August 2024 | 1689 words | 7-minute read
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The future will be shaped by bright minds from around the world,” says N Chandrasekaran, Chairman, Tata Sons. This is the vision that drives the Tata Global Internships programme, which offers students from universities around the world an unparalleled opportunity to gain valuable experience while working for Tata group companies.
Spearheaded by the HR team at Tata Sons, the programme provides students with access to mentorship from industry experts and an inside track on shaping solutions to complex, real-world business challenges, while developing essential professional skills. “I have always admired the Tata brand,” says Calvin Liew, an MBA candidate from Judge Business School, University of Cambridge. “So, it was very appealing when the opportunity to work for the Tata brand, through an internship with Air India, came up.” Mr Liew was among the students shortlisted for the 2024 batch.
Started in 2019, Tata Global Internships is open to students of all nationalities who are currently pursuing a college or university degree outside India, irrespective of the level of study, discipline or stage of the course. In 2024, the programme received applications from 400+ universities across 70 countries, from which 291 students — studying at institutes like Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cornell University, Carnegie Mellon University, Tufts University, University of Cambridge, Oxford University, London School of Economics, and London Business School, among others — were selected.
“Our intention is to engage with young talent and create an immersive experience to shape their perceptions, experiences and understanding of the Tata brand,” says Dr Richard Lobo, Head of Innovation, R&D, Business Excellence and Chief Ethics Counsellor, Tata Chemicals, and a Tata Global Internships mentor. “It also allows us to understand where the future is pivoting and truly reflect on whether we are on the right path.”
Inside the Tata universe
“The genesis of the programme can be traced back to the 2019 Connect [internal summit for Tata leaders], where Mr Chandrasekaran spoke about making the group even more aspirational by bringing in a global talent pool from universities around the world,” says Aparna Jain, General Manager, Talent and Leadership, Tata Sons, who heads the Tata Global Internships programme.
"I spent an inspiring afternoon listening and learning from our current class of Tata Global Internships…who have been collaborating on frontier projects across the group. … It will be our collective endeavour to bring together more students and early leaders to solve access gaps when it comes to technology, materials, manufacturing, food, work and more.” - N Chandrasekaran
The programme offers student engagement in two formats — internships and capstone projects — that last between six to 12 weeks and are usually in-person, primarily in India, though some projects could be virtual or hybrid. Some in-person internships are also offered by Tata companies outside India. With 30 companies spanning 10 business verticals within the group, there is a wide range of opportunities.
Capstone or course credit projects are essentially a partnership, where four to six students from the same university work together on a business project as part of their graded curriculum. A university faculty member is closely involved, and the projects typically address a current or future business concern.
In the last five years, 900+ students have participated in internships and capstone projects under the programme, collaborating with 26 group companies, who have offered 200+ projects of strategic importance ranging from sustainability, digital transformation, supply chain management, market expansion, hospitality, finance to electric vehicles, semiconductors and generative AI.
“A big reason why these students want to be associated with Tata Global Internships is the prospect of working on customised projects, while being embedded in an emerging market like India, which is poised to become the third largest economy by 2030,” says Ms Jain.
Building business skills
Cutting their teeth on a live business project gives interns invaluable exposure early in their careers. For Nate Hinesley, an MBA student from the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, the opportunity to work for Tata Motors on its electric vehicles (EV) go-to-market strategy, product development road map and strategic thinking for the US market was “very enlightening and rewarding”. “We analysed the given problem and developed our own structure; this problem-solving approach will be really useful for me going forward,” says Mr Hinesley, who is keen to become a consultant in the automotive industry. “It sets the ground for how I will approach business problems and recommend solutions to future clients.”
During his internship, Mr Hinesley worked closely alongside subject matter experts and business leaders, such as his mentor Balaje Rajan, Chief Strategy Officer, Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles, and Tata Passenger Electric Mobility. “Through these internships, students gain exposure to India as a geography,” says Mr Rajan, who has been a Tata Global Internships mentor for four years. “We assign projects where they can apply their learnings in a practical way. We also give them exposure and access that is otherwise not easily available, particularly when it comes to leadership.”
On project completion, Mr Hinesley and the rest of the team presented their recommendations to the Tata Motors leadership. “They were able to crack the specifics of what we wanted,” says Mr Rajan. “The diverse mix of interns, from different countries and fields — there was an ex-army officer, an investment banker, an engineer — definitely helped.”
Fresh perspectives for growth
For Tata companies, the programme provides access to a talent pipeline of bright minds from top universities. “Diverse minds bring in different perspectives, adding value to group companies,” says Ms Jain. “In many ways, Tata Global Internships also provides a reverse immersion for our colleagues.”
The diverse viewpoints and innovative solutions that interns contribute help companies improve and stay ahead of industry trends. “Through Tata Global Internships we have had the opportunity to engage with people who are working on interesting ideas or in areas or markets where we would like to expand,” says Mr Rajan. “We once had a master’s student from MIT who was studying green hydrogen and working closely with a professor who was an authority on the subject. You can’t get better access than that. Those interactions helped us gain valuable insights on an advanced and constantly evolving field.”
Interns have often introduced companies to new ideas, sparking off concepts and solutions that drive business growth. “As a practice, we implement the actions that we agree upon after reviewing the interns’ recommendations,” says Dr Lobo. “We have filed four patents through a new framework created by interns from the 2023 batch of the National University of Singapore.”
In 2021, MBA students from IESE Business School, Barcelona, working on a capstone project, highlighted 18 areas of improvement at Tata Chemicals’ R&D centre in Pune to scale it up to a world-class facility. The interns benchmarked the centre’s practices and policies, compensation structures and operations against Fortune 500 companies. All 18 improvements were implemented.
A similar tale of success unfolded when a collaboration in 2020, between MBA students from the University of Michigan and Indian Hotels Company Ltd, resulted in the launch of a new offering — Taj Wellness Retreats.
An immersion like no other
As part of the internship, students discover the Tata universe in-depth, through visits to manufacturing plants and R&D centres across the group, the Tata Experience Centre at Bombay House and the Tata Central Archives in Pune.
Interns also interact with Mr Chandrasekaran and other senior group leaders, gaining an inside view of what it takes to build India’s most valuable brand. “I knew that Tata was a big conglomerate, but I didn’t understand the scale and diversity of the industries it is in until I arrived in India,” says Mr Liew. “It is something that is very unique to Tata and it is very impressive.”
Beyond work, interns explore India through curated excursions and food trails. They participate in group CSR activities to gain a holistic understanding of the Tata values that guide all the businesses. For Teena Bhatia, from the University of Pennsylvania, her interaction with girls studying at Anjuman-I-Islam in Mumbai brought home the transformative power of education. “The experience left an everlasting impression on our collective sense of purpose and the importance of giving back to society,” says Ms Bhatia, who interned last year at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).
Helping Ms Bhatia learn the ropes was her mentor Yogesh Rao, Chief of Data Science, TCS, who does not hesitate to praise her. “I take pride in saying that six to seven products on cutting-edge data sciences are live today with Ms Bhatia’s help and we are now slowly going to take it to the customers,” he reveals.
For Ms Bhatia and countless students who have benefited from Tata Global Internships, the experience has been life-changing: “While I am continuously learning about a variety of new ideas and concepts, ranging from exploratory data analysis to deep learning, I am more importantly learning about what truly builds a respected company — it is not the excellence of their products or services, it is the people.”
Making the cut
Applicants are initially vetted by the core Tata Global Internships team. Shortlisted candidates are invited to a second round of asynchronous interviews. Those who clear them are mapped to group companies according to their area of interest and project availability. Programme mentors from the respective companies conduct the final interviews.
“We look at excellence in grades, relevant skills, their overall growth trajectory in terms of what they have accomplished, and varied interests— for example, they could be part of a fintech club, an AI club or an autonomous vehicles club,” says Ms Jain. “We have even had people who worked in the European Parliament. At the same time, some of our best performers have been undergraduates, who are just so smart and motivated.”
- Sharmistha Choudhury
