Incorporated in 1996, Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL) spearheads the Tata group’s presence in the telecom sector. With a workforce of 12000 employees spread over 60 locations across India, employee collaboration on activities, documents, reports, etc. was cumbersome. It was hard to find relevant information, which meant employees were wasting time every day trying to find key information they needed to do their jobs. TTSL wanted to promote collaboration, knowledge sharing, and communication to increase employee productivity. To foster a stronger sense of community among its employees, TTSL chose to create an intranet portal using Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007. The easy-to-use intranet portal facilitates collaborative content development, information re-use, and enterprise search. It enables access to new centralized applications such library management and employee referrals as well as customised surveys and databases. TTSL has gained from new business efficiencies and a solution for advanced knowledge management. Secure, role based access is also appreciated across the organization.

1. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server
Customer Solution Case Study
Portal Solution Boosts Employee Productivity,
Strengthens Core Value System and Reduce Costs
Overview “Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server lowers
Country or Region: India
Industry: Telecom
development costs by as much as three-fold through a
huge jump in developer productivity. A remarkably
Customer Profile
Tata Teleservices, a part of the U.S$70.8
intuitive solution, employees immediately figured out
billion Tata Group spearheads the Group’s how to search, browse, and share information,
presence in the telecom sector. It has a
presence in the GSM space, through its
increasing productivity four times.”
joint venture with NTT DOCOMO of Japan, Shirish Munj, Chief Information Officer, Tata Teleservices Ltd.
and offers differentiated products and
services under the TATA DOCOMO brand Incorporated in 1996, Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL) spearheads
name. the Tata group’s presence in the telecom sector. With a workforce
Business Situation of 12000 employees spread over 60 locations across India,
The company’s geographical distribution employee collaboration on activities, documents, reports, etc. was
across the country was making it difficult
for employees to work in tandem. To cumbersome. It was hard to find relevant information, which meant
accommodate rapid growth, it wanted to employees were wasting time every day trying to find key
seamlessly connect employees, and
therefore needed effective tools for information they needed to do their jobs. TTSL wanted to promote
improving information management and collaboration, knowledge sharing, and communication to increase
knowledge sharing across the company.
Solution employee productivity. To foster a stronger sense of community
Tata Teleservices implemented a among its employees, TTSL chose to create an intranet portal using
customized intranet portal solution based
on Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007. The easy-to-use intranet
2007 with help from Microsoft® Gold portal facilitates collaborative content development, information re-
Certified Partner Tata Consultancy
Services. use, and enterprise search. It enables access to new centralized
applications such library management and employee referrals as
Benefits
 Increases work force efficiency well as customised surveys and databases. TTSL has gained from
 Two to three-fold reduction in new business efficiencies and a solution for advanced knowledge
development costs
 Three to four fold increase in employee management. Secure, role based access is also appreciated across
productivity the organization.
 Enhances knowledge management
 Improves decision making

2. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server
Customer Solution Case Study
Portal Solution Boosts Employee Productivity,
Strengthens Core Value System and Reduce Costs

3. Situation organization’s success. “We’re a very
Tata Teleservices is part of the INR Rs dynamic, growing organization, and as we
325,334 crore Tata Group that has over 80 bring on new people and grow our business
companies, over 357,000 employees and globally, we need to make it easy for people
more than 3.5 million shareholders. With a to securely distribute, access, and collaborate
committed investment of over U.S.$ 7.5 on information,” says Ashish Deshpande,
billion in Telecom (FY 2006), the Group has a General Manager - IT, TTSL. “So the need was
formidable presence across the telecom to find a way to share information and best
value chain. practices across the company. For us to
become smarter and more efficient, we
Tata Teleservices Limited spearheads the needed to be able to share knowledge across
Group’s presence in the telecom sector. the company.”
Incorporated in 1996, Tata Teleservices
Limited was the first to launch CDMA mobile To stay competitive, consultants must be able
services in India with the Andhra Pradesh to quickly develop new business proposals,
circle. The company swung into expansion assemble project teams, and deliver best
mode and currently has a pan-India state-of- practice services to its clients. Therefore,
the-art network. TTSL needed a constructive knowledge
management system to be able to target
Having pioneered the CDMA 2000 technology information to specific internal audiences,
platform in India, Tata Teleservices has invite discussion, and keep everyone up to
established a 3G-ready robust and reliable date on company and industry news.
telecom infrastructure in partnership with
Motorola, Ericsson and Lucent. The company Employee readiness was also a key challenge
also launched GSM services in 2009. for TTSL. Newly-hired employees didn’t know
where to look for information, increasing their
Tata Teleservices’ bouquet of telephony learning curve and reducing their productivity.
services includes mobile services, wireless
desktop phones, public booth telephony, and “We knew that we needed to redesign our IT
wireline services. Other services include infrastructure to support better information
value-added services such as voice portal, sharing and be more efficient,” says Ashish
roaming, post-paid Internet services, 3-way Deshpande. “Needless to say, there was a
conferencing, group calling, Wi-Fi Internet, clear requirement to revamp our knowledge
USB Modem, data cards, calling card services environment.”
and enterprise services.
More than 12,000 TTSL employees can be Solution
found in and around 60 cities, splitting time In September 2007, TTSL began its search
between the company’s offices and customer for a new intranet solution, with the objective
sites. However, in recent years, its IT to bring all of the firm’s content and
management found it challenging to maintain knowledge sources into one easy-to-use
the high level of collaboration and location so that employees could quickly find
information sharing that is critical to the

