The Tata Group is a $63 billion Indian manufacturing conglomerate, who's portfolio includes leading communications, hotel, finance, materials, energy and automotive businesses. Innovation is at the centre of the Tata organisation.

Most recently taking on marquees Jaguar and Land Rover, Tata has just launched the 'cheapest car in the world' - India's £1,300 Nano, and announced a new 'green' Land Rover to be built in England. With more than a century of experience in the UK, Tata's growing presence has culminated in the company employing 47,000 UK staff today. Anwar Hasan, Head of Tata Limited UK says "despite the global economic downturn, we at Tata have grounds for optimism. Across our UK businesses, the spirit of entrepreneurialism and innovation continues to thrive". There seems no better example of an organisation constantly looking to better itself, to innovate and lead the market. Tata's technology requirements are no different...

The Issue:
Tata's UK headquarters in London plays the key role of purchasing parts and machinery on behalf of the manufacturing groups in India. An example, almost all the nuts and bolts required for Tata cars and every furnace for Tata steel plants purchased from outside India are purchased through Tata Ltd London. Large quantities of information, pricing details and shipments need to be kept track of. Tata's existing technology fell far short of on-going requirements in three ways: Firstly, off-site access to information was very basic. Simple Webmail for MS Outlook was the only functional mobile communication with the office - without any access to their Enterprise Resource Planning tool (ERP). Checking on orders or shipping was therefore a deskbound job, as was any other functionality of Tata corporate systems.

Secondly, with such critical information only being available in the office, a disaster recovery programme was paramount. Daily backups manually taken off-site was the only hope should the worst ever happen. It was both time-consuming and an unacceptable security risk. The last issue spurring change was support. A basic support contract for Tata software, and no in-house IT department, meant that when a PC went down it could be hours or days before it was repaired. No immediate support was available to the team, just a 'take a ticket and queue' approach to all IT issues, and a cost attached. As Anwar Hasan said "Cost savings were high on the agenda, plus the ability to work flexibly."

The Solution
Tata needed a solution to these issues fast. A new ERP system and flexible, secure working environments were a must. As Kamal Desai, Purchasing Manager at Tata Ltd. said : “We looked at other companies to implement the change required but they seemed either too costly or too rigid. "Intercept was then recommended to us and seemed to provide exactly what we were looking for. Their philosophy was to work and implement the way we (Tata) wanted, to provide everything we were looking for, and at great value for money. "We have now outsourced 100% of our email functionality, and our ERP system will be live with Intercept in May. It only took four days to get this up and running, to be able to access all of my emails and my replicated online desktop from anywhere in the world. We are so impressed that the team in India will also be coming online to access the ERP, online desktop and full email functionality too". Intercept's OnlineDesktop solution for Tata has freed their staff to work more effectively and efficiently - not to be tied to a desk. And because all of their information is hosted and secured by Intercept, manual backup disks and worries are a thing of the past. Desai continues: "We now have uninterrupted access to all of our work, instant support from Intercept and a more productive team as a result of this implementation. It is unusual I know for any solution to end up as good as one had hoped - but with Intercept it certainly has. I would definitely recommend them. Intercept are committed to what they do, friendly, and a real treat to work with."