Adoption of technology
Tata Teleservices Ltd. provides end-to-end telecommunications solutions to 70 million business and residential customers across 45000 towns and villages across the country. It was the pioneer of CMDA technology since its inception in 1996. It launched significant services in: * CDMA - Tata Indicom in January 2005 * Wireless Mobile Broadband - Tata Photon in 2008 * 2G GSM - Tata DOCOMO in 2009
TTL was the first private telecom company to roll out 3G services in India in November 2010. It took the expertise and technology of its partner NTT DOCOMO and got a favourable advantage in the market.
In the case of Task Interdependence it follows the Intensive Technology model which is based on reciprocal tasks. Each person and department in the firm is dependent on each other for the smooth functioning of operations.
Wi-Fi Hot Spots
Tata Teleservices Ltd. plans to set up 4,000 Wi-Fi hot spots across 9 cities in the country due to the yearly doubling of Smartphone devices over the past few years. It plans to make all 4,000 hot spots operational by the end of February 2016.
Since April, 2014 over 1000 hot spots have been set up countrywide. These Wi-Fi services are different from the consumer oriented dongle service under the Tata Photon brand. The services provided are carried to the end customer on the company's existing fibre networks along with those if Tata Communications Ltd. Major locations where one might find these services are T3 international airport terminal in New Delhi, Wankhede cricket stadium in Mumbai, and Domestic Airport in Kolkata.
They offer the customer access to a super fast Internet Connection and also a suite of Value Added Services like Global Roaming, Net Telephony, Entertainment, Educational and Business services. Tata Docomo has the distinction of being the only member of the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) from India. The company has partnered up with multiple key brands like Starbucks, Costa Coffee, Domino's, KFC, Mad Over Donuts, Louis Philippe and Jaguar to name a few.
Process to use Wi-Fi hot spot is really simple and is shown below: Step .1 Create a Tata Indicom Broadband 2.0 account by purchasing an online value card via credit card or net banking Step .2 Enable Wi-Fi on you device (mobile, laptop, tablet) Step .3 Open the internet browser to get the Tata Indicom Wi-Fi login page (in India) or the partner hotspot login page (outside India) Step .4 Enter your Tata Indicom Broadband 2.0 User Name and Password or the Serial Number & PIN of the Value Card to start accessing the internet. | |
Green Innovation - Project Optimus
The main objective of project optimus undertaken by Tata Teleservices Ltd. was to reduce its carbon foot print and optimization of network operation cost. An 'Applied Research' team was formed to address these issues with the goal of obtaining good quality continuous power independent of grid reliability and thus becoming the lowest cost telecom operator.
TTL has over 52,000 towers across the country operating on CDMA, GSM and 3G technologies which are taken from various infrastructure service providers (IP). Infrastructure is mainly divided into two types: * Passive infrastructure(owned by IP) - * Tower * BTS Shelter * Power Supply * Air Conditioning * Generators * Batteries * Fire Extinguishers * Active Infrastructure - * Base Transceiver Station(BTS) * Switches * Antennae
Earlier the BTS was housed indoors with air conditioning to maintain the temperature at 25 degrees Celsius. They faced many constraints of site feasibility, space availability and poor reliability as continuous source of power for Solar solution. The Research team worked out the kinks and came up with some solutions to the above mentioned problems.
The main initiatives were:
Indoor to Outdoor - The Base station could withstand temperatures up to 55 degrees C. So the first step was to shift the BTS Outdoor from Indoor.
Free Cooling Unit - The air conditioning unit was removed and was replaced by a Free Cooling Unit(FCU) which filters the outside air and stabilizes the temperature. This unit had the capability of shutting down automatically once the required temperature was achieved.
Special Shelter - The equipment was housed in locally manufactured shelter which had special filters on the door so that the air coming in was dust and moisture free. The shelter would also protect the equipment from direct sunlight and water proof in case of rains.
Wind/Solar power - In locations where environment permits these stations are being powered by wind or solar energy. This reduces the use of diesel generators which causes a lot of pollution.
Reduction in use of DG- In case of power failure the diesel generator(DG) will only come online once the entire battery backup is depleted. This saves a lot of fuel costs and reduces CO2 emissions.
Project Optimus lead to a lot of benefits like: * Elimination/Reduction of ozone depleting refrigeration gases * Reduced CO2 emissions * Reduced Power consumption * Reduced energy costs
The project won a lot of awards for its innovation and environmental consciousness: * Won the “QualTech Prize for Sustainability” for the year 2014 (Service Sector) at the 26th Quimpro Convention. * Won the “Excellence in Energy Management” for the year 2014 at the ET Telecom awards * Project Optimus was nominated for “The Green Mobile Award” at the GSMA global mobile awards 2014