4. MOSS 2007 Architecture
complete information, regardless of its and easier,” says Shirish Munj, TTSL. “Mind
location. Beans, our knowledge portal, provides a
standard framework for efficient knowledge
After evaluating available intranet options, management, communication, and
the company decided to implement a solution collaboration.” Accessed through the intranet
based on Microsoft® Office SharePoint® as well as over the internet, employees can
Server 2007. TTSL engaged Microsoft® Gold access relevant information from any
Certified Partner, Tata Consultancy Services location.
(TCS) to develop the solution. TCS has
extensive skills in building SharePoint Mind Beans, the knowledge portal provides
applications. It architected, developed and several features such as blogs, communities
deployed the complete application from end and Gyan Bhandar or a knowledge repository
to end. “Microsoft's portal solution is highly that can be accessed and updated by
cost efficient from our side as we have employees. This allows sharing training
integrated and migrated many .NET solutions experiences, whitepapers and case studies.
with Office SharePoint Server 2007,” says In addition, the portal offers separate
Shirish Munj, Chief Information Officer, TCS. sections for employees to share and access
“It reduces overall ongoing effort for best business or technology practices,
maintenance and implementing new changes breakthrough ideas and innovations.
by 80 percent and enhances productivity
using Office SharePoint Server 2007 out of The intranet portal includes Web sites and
box functionality.” collaboration workspaces for each business
unit which uses the content management
“Our primary focus was to make employees features of Office SharePoint Server 2007 to
more productive by providing them access to publish its own information. Additionally, it
tools, information, and people contacts faster helps gain visibility for yourself and your team
using ‘Team Sites’ and ‘MySite’ and helps to
make better informed decisions in the
business.
A central repository stores all business
information, giving users access to relevant
information in real-time. It also provides easy
search functionality to find the documents
and other content that they may need. This
serves as a self service solution and a
common file sharing platform which
effectively reduced the HR and admin work
load. The system has therefore, found greater
acceptability among employees.
Various applications currently reside on the
intranet. These have been implemented

5. using Office SharePoint Server 2007 TTSL has also been able to create blogs and
features, custom web parts and user controls survey’s integrated with Microsoft Outlook,
and deployed in medium server farm. Picture Libraries, ‘MySite’, ‘Team Sites’ for all
business units and project teams. It
One of the applications manages library book implemented Designer Out-Of-Box workflows
transactions including registration, issuing, for document libraries. Additionally, it also
current status etc. There is an employee implemented workflows to send e-mails for
referral system for jobs posted on the changes in document libraries and lists.
intranet, which also acts as a repository of
resumes for future reference. In addition to Different options that were provisioned in the
these, there is also a platform for raising portal include:
concerns against unethical behaviour in the
company. It explains the Tata Code of  Quick Search: Search based on specific
Conduct and implements workflows to route fields like Mobile Number, Circuit Label,
various types of concerns to the relevant Customer Name, and Location.
authorities. It provides up to date status  Database Review: Quick reference of
reports on concerns raised, discarded, frequently used 15 fields from the master
pending or resolved at any point of time. database.
 Database Extensive: Displays all fields of
Another application, which is accessible to all the master database.
employees across locations, provides a  Customized Reports: Generates weekly
unique way to buy and sell goods such and monthly reports.
household articles, electronic gadgets,
vehicles, rent accommodation. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 has
created a robust and secure platform for
Using InfoPath forms, the company collaboration. It can be accessed by
customizes many surveys including an online employees over the Internet, thus making it
survey for new joinees. The solution also truly efficient, secure and effective.
provides project space for every team and
their relevant projects. Each team can make
announcements, display project highlights, Benefits
team members, team events, store and share TTSL has experienced several improvements.
documents, participate in the discussions, The solution enables collaborative content
and manage team meetings. development, information reuse, and
enterprise search. In doing so, it has
Another portal facilitates better service to top improved the productivity of, and
corporate customers by maintaining the collaboration among, consultants and
database of all commissioned links on a business users, created new business
centralised server. This was the outcome of efficiencies, and enhanced knowledge-
a Six Sigma initiative, designed initially for AP management and security capabilities.
Circle’s Technology team, it captures
customer and network details. “Thanks to the new intranet solution, we are
not only fostering employee efficiency by

6. providing users with a more powerful, more productivity,” says Ashish Deshpande. “A
versatile system, but while doing so, we are remarkably intuitive solution, employees
also saving significant sums of money,” says immediately figured out how to search,
Ashish Deshpande. browse, and share information, increasing
productivity four times.”
Increases Work Force Efficiency
TTSL has seen an increase in the quality and In addition to the intranet’s built-in enterprise
efficiency of collaboration among search capabilities and workflow tools, TTSL
geographically dispersed team members. has standardized user interfaces. Simple
“Increased efficiency enables our employees tools reduce the learning curve and make
to be more responsive to users. They can now technology adoption easier for new
accomplish more tasks within the same employees. This reduces the initial training
amount of time, which saves the company burden on new employees, thus reducing the
resources in terms of development time and need to travel across locations to attend
staff utilization,” explains Shirish Munj. training sessions.
Enhances Employee Productivity by
Four-fold
Two to Three-fold Reduction in Since the solution provides a single repository
Development Costs for all of the company’s intellectual property,
“Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server employees are now much more productive.
lowers development costs by as much as The new intranet gives faster access to the
three-fold through a huge jump in developer right information, which helps employees
streamline their processes and accomplish
Mind Beans, a Comprehensive Knowledge Portal, Designed to Foster a Culture of
their tasks more quickly.
Learning and Sharing
“Our implementation of Microsoft’s portal
solution has been a huge success,” says
Shirish Munj. “We spend less time searching
for content; instead we focus on business
initiatives, thus increasing employee
productivity four-fold.”
Enhances Knowledge Management
Because its intellectual property is no longer
splintered among several intranet systems,
TTSL has been able to enhance its knowledge
management capabilities. “Now that our
intellectual property is better integrated and
more accessible, we’re learning new ways to
take advantage of it,” says Shirish Munj. “Our
workforce is more efficient, and the
collaborative use of our intellectual property

7. has had an impact on our employees’
productivity.”
Improves Decision Making
Since all the data is available on a single
platform, decision-making is more informed
and qualitatively superior than when
decisions may have been based on
incomplete information. Having access to a
platform that brings together data from
heterogeneous sources into a unified,
standardized view, will help in reducing the
time taken for analysis and decision making.
TTSL aims to exploit all the capabilities of the
Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal to
empower its employees and enhance a
seamlessness, integration and efficiency.

8. For More Information About Tata Consultancy Microsoft Office System
For more information about Microsoft Services The Microsoft Office System is the business
products and services, call the Microsoft Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is an IT world’s chosen environment for information
Sales Information Center at (800) services, business solutions and outsourcing work, providing the programs, servers, and
426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft organization that delivers real results to services that help you succeed by
Canada Information Centre at (877) global businesses, ensuring a level of transforming information into impact.
568-2495. Customers who are deaf or certainty no other firm can match. TCS offers
hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text a consulting-led, integrated portfolio of IT and For more information about the Microsoft
telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) IT-enabled services delivered through its Office System, go to:
892-5234 in the United States or (905) unique Global Network Delivery Model, www.microsoft.com/office
568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 recognized as the benchmark of excellence in
United States and Canada, please contact software development.
your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access
information using the World Wide Web, go A part of the Tata group, India’s largest
to: www.microsoft.com industrial conglomerate, TCS has over
130,000 of the world's best trained IT
For more information about Tata consultants in 42 countries. The company
Teleservices Ltd. products and services, generated consolidated revenues of USD5.7
call +91 22 66671414 or visit the Web billion for the fiscal year ended 31 March
site at: www.tataindicom.com 2008, and is listed on the National Stock
Exchange and Bombay Stock Exchange in
For more information about Tata India.
Consultancy Services products and
services, call +91 22 6750 9999 or visit
the Web site at: www.tcs.com
Software and Services Hardware
 Windows Server System  Intel
Server: Dual CPU x dual Core, 4 GB
− Microsoft Office SharePoint Server RAM
2007  SAN: 1 TB HDD usage space with RAID 5
− Microsoft SQL Server 2005 with SP1 capability
− Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2007
− Microsoft Office 2007
− Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0
© 2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This case
study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO
WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published December, 2009