Tata Manchurian: The Tata Group Prepares to go to China

Image: Jagdeesh NV/Reuters

REACHING OUT Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao with TCS head honcho S. Ramadorai

Finding the right managerial talent to run businesses in China is not easy. Companies have to contend with language and cultural differences apart from dealing with the government. Companies have to make sure that they have the right people in the right positions. One way of doing that is by hiring local talent. But then one has to make sure that the talent is in line with the company’s own culture as well.

The Tata group, with sales of $3 billion in China in 2010, is trying to do just that. It is banking on its experience of training managers at TAS (formerly the Tata Administrative Service), a leadership training group, started by J.R.D. Tata in the 1960s.

Three years ago on a visit to China, Tata Sons’ executive directors R. Gopalkrishnan and Alan Rosling were struck by the challenges of finding managers to run operations there. Says Gopalkrishnan, “On a visit to China we were struck by the many barriers we faced to expanding business.”
The Group began to put in place a country specific management training program. Christened the China Management Training Program, the group plans to recruit managers from top business B-schools China like CIEBS in Shanghai and Tsinghua University in Beijing.

“We have for some years been visiting campuses for our internship programme and taking students to India and other parts of the region with Tata companies,” says Satish Pradhan, executive vice president group human resources Tata Sons.

Tata plans to start small and bring on board five graduates by August this year who want a career in China. This is important as multinationals have often found that young recruits expect to be moved to overseas locations once they finish a few years within the organisation. In addition they must be fluent in both Chinese and English, know the Tata way of business and be mobile within businesses in China.

In their first year recruits would spend time as an executive assistant to a senior manager as well as work with two Tata companies - like JLR and TCS that have rapidly growing businesses - in China.

Pradhan also admits that with the Tata brand less known in China than it is in India the recruiters would have their work cut out. Key to recruiting pitch would be the allure of joining a group-wide management training scheme.

Employees of the Tata China programme would also be brought to India to help them get a closer look at the Group’s values and what it stands for. After their first year they would be part of the Continuing Education and Learning Program that would refresh their skills and in the first five years they can expect to work in two Tata businesses in China.

With the Group globalizing rapidly, 57 percent of its $68 billion revenues come from overseas Tata Sons may explore the possibility of launching similar programs in other geographies.  

For now a lot depends on the performance and success of the first few batches of Chinese recruits.