Case Study: Tata DOCOMO

HELPING TATA DOCOMO WITH THEIR PROCUREMENT TRANSFORMATION INITIATIVE
Client: Tata DOCOMO • Industry: Telecommunications
Tata Teleservices (TTSL) provides telecommunications services to about 85 million clients in thousands of towns and villages across India. Among its services are mobile and wireline telephone (under the Tata Indicom brand), fixed wireless phones (Walky), public telephone booths, and Internet access (Photon). Founded in 1996, TTSL is a subsidiary of the conglomerate Tata Group. It also provides wireless phone service through a joint venture with Japan-based NTT Docomo. Tata Teleservices Limited launched 3G services for the first time in India, under the brand name Tata DOCOMO. With 3G, Tata DOCOMO redefined the face of telecom in India.

Overview

Need: Tata Docomo realized that they were losing out due to cumbersome supplier registration and bidding processes. They wanted to automate their business processes and streamline their procurement activities. They had to collaborate better with their 500 suppliers and enable better transparency. Solution: Bristlecone implemented SAP SRM and helped leverage supplier registration, supplier evaluation, bidding and auctioning process, supplier collaboration and SRM analytics. Benefit: Bristlecone helped revamp the procurement processes and automated bidding & auctioning. With the solution, they were able to shift from transactional purchasing to strategic purchasing. Suppliers were provided with better transparency enabling real-time collaboration with them, shortening the procurement cycle.

Need

Tata DOCOMO, an emerging giant in the telecommunication industry, needed to automate their procurement processes to realize better benefits. They wanted to: • Easily access supplier information to evaluate potential suppliers • Streamline their procurement activities and transition from tactical purchasing to strategic purchasing • Collaborate with their 500 suppliers and ensure long-term, transparent relationship with them • Maintain a single source of truth empowering their suppliers with better real-time visibility into Tata DOCOMO’S procure-to-pay processes

Solution

Bristlecone implemented SAP Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) for Tata DOCOMO enabling them to improve their sourcing and procurement functions and strengthen their supplier relationships. The solution helped collaborate with 500 suppliers and manage them efficiently. The tools implemented were: Supplier registration tool – Helped all potential suppliers to fill in their information on an online portal and enabled Tata DOCOMO to view this information in a single screen. Supplier evaluation tool - Helped Tata DOCOMO evaluate the supplier information submitted in the registration tool and decide on the fitment of the suppliers based on criteria like supplier credibility, performance and delivery. Strategic sourcing – Helped Tata DOCOMO shift from transactional purchasing to value-based purchasing. The solution provided bidding and auctioning tools (SRM Auction tool & SRM Bidding engine) enabling the company weigh factors beyond cost such as: Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), supplier credibility, supplier’s delivery performance and probability of meeting deadlines. Auction tool was used for procurement of standardized commodities. This replaced Tata DOCOMO’s existing manual process of emailing Request For Quotations (RFQ). The tool enabled the instant sharing of supplier auction details to invoke a prompt response and ensure optimal selection of bid invitations. This reduced the turnaround time and helped create competition among suppliers resulting in better landed costs and savings.

I would like to thank the entire team that worked on the SRM system. I am particularly thrilled with the RFX comparison this has been executed much beyond my expectations. Excellent job team. Keep up the good work.
-Anjali Shah, Project Lead, Tata Teleservices Ltd.

Bidding engine replaced the manual creation of RFQs and comparison of bids. It enabled creation and processing of bid invitations and live auctioning of products and services. Bidders could submit bids on the Bidding engine in response to bidding invitations and auctions. Supplier collaboration: Bristlecone helped Tata DOCOMO collaborate with their 500 suppliers enabling them with better real-time visibility into the procure-to-pay processes. A single source of truth helped Tata DOCOMO and their suppliers rely on the same data. This enabled collaborative procurement for direct and indirect material. SAP SRM analytics: This helped Tata DOCOMO optimize their procurement strategy and co-ordinate their business processes with key suppliers. The solution helped them forecast the organization’s purchasing behavior, shorten procurement cycle and work with their partners in real-time.

Benefits

• Improved purchasing strategies through better spend visibility & analytics and helped procure goods/services that produced best overall value • Automated and simplified supplier registration and evaluation process • Strengthened supplier relationships by providing them with better transparency and single source of truth • Automated the invoice management process • Automated bidding and auctioning process leveraging SRM Bidding engine and Auctioning tool. This helped reduce procurement spends and increased the quality of purchase

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©2012 Bristlecone Ltd. Bristlecone believes the information in this publication is accurate as of its publication date. The information is subject to change without notice. Bristlecone acknowledges the proprietary rights of the trademarks and product names of all companies mentioned in this document.