Workforce And Leadership Development
Tata Teleservices Ltd. has many HR interventions that have earned it the distinction of being an employer of choice. Their practices follow a strong HR model which includes alignment, assignment, engagement, empowerment and pride of the workforce. The pillars of organisational culture were defined under the acronym CRISP: * Customer focus * Responsibility for results * Initiative with speed * Self-confidence with consciousness * Passion for achievement
Training and development is provided under five major heads:
Individual
Their training needs are identified through Performance Management Systems and intrinsic trainings are imparted as per requirement. Each employee has the authority to choose which other fields he would like to be trained in. The career progression policy is based on any one or multiples of five key business indicators, namely: 1) Revenue, profit maximization/cost optimization 2) Cash flow 3) Customer satisfaction and employee engagement 4) Aligning the entire organisation towards the vision 5) Mission and business plans of the organisation
E-Learning
Employees are encouraged to develop their own personalities through an e-portal called Gyan Jyoti. Each individual can list their fields of interest and expertise on a page called Gyan Tarang. In house initiatives are undertaken to conduct various training workshops for others. This gives employees both a chance to teach and to learn. It can be accessed by any employee at any level from any location.
Leadership
A business leadership program is offered to all COO's and high performing senior leaders. It is carried out by Tata's own Management Training Centre. Reflections is an in house feedback system which helps senior leaders to get a 360-degree feedback and enables them to create individual development plans. Team building and leadership training is not confined to only top level management but is carried out at all levels of the organisation.
Initiatives
A lot of emphasis is given to bring the verticals and horizontals together by conducting Townhalls, Lunch with MD, MD Online and Phone your MD. A women's welfare committee, headed by senior women employees has been created to address all women related issues.
Employees are encouraged to be innovative thinkers through initiatives like Mind Beans, Propel(Six Sigma) and Promising Practices. They are put through innovative workshops, cross-functional teams and collaborative working so as to improve productivity and efficiency.
There is a reward and recognition (R&R) policy which looks to recognize the achievement of teams and individuals. A few of the rewards are Spotlight(for on-the-spot recognition), Star of the Month, Super Stars for achievers, Customer First Reward and Valuable Reward.
Company also organizes various fun games, activities and off sites where games like hoopla, tambola, carrom, table tennis, cricket, football and hockey are played at an inter-corporate level. It's a good way to blow off some steam and improve employee morale.
Community Awareness
The workforce is encouraged to give back to the community as well. The company has an active eco-club called Prakriti, which conducts activities like tree plantation drives, energy conservation and wealth out of waste initiatives. TTL also has tie-ups with many NGO's and schools where it provides donations and conducts learning drives

Organisational Culture
The company follows a very mechanistic and centralized structure where targets and goals are set before hand. All employees have to abide by a set of rules and regulations provided in Tata Code of Conduct. Specific norms, rules and SOP's are provided which have to be followed. The work is more or less standardised where employees have to follow a given set of processes and orders with very limited use of innovation.
The Five core values as stated in the Tata Code of Conduct are: 1) UNITY 2) RESPONSIBILITY 3) EXCELLENCE 4) UNDERSTANDING 5) INTEGRITY
The organisation also follows: * Rite of passage - induction and basic training is provided to all new employees so as to familiarize with the company's values, norms and operations * Rite of integration - team building workshops, cross-functional teams, collaborative teams, off-sites and many other initiatives are undertaken to build common norms and values among he workforce * Rite of enhancement - as discussed earlier the R&R policy rewards teams and individuals who have performed well. This improves morale and motivates them to achieve higher goals.
Environment
The environment is very friendly and relaxed. TTSL has completely scrapped its attendance policy. There are no mandatory card swipes or daily attendance sheets to monitor attendance. The idea here is to give employees an opportunity to focus more on their goals and productivity rather than fretting over attendance.
Major festivals are celebrated and family members of employees are also included in the festivities. Wednesdays are family days where individuals are allowed to leave work early and spend time with their loved ones.
Various policies like health insurance, car loans, paid-leaves, long service award on completion of 5 and 10 years of service, Liberal Personal Accident Insurance and many other such policies are provided to a supportive and encouraging environment.
Policy on Sexual Harassment(POSH) is strictly followed and any employees found violating the rules and regulations set are immediately called upon to answer for their actions. On many occasions such employees as let go off and blacklisted.

Decision Making Process
We will discuss the decision making process followed by Tata Teleservices Ltd. under three broad heads:
Centralized
The company follows a very centralized structure where the power to make the final decision lies with the top level management. In the case of TTL the Board of Directors and the Managing Director have the final say in all major decisions. The organization follows programmed decision model where the employees make decisions that are repetitive and routine. They follow a very strict hierarchical structure which has 9 levels.
Functional heads of different departments act as advisors to assist the managing director make decisions. For example, the Finance head will calculate how much budget is available to be distributed amongst the various departments.
The ground staff is organized in circles which is a good set up for team and organizational learning. They report to the Chief Operating Officer(COO) who has the power to make the final decision.
Committees
Various planning committees were formed to advice management during the decision making process like Wireless Planning Team, Internal Audit Team, Process and Risk Management Team , etc. They look at current market situation and the internal workings of the company and plan for the future path the organization should take to become more profitable.
Formalization
TTL has a very formalized structure where behaviour is standardized through rules, procedures, formal training and related mechanisms. This is because the functions performed by employees are routine and repetitive.
Each circle as well as corporate operations are allocated specific budgets which they have to abide to. Quarterly and yearly targets are set for each team and serve as a yardstick to measure their performance. All processes and tasks are uploaded on respective work portal. The relationships between organizational participants are clearly defined at every level.

Structural Deficiencies
Corporate vs. Circle Teams
The corporate is based out of the head office in Mumbai. In theory they are supposed to be informed of everything going on at the ground level. But in practise the circle teams operate independently and they lack synergy with the corporate. They merely follow the budget and targets set by the top management. There is not a lot of information sharing between them which leads to inefficiency in decision making.
Circle Team vs. Circle Team
The circle teams function in different regions and require different processes, resources and functions to operate efficiently. There is a lot of internal competition between them because their promotions rely on a rating system. For example, if a team needs equipment or resources, the other teams are not very helpful and offer little to no support.
Complexity
There are too many processes and levels in the structure which make operations complex in nature. Any small change causes a huge delay in the system. There is no flexibility allowed to the employees and they have to follow the order and rules set by the company. This leads to inefficiency and reduces productivity within the organization.
Lack of clarity of Roles and responsibilities
The department heads in each circle have a dual reporting to the COO as well as their corporate regional head. The two heads are not in sync with each other and give orders without consulting with one another. This causes a lot of confusion in the minds of the employees and leads to a decrease in motivation.