer. What is the consumer of new
Keywords: millennium looking for? He wants convenience, a one stop shop, and all this through a network
Innovation, of trust and reliability. With the investments we have made in the last decade, our network is best
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Differentiation, placed to do just that. But we have to figure out how to structure our offerings – who takes the
Total quality management risks, who makes the investments, who assures quality etc etc . . .. . .

Notes
1. Tata Steel India’s marketing headquarters in the city of Kolkata.
2. Popular acronym for Individual House Builder, in common use in the construction industry.
3. A stirrup is a closed loop of reinforcement bar that is used to hold the main reinforcement bars
together in an RCC structure. Stirrups of inferior quality act like “weak-links” in a RCC structure and
can enhance the chances of collapse of a building under adverse conditions.
5. These are not “Suggested Readings”. For suggested readings, refer to page 3 of this document.

VOL. 6 NO. 1 2016 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES PAGE 15

 Exhibit 1

Figure E1 Tata Steel’s social footprints

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PAGE 16 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES VOL. 6 NO. 1 2016

 Exhibit 2

Figure E2 Tata TISCON shifts focus from institutional buyers to individual house
builders
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VOL. 6 NO. 1 2016 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES PAGE 17

 Exhibit 3

Figure E3 Tata Steel’s financial performance in the 90s

12.0%

10.0%

8.0%
PAT / Gross Sales
6.0%
Pat / Gross Block
4.0%

2.0%

0.0%
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FY FY FY FY FY FY FY FY FY FY FY FY FY FY FY FY FY
86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02

Exhibit 4

Figure E4 Tata Steel’s fluctuating fortunes

PAT
600
500
400
300 PAT
200
100
0
FY FY FY FY FY FY FY FY FY FY FY FY FY FY FY FY FY
86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02

Exhibit 5

Plate E1 Tata TISCON exclusive retail outlet

PAGE 18 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES VOL. 6 NO. 1 2016

 Exhibit 6

Figure E5 Tata TISCON’s recommended consumer price (RCP)

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PAGE 20 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES

Exhibit 7

VOL. 6 NO. 1 2016

Figure E6 Selling rebars by piece
 Exhibit 8

Figure E7 Tata TISCON’s Atoot Jod campaign

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PAGE 22 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES

Exhibit 9

Figure E8 Tata TISCON Parivaar Meet

VOL. 6 NO. 1 2016

 Exhibit 10

Figure E9 TISCON’s market share and premium progression in retail markets

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VOL. 6 NO. 1 2016 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES PAGE 23

 Exhibit 11

Figure E10 TISCON’s engagement platforms (RAISE, MITR) for influencers

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Exhibit 12. Filmstars/sportspersons as brand ambassadors in steel rebars

category
http://srmbsteel.com/tmt-bars; www.temcotmt.com/media.html; www.captaintmt.com/wp-
content/uploads/2014/03/captain-product.jpg; www.rangdeindia.jp/uploaded_img/KQ4f29
ec9d450457.64435212.jpg

PAGE 24 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES VOL. 6 NO. 1 2016

 Exhibit 13

Figure E11 Tata Steel wins the Deming Grand Prize

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VOL. 6 NO. 1 2016 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES PAGE 25

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Figure E12 Superlinks

PAGE 26 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES

Exhibit 14

VOL. 6 NO. 1 2016

 Exhibit 15

Figure E13 The Joy of Building campaign

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Corresponding author
Sankalp Pratap can be contacted at: pratap.sankalp@gmail.com

VOL. 6 NO. 1 2016 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES PAGE 27

 Abstract
Title – From chaos of steel cycles to the promise of “Joy of Building”: Tata Tiscon eyeing the next big
leap.
Subject area – Strategic Management.
Study level/applicability – The case is designed for a) MBA students b) Short-duration executive MBA
courses.
Case overview – The case refers to India’s leading steel company Tata Steel. Tata Tiscon, the steel
rebar brand, is the organization’s leading retail brand. The case chronicles the period between the birth
of the retail brand in the year 2000, its dramatic rise and dominance, to the end of 2013 when some of
its initiatives had failed. Tata Tiscon was established as a pan Indian brand on the dint of a distribution
network comprising 33 distributors and over 2000 retailers, many of them exclusive to the brand. The
brand spawned a series of innovation in the category like “selling by piece”, fixed price concept and
“free” home delivery. Together with its channel partners, the company achieved dramatic success
which was reflected in its leading market share coupled with significant price premium in a category
where price had traditionally being the only selling pitch. After 2010, the company saw an emerging
challenge in the form of a new business model, where some companies were gearing to provide the
Downloaded by Indian Institute of Management at Calcutta, Professor Biswatosh Saha At 22:20 11 August 2016 (PT)

complete portfolio of construction material including cement, steel, etc., and a turnkey construction
solution for house builders. Tata Tiscon responded by attempting to enter the service space by
launching a building design solution and later a construction supervision solution. Both of these
initiatives failed. The protagonist of the case is Mr Keshav Viswanath (Chief of Marketing for retail
business at Tata Steel), who is concerned with the failures of these key initiatives and is wondering how
to ensure the “leader” status of Tata Tiscon in coming years.
Expected earning outcomes – The students are expected to understand how a core strategy like
differentiation is implemented successfully in “practice”; understand the exploitation– exploration
dichotomy in an organization; appreciate difference between radical innovation (based on new
organizational routines, new business partners and new relationships) and incremental innovation
based on fine tuning of existing organizational routines and relationships.
Supplementary materials – Rebar production: www.youtube.com/watch?v⫽J6n9sci8j-8; Tata
TISCON AV: www.youtube.com/watch?v⫽89kOUsbnaYQ; TQM – The Toyota Way: www.youstube.
com/watch?v⫽qf3gdrIMxRw; Disruptive vs. Incremental Innovation: www.youtube.com/watch?v⫽kOO
L_GiaLTo; Approach to innovation is dead wrong: www.youtube.com/watch?v⫽pii8tTx1UYM
Subject code – CSS 11: Strategy.

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