Address at the 75th Year Celebrations of Industrial Harmony

21st Century Vision for TISCO

I am indeed delighted to participate in the 75th Year celebrations of Industrial Harmony at TISCO. I greet the Management, dedicated workforce and the distinguished guests. During the last seventy-five years TISCO has made pioneering contribution in fulfilling the visions of the Jamsetji Nusserwanjee Tata and today I am told the annual production has reached 4.5 million tons of quality steel. The location of this establishment in Jharkhand has provided a fillip to the industrial base of this region. I am also delighted to know that during the last 75 years there has been commendable industrial harmony in this establishment, which ensured that there was no loss of man-hours due to strikes, lockouts or closures.

Whenever I think of Tata Steel, I am always inspired by the vision of one man ? its founder, Shri Jamsetji Tata. Those were early days of the 20th century when India was under the yoke of British rule and there was hardly any industrial activity worth its name on the Indian sub-continent. But, despite this very bleak industrial scenario, it was the vision of this one man, which enabled the country to set up its first integrated Steel Plant in the year 1907. The rest, as they say, is history.

I appreciate the initiatives taken by TATA Steel to make available to employees and their families welfare facilities including medical and educational facilities. The city of Jameshedpur and its various welfare projects has been a model for the rest of the industry and has got ISO 14001 certified town services status. I also appreciate the Shabash programme for instant reward and recognition of employees making significant contribution towards companies? goals. The preparation of Vision 2007 of the company with the inputs from 4000 employees is a commendable task and provides the model for workers participation in deciding the future of the company. This model is worth emulating by many of our industrial establishments in the country. I was thinking what I should talk to this community on this occasion. I would like to talk on 21st Century Vision for TISCO.

Knowledge Society

I was studying different dimensions of knowledge society how will it be different from the industrial Economy. In the knowledge economy the objective of a society changes from fulfilling the basic needs of all round development to empowerment. The education system instead of going by text book teaching will be promoted by creative, interactive self learning ? formal and informal with focus on values, merit and quality. The workers instead of being skilled or semi-skilled will be knowledgeable self empowered flexibly skilled. The type of work instead of being structured and hardware driven will be less structured and software driven. Management style will be delegative rather than being directive. Impact on environment and ecology will be strikingly less compared to industrial economy. Finally, the economy will be knowledge driven and not industry driven. I visualize the Tata Steel to graduating as a knowledge driven company in the 1st half of 21st Century.

Creation of ancillary units

Keeping the knowledge economy in mind Tata Steel must work towards creation of a cluster of ancillary units in this region. This will enable Tata Steel to concentrate on the core activities of steel making and sub-contracting support activities to the ancillary units. This will generate largescale employment for the ancillary units entrepreneurs and also enable cost effective production system for the factory. This is essential to maintain your competitiveness which is vital in the international market.

Law of development

I was studying the development patterns and the dynamics of connectivity between nations, especially in trade and business. As you all know the world has few developed countries and many developing countries. What is the dynamics between them and what connects them? Developed country has to market their products in a competitive way to different countries to remain as developed country. The developing country to get transformed into developed country; they too have to market their products in other countries in a competitive way. Competitiveness has three dimensions: quality of the product, cost effectiveness and supply in time. Indeed this dynamics of competitiveness in marketing of products by developing and developed countries determines the national development growth pattern. Tata Steel must see their integrated missions in steel making in this light. Competitiveness of steel products will have to be the thrust for TISCO. This calls for the integrated leadership of TISCO management staff, which has got a tradition. Let us look at the type of leadership required for such type of competitiveness.

Development of Leadership

For the Tata Steel today what is needed is a combination of technology, leadership and inspired workforce. Let us analyze the dynamics of good organizations for national development. Developed India as defined can be only powered by economic strength.

The economic strength is powered by competitiveness.

The competitiveness is powered by knowledge power.

The knowledge power is powered by Technology.

The Technology is powered by resource investment.

The Resource investment is powered by return on Investment.

Return on Investment is powered Revenues.

The Revenue is powered by Volume and repeats sales.

