Tata Group Not In The GMV Multiple Game, Says N Chandrasekaran

A week into the launch of the Tata Neu super app, N Chandrasekaran of Tata Sons doesn't want the digital venture to be compared with any other competitor.

“We have our game plan. Let me play my game,” Chandrasekaran, chairman of Tata Sons Pvt. told BloombergQuint, at the launch of the super app on April 14. The app was available only to group employees prior to this.

The Tata Neu app was initially launched on April 7 and within hours faced tech glitches.

“We faced issues for three hours after the launch, due to the overwhelming (number of) logins, which is a good thing,” said Pratik Pal, chief executive officer of Tata Digital Ltd.

Any consumer platform has to be built with inputs from the consumer, and the company is looking forward to “feedback and criticism”, Chandrasekaran said, without referring to the launch-day glitches.

Chandrasekaran, who has an eye for financial returns, said businesses cannot just have cash burn; it also needs to generate financial returns.

"We are not in the GMV multiples game,” Chandrasekaran said. The gross merchandise value should generate cash flows and every business needs to have a cash flow plan, he added, while alluding to the fact that they have just begun. “Allow us to run.”

As part of the One Tata focus, Chandrasekaran has been consolidating consumer-facing companies to drive synergies.

“What we have accomplished is to bring all Tata brands together. We have assembled one of the finest teams. It has successful entrepreneurs who have done and built businesses. When you have to go forward and push the vision to the limits, we need to have intelligent talent.”

As part of the process, Tata Digital started with data mining of customers across the group. That was the starting point, Chandrasekaran said. “Every CEO presented what worked for them and what didn't. It helped in curating the product and services for the app.”

According to Pal, they have about 70-80 million consumers across all consumer-facing Tata brands, including many in the age group of 26-35 years.

“We have 18-26 year-old customers interacting through BigBasket, 1mg and Titan,” said Harish Bhat, brand custodian at Tata Sons.

Tata Neu’s focus will be on the millennial audience. "I am told if we need to get millennial, we need to have Buy-Now-Pay-Later,” said Chandrasekaran.

“We are working to get that feature in our next update. It should take one to four months to get the feature into the app,” said Pal. The app is looking at 12 vernacular languages for its customer chat box that should come in the next update, he said.

Chandrasekaran announced that Tata Neu will be “open architecture” and Neupass – it's loyalty programme – will eventually extend beyond Tata brands.

The Neucoins, which are earned as part of the purchases, are convertible at par in rupees and across Tata Group brands. All native Tata Group consumer brands who are on the app will have Neupass, said Chandrasekaran.