Branding Sariya – the TATA TISCON Story

Mr. N.K Saran (Chief, Long Product Sales Division, Marketing & Sales South, TATA Steel) visited XLRI for delivering a lecture on ‘Branding Commodities – The TATA TISCON Story’ to the GMP 07-08 batch .

Mr. Saran who is an XL alumnus has wide experience in the areas of quality, strategy, marketing & sales. Earlier, he has also worked as Chief Aspire (Business Excellence) for the quality initiatives undertaken in TATA Steel.

The GMP batch had an enriching session with Mr. Saran, who explained the concept of branding and strategy and why was it so important in today’s internationally competitive environment. The discussion started with branding concepts with examples of some of the famous brands that we see around us today, the latest one being Harry Potter.

GMPians listened with rapt attention as Mr Saran went on to the real story of how TATA Steel went about marketing their TMT bar by the introduction of a branded product (TATA TISCON) in an otherwise unbranded, somewhat inefficient and corrupt TMT market, thus introducing transparency and customer satisfaction while being able to build a name for itself in the process.

The session ended with a very enthusiastic series of question & answers by the GMPians, who did not want to let go of the opportunity to understand how TATA Steel was able to use branding as a tool to bring efficiency into the markets. GMPians are looking forward to more such events to enhance their practical knowledge on various marketing principles vis-à-vis the current developments in India and abroad.

GMPians in the Village

While a group of GMPians were managing rock climbing and assorted hurdles in the adventure trip, one other group was packed off for three days and two nights into the villages of Jharkhand. Not that they objected. After all most of them had come from different parts of the country and saw this as a good opportunity to get a first hand feel of Jharkhand.

The GMPians visited few villages outside the limits of Jamshedpur. The coordination and planning was done by NGO’s like Tagore Society of Rural Development, SEEDS, SPAR, MASS. The issues studied by the GMPians were water and sanitation, health facilities , livelihood pattern, literacy related issues, self-help groups, gender issues, farming and animal husbandry, environmental concerns, credit mechanism, consumption pattern and housing patterns.

The study illustrated the welcome progress which started to take place in the last few years in terms of empowering people and making them participate in the development process. Nevertheless, the lack of access to proper healthcare services, secondary and college education was striking. In the villages inhabited by the Sabar tribe, even primary education was a luxury which hardly few could afford.

GMPians returned from trip content with the study done but perhaps with a bigger discontent about the state of affairs of rural India and a resolve to do something more about this than being aware about it. Quite a few GMPians were already associated with NGOs and social organizations before joining XLRI and have fair experience in these activities. So they have more activities lined up on this front. As they say "Miles to Go.....".