Tata Communications aims to create a strong knowledge system by collaborating with external technology players, such as VC firms, start-ups and industry bodies, to provide advanced solutions and services for customers. The Corporate Venturing and Innovations Group (CVIG) manages the Open Innovation process, identifying numerous innovations and AI initiatives with a strategic focus.
The team works with various business stakeholders and external partners to develop capabilities for emerging customer needs, new markets and platforms. Together, they push the boundaries of innovation by combining expertise with young researchers, innovators and entrepreneurs.
Initiatives identified by CVIG in FY23
Our R&D team is dedicated to developing and enhancing products and services that promote energy efficiency, reduce carbon emissions and enable sustainable operations.
We are investing in emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and the Internet of Things (IoT) to develop sustainable solutions for our customers. Our IoT-based smart building solution is an excellent example of how our efforts are being directed towards creating sustainable solutions. It helps our customers optimise energy consumption and reduce their carbon footprint.
We collaborate with external partners, research institutions and universities to identify and develop sustainable solutions. Our partnerships with leading universities such as IIT Madras, IIT Delhi and Harvard enable us to leverage domain knowledge and expertise of researchers to develop innovative solutions. We work with start ups, accelerators and venture capitalists to identify and incubate sustainable technology solutions.
We have launched internal programmes such as ‘Shape the Future’ and ‘Customer co-innovation’ to foster an innovation culture that promotes sustainable practices. Our ‘Sustainability Impact Innovations’ award category under the Tata Communications InnoVista programme recognises and encourages innovation projects that have a positive impact on the environment and society.
Tata Communications InnoVista is a platform acknowledging impactful innovations. The awards are divided into categories, each with unique definitions and criteria. The ‘Implemented Innovation’ recognises successful innovations, ‘Piloted Technologies’ lauds developed and patented technologies, while ‘Dare To Try’ appreciates failed innovations that yielded learning insights. Additional categories include ‘Most Innovative Partner,’ ‘Sustainability Impact Innovations,’ and ‘Design Honour.’
innovation projects have been awarded in the past 2 years
The ‘Shape the Future’ programme is designed to encourage out-of-the-box thinking within the organisation. It includes three programmes: STF Disrupt, STF Think-A-Thon and STF Sprints.
is the flagship intrapreneurship programme of Tata Communications. It has a dual mandate of creating new businesses by building new products internally and institutionalising entrepreneurial mindset and innovation culture within the Company.
This programme helps the management leverage the untapped innovation potential of Tata Communications employees. Winning ideas get incubated with the goal of creating new product lines (within an existing BU or independent).
New ideas under incubation
is the programme designed to source unmet needs or emerging use cases of the customer from the customer-facing teams and working on resolving those for better customer experience. The problem statements submitted in ‘STF Think-A-Thon’ are deliberated upon by a team of Leadership Forum jury members. The actionable insights gained from the brainstorming sessions are forwarded to the respective teams for follow up.
is conducted to source pressing challenges or problem statements from the business units and inspire all employees to submit their impactful ideas to resolve the problem statements. The programme aims to crowd-source challenges or problem statements faced by different business units and inspire the employees to submit impactful ideas to resolve those challenges.
Ideas received in FY23
Winning ideas are being prototyped
Our ‘Customer co-innovation’ programme is another initiative launched in FY23, with the intent of leveraging Tata Communications’ innovation engine to drive growth for our strategic customers in a collaborative manner. We bring in thought leadership to showcase the art of the possible, innovative solutions to address our customers’ business challenges and enable disruptive use-case discovery and delivery to keep up with digitalisation in the customers’ industry.
