N Chandrasekaran's second innings as Tata Sons Chairman: What to expect?

N Chandrasekaran's first four-year term as chairman of Tata Sons will end in February next year, but the board is likely to announce the renewal soon.

"The board wants to extend his chairmanship at the earliest to express its satisfaction in his performance, say sources. "It will give a positive message to market," they added.

Chandrasekaran is expected to continue the strategy of simplification, synergy and scale in Tata group in his second term at the Chairman. In the last three-and-a-half years as chairman, he has seeded new age businesses--- including Tata Digital, Tata Electronics, Tata Medical Devices and Diagnostics and Tata Payments--- and revived the traditional businesses in steel, automobiles, power and consumer products. Some of the legacy issues are still unresolved, but he is focused to cut the losses there.

Chandrasekaran has taken efforts to transform the 153-year-old Tata group by changing the old mindset and advocating synergy. He pushed for companies to co-operate in common areas of interests.

Chandrasekaran has been focused on balance sheet fitness and financial returns in these years. Simplification resulted in the creation of 10 clusters. The cluster-specific approach brought in synergy. Scaling the core business was the next move.

He is pursuing the strategy of 'Digital Everywhere'. According to his plan, every company, whether it is a manufacturer or a services firm, B2B or a B2C, will be driven by AI, data analytics, cloud computing and machine learning.

Tata Digital plans to launch SuperApp under the supervision of Chandrasekaran. It will be an open architecture. It will have a strong loyalty programme, payments engine, financial products and other categories.

SuperApp will have most of the categories such as electronics, groceries, fashion and lifestyle, beauty, travel, health, education and entertainment, among others.

Chandrasekaran is also trying hard to resolve problems in Tata Steel Europe and Tata Power's ultra mega power plant in Mundra. Tata Motors' emphasis on electric mobility is likely to give it an edge over rivals in coming years. In short, Chandrasekaran is expected to drive same agenda, that worked well for Tata group, in the second term.

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