Volume and repeat sales are powered by customer loyalty.

The customer loyalty is powered by Quality and value of products.

Quality and value of products is powered by Employee Productivity.

The Employee Productivity is powered by Employee Loyalty.

The Employee Loyalty is powered by Employee Satisfaction.

The Employee Satisfaction is powered by Working Environment.

The Working Environment is powered by management stewardship.

Management stewardship is powered by Creative leadership

What is that Creative Leadership?

?Creative leadership is exercising the vision to change the traditional role from the commander to the coach, manager to mentor, from director to delegator and from one who demands respect to one who facilitates self respect ?

For a vibrant Tata Steel the important thruster will be the growth of a number Invisible Leaders.

Participation in National Missions

Tata Steel has substantial experience in establishing and running major industries. They have over the years developed large number of middle and senior level executives who are competent to establish enterprises and give the leadership for their viable running. I would recommend Tata Steel to take up as a societal missions to undertake creation of 10 PURA complexes in the Jharkhand region which I would like to explain in detail:

Economic Connectivity for PURA

Providing Urban facilities in Rural Areas (PURA) consisting of four connectivities: physical, electronic, knowledge and there by leading to economic connectivity to enhance the prosperity of clusters of villages in the rural areas. The economic connectivity will generate a market and the production establishments for servicing the market. The PURA has all the dimensions to become a business enterprise, which has global dimensions but operating in every nook and corner of our country. The PURA entrepreneur has to have the skill for evolving a business plan with banks and also create infrastructural support such as educational institutions, health centres and small scale industries, transportation services, tele-education, tele-medicine, e-governance services in the region integrating with the governmental rural development schemes such as road, communication and transport and also with national and global markets to sell the products and services.

PURA Concept

The country is poised towards execution of PURA (Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas) for bridging the rural urban divide and achieving balanced socio-economic development in 4130 rural clusters across the country in the next five years. The northeastern states, other special category states and backward areas, identified by the planning commission would get priority under the scheme.

PURA Enterprise

You have experience in managing the large scale industries in this region. PURA enterprises can undertake management of schools, health care units, vocational training centres, chilling plants, silos and building a market, building of local industrial / ICT parks, tourism services, banking system and the regional business or industrial units. A new management style has to emerge for managing such type of PURA enterprises. This new PURA enterprise needs partnership from the bank, educational institutions, Government and the private entrepreneurs. The management system should have the flexibility to be competitive and you create a model meeting the local needs.

Steel Vision

When I am in the midst of steel makers, I would like to highlight the exact situation of our nation in steel making. Based on 2003 figures, our total steel production in the country during the year is about 33 million tones, whereas China produces about 182 million tones. Even though we are one of the largest miners of iron ore and also having large reserves, our crude steel production is one of the lowest in the world. Consumption of the steel is also the lowest. Our export is insignificant.

Time has come, India should have an aggressive Steel Vision. The progressive steel makers of Jameshedpur should ponder over this question and facilitate evolution of national steel vision for the next decade. The vision can be realized only through the synergistic effort from the management and the workforce. With focused steel policy of TISCO and the spirit of industrial harmony amongst workers, can lead to aggressive production, diversification and marketing of steel products both in the country and abroad with in the overall framework of the national policy. Also, as a societal responsibility TISCO should undertake adoption and nurturing of at least 10 PURAs in Jharkhand. The more we produce steel, the more we generate electricity, the more we produce food, the more our rural sector is developed and more the nation is empowered. Let us rededicate ourselves to achieve this mission.

Conclusion

On this happy occasion I am reminded of the words of Mahatma Gandhi when he visited Jamshedpur in 1925 and he said :- ?May God grant that in serving the Tatas you will also serve India and will always realize that you are here for a much higher mission than merely working for an industrial enterprise.? On my behalf, I would like to add that now,we have another vision for the country. This is known as Vision 2020 and one of the key components of this vision is to achieve self sufficiency in critical technologies. Companies like Tata Steel with the help of its dedicated work force which I see here can surely help the nation achieve its vision which aims at transforming India into a developed nation by the year 2020.

May God bless you.