Great concept, but it seriously needs a rethink to be truly useful

After Tata Neu was almost relegated to the background, there seems to be an attempt to revive the idea. Tata group now plans to invest $2 billion into Tata Neu and once again wants to make it the digital centerpiece of Tata group.

What is Tata Neu all about?

Tata Neu was an attempt by the Tata group to provide a digital platform for all the Tata products. For instance, the customer could log into Tata Neu and could actually book tickets on Vistara, order for groceries, buy apparel at the Westside store, buy electronic goods at Croma, and even book a car or an EV from Tata Motors; all on one interface. The project began with a bang, but it fell short of targets and later saw a slew of top-level exits. Now the Tata Neu is being revived, but will it really work?

 Problem of choice

One of the main reasons that Tata Neu did not take off in the first round was that it did not offer the value proposition that the names like Amazon, Flipkart or even Reliance Retail offered. You shop on the internet since you get a choice and are able to digitally compare the various products and make a choice and execute the transaction. That is what is an agnostic platform. However, the Tata Neu platform was limited only to Tata group products and that took away the most salient feature of ecommerce, which is the array of choice available.

Triggers for Tata Neu

The first thing that the Tata group will have to decide upon is whether to follow the ecommerce model or the group model. For instance, Adani is planning a super-app that will be entirely focused on being a group app. It will purely be launched with the idea to bring all the businesses of Adani under one digital roof. That is one extreme model. The other extreme is the ecommerce model where you emerge as an agnostic base but then you compete with the likes of Amazon and Flipkart; both with very deep pockets and digital DNA. The future of Tata Neu will depend on how they make this choice and move ahead.

 Making Tata Neu work

Tatas have a choice to make and they have to make the choice before they commit $2 billion. It is best to convert Tata Neu into a very innovative digital platform wherein all the products and services of Tata group can be accessed, but it must be a lot more. It has to be a portal rich in content and a combination of B2C and B2B. For a diverse group like the Tatas, the platform like Tata Neu can add tremendous value. However, it would largely depend on how the same is positioned. You really have too few super apps in the market to benchmark and not for a group as diverse as the Tatas. However, if they can pull off this project, it could be huge. It could set a major benchmark for digitization!