New Delhi, Aug. 26 -- Tata Realty & Infrastructure Ltd (TRIL), a Tata Sons subsidiary that initially focused on commercial real estate, has expanded into high-end commercial and residential markets, as well as India's growing infrastructure sector. Over the past few years, the Mumbai-based company has aggressively expanded, leveraging its international experience and infrastructure project expertise to tap into key Indian cities.
TRIL's growth is fueled by a significant digital transformation, integrating technology across its value chain. In an interview with TechCircle, Girish Hadkar, Chief Information & Digital Officer (CIDO) of TRIL, discusses how digital technologies sustained the company during challenging times and outlines its future technology roadmap. Edited excerpts.
What technologies are you most excited about for your organisation and the real estate sector?
Tata Realty is driving digital transformation in real estate by integrating technology across its value chain. Beginning with robust ERP, CRM, and analytics platforms, the company has adopted advanced technologies like bots, drones, and digital twins to enhance customer service and quality.
Artificial intelligence (AI) and digital twins are particularly promising. Tata Realty is exploring AI-powered valuation models, Gen AI chatbots for customer service, and virtual agents for personalised property suggestions, AI-enabled virtual tours, fraud detection, risk scoring, AI-driven design tools, and smart building management systems.
Digital twins offer significant potential for operational assets and construction projects. Tata Realty is focusing on use cases in leasing operations, facility and asset management, and physical construction operations. Integrating real-time operational data (IoT/OT) with 3D models and analytics will provide valuable insights. Tata Realty will implement digital twins for its commercial assets in operation within the next few months.
Can you give us a sense of how your company's tech budget is growing?
Our technology investments follow a "Bimodal IT" approach: strengthening the core and building for the future. Five years ago, our digital transformation began with significant investments in core solutions. Now that we have a strong foundation, we're shifting our focus to building for the future. While our overall investment level remains consistent, we're allocating more resources to future-oriented technologies while maintaining our core solutions.
What are your key technology focus areas this year?
Tata Housing has a strong residential real estate development business, but our strategic focus is