What Debasis Ray teaches about privacy-first marketing

It is possible to think purpose and out of that purpose build successful businesses. The first philanthropic efforts in the country, a lot of things started with the Tata Trust. Now, how has your mandate evolved from across these many years and what is it today? I mean, what are the focus areas today for Tata Trust? The focus areas in terms of spaces we work in remain the same, which are largely seven. Health, education, water, energy, rural uplift, urban poverty alleviation and arts, craft and culture.

But what has changed over the years, or is changing, not has changed, is changing, is that from traditionally purely a grant making organization over the several past decades, after the first phase of large institution building, we are trying to, along with grant making, be more directly involved in implementing several of the projects. That's one. Second, we are trying to bring in, wherever possible, relevant technology to multiply the impact of work. And a third is that we are also trying to build institutions, not always in a brick and mortar edifice,

but tying up with large bodies of knowledge to solve India problems with India oriented solutions. So I would say the shift that is taking place is that along with grant making, be more directly involved in implementing some large causes over larger geographies. So is this largely on a consulting knowledge basis or are you actually implementing? Because that requires a much larger team. Yes. And you will also be working with partners, of course. Yes. We are working with partners, but actually implementing. Right. Okay.

Say for example, we have this project called Lakhpati Kisan. We are trying to, we have identified some 100,000, 1 lakh tribal families from very poor pockets of the country in four states, and trying to take their annual income beyond 100,000 rupees to the purpose that they are irreversibly brought out of poverty. So there are teams are also involved along with our… Set the ball rolling. Yes. Our teams are directly monitoring, implementing along with our partners. And how do you use technology? You mentioned technology when you started off. Yes.

I mean, of course, that's one of the biggest areas, solving at least some problems. Yes. Not all definitely. How is that becoming more important in solving your problems? What are the partners that you are working with there maybe? Yes. One is that government, either at the federal level or at the state level, governments have a scheme for every conceivable need of the population. These schemes can be even more impactful when you connect citizens with the schemes. Right. So sometimes it so happens that there is a scheme but a citizen is not fully aware.

Or under a broader scheme, a citizen has a particular need area which the property department of the government is not aware of. So we are trying to bring the two together to connect and we call it data-driven governance. Where through simple handheld devices, our teams have in the project areas gone out to individual villages, captured their needs, from which comes out a village development plan, from which agglomerated becomes a block development plan, and agglomerated further becomes a district development plan.

So there technology is being deployed to capture needs and do the connect such that development can be absolutely targeted. So most start-ups today are focusing on solving problems for urban India. Of course that's much easier. They understand the customer needs much better. Lot less work is being done in rural India. And Tata Trust has a few set-ups to have the organizations to have an expertise in rural India. What more do you think needs to be done there? We are trying to also work in that area.

We have an entity called Social Alpha, which has been established by Tata Trust in the Department of Science and Technology to incubate entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs, and incubate social entrepreneurs in the areas that we are in, which are let's say agriculture, health, water, education, and incubate entrepreneurs such that they have both urban and rural focus. I'll give you just one example. MRI. To do an MRI today, you have to go to a hospital, a large hospital.

You do not have across the country very many large hospitals where a patient requiring MRI can easily go in. What if you conceived a mobile MRI which can be mounted on a truck and taken to a remote area, let's say for a couple of days, where from a larger catchment area people can come and take that facility. A social entrepreneur has thought about it. Tata Trust is trying to help that. Help and make it a reality.

How do you make the rest of corporate India believe in this purpose at a time where it's getting harder and harder and there are so many demands on profitability? How do you imbibe that actually? That's some of the biggest challenges today and Tata Group is one among the few who are doing it well. They are doing it and I think today's younger successive entrepreneurs can draw inspiration from organizations like these that it is possible to think purpose and out of that purpose build successful businesses. Right. It is possible to do so.

I often think that many of the large technology platforms or solutions that today one uses or hears of, they all began with a purpose. Right. The idea is that how do you retain that purpose by striking a balance between the need of the business, the need of your customers and the need of the environment in which you operate. Think of Tata Nano. Let's not talk about the market success failure. Of course, of course. Think of the ideation. Yeah, yeah. The way it was ideated that can a car be made more affordable?

How many countries have developed their own car scratch up? Tata Steel conceived in late 1890s, fulfilled in 1907. A century later, think of another business being conceived also with an idea of that make mobility more affordable. So I think that culture continues that ability to think like that, ability to take risks, ability to pursue causes, it is possible to do so. And that's all. Thank you.