Tata Communications Powers One-third Of World's Internet Routes: Nick Parmar
What strategies is Tata Communications employing to navigate and capitalise on the current telecommunications surge?
Tata Communications is a key player in the telecommunication sector, powering one-third of the world's internet routes. We started our journey from Mumbai, India, which all the way goes out to the globe and comes back on our side allowing us to consume our own technology sending a lot of data back through video streaming. We have a separate division called the media and entertainment, which looks into video streaming and its operations. Last year, the FIFA and the IPL matches were also streamed with our underlying network. We even provide a private 5G network, which means having the fifth-generation network in a mall, a warehouse, or any of those regions that require larger bandwidth to transfer videos with the lowest latency. On top of this, our APIs and software development tools unleash the power of 30 per cent of the world’s internet routes.
How was the last financial year for the company?
As a publicly traded company, I can't pinpoint exactly the profits of particular product lines, but according to our integrated report for 2022-2023, our FY2023 data revenue stood at Rs 14,096 crore, profit after tax (PAT) was at Rs 1,796 crore and EBITDA was recorded at Rs 4,318 crore respectively.
How is Tata Communications synergising with its group sister company Croma?
It was during the pandemic that we decided to upgrade Croma’s online shopping experience with video interaction. We connected consumers with live–agent assistance providing them with an in-personal shopping experience online, a concept that is called ‘dark stores’. Our synergy was received positively and we witnessed increased user engagement and traffic along with Croma’s higher sales. A 70 per cent increase in the channels was recorded with over two lakh Croma customer calls in 2022. Tata Communications aims to design and deliver custom solutions to meet the ever-changing needs of customers and with our Croma synergy we were able to showcase our ability.
How would you explain Tata Communications customer retention ability?
We believe customers are our fortune finders and retaining them is our responsibility. But we are one of the companies that are enterprise to enterprise which works with businesses and doesn't sell the majority of products to consumers directly. Most of our services are designed in such a way that all the consumer brands and consumers can take advantage of them, this adds to our increased customer retention which is further underlined by our net promoter score (NPS) which is increasing YoY. Similarly, our gross revenue share by geography – India: 45.3 per cent, America: 26.2 per cent, Europe: 13.2 per cent; APAC: 9.7 per cent and MENA: 5.7 per cent (data revenue for all geographies excluding subsidiaries and rentals) underlines our positive customer retention.
How would you explain Tata Communications business model?
The business model of Tata Communications can be rightly defined as a hyperconnected ecosystem which is a network of people, devices and systems that is developed to seamlessly interact and share information with each other to drive value across. This ecosystem is characterised by high-speed communication and collaboration between different components, such as smartphones, computers, sensors and cloud services wherein data and information are exchanged in real-time, enabling faster decision-making and more efficient resource allocation, leading to significant improvements in productivity, innovation and employee and customer experience.
How is this hyper-connected ecosystem secured amidst growing online threats or challenges?
We are a global player and when it comes to providing a network of fibre optics, security is the biggest concern. A secure network has many layers that conform to a rule, such as a specification, policy, standard or law. Having a widespread business across different countries
We abide by all the regulations in different niches and every region has different regulations, it's not one size fits all. So, to secure our larger ecosystem, we regularly comply with telcos and security compliance when it comes to fibre optics and keeping the consumer in mind, we take the necessary steps. We do have different products but security is our priority.
Could you tell us about your USD 100 million acquisition of Kaleyra?
We are super excited about our acquisition of Kaleyra which is an already established omni-channel firm and since we acquired it on 5 October 2023, we are looking forward to introducing more auxiliary services like the company. The communications service organisation provides API and visual tools to communicate with customers globally which it facilitates seamlessly through various channels, including SMS, MMS, RCS, WhatsApp for Business, Video and Voice. Tata Communications aims to consume these channels for broader business endeavours.
Is Tata Communications working in collaboration with Meta?
Yes, we are working with Meta as the company builds partnerships with only the key players worldwide and we are one of the global brands to work collaboratively with the tech giant’s instant messaging application ‘WhatsApp’. Tata Communications integrates WhatsApp into consumers' omnichannel engagement strategy to provide embedded communications, flexibility and a customer conversation linked into a single workflow.
Tata Group has recently partnered with Nvidia. How will Tata Communications leverage Nvidia’s AI expertise?
With this collaboration, Tata Group is aiming to bring state-of-the-art AI capabilities within reach to thousands of organisations, businesses and AI researchers and hundreds of startups in India. Tata Communications and Nvidia will develop an artificial intelligence (AI) cloud in India aimed at providing critical infrastructure enabling computing’s next lifecycle. Our robust global network combined with the AI cloud will empower enterprises to transfer data across the AI cloud at high speeds, to effectively bring the AI cloud to the doorstep of every enterprise.
What is Tata Communications business strategy for the coming new year?
Our new year strategy is set. We will stick to our hyper-connected ecosystem delivering customers with personalised services and optimising engagement based on customer preferences- anytime, anywhere and on any digital channel. We will work in the direction of being that one digital player to provide a digital fabric of all consumer experiences under one umbrella be it - communication technology, hyper-connected ecosystems and connectivity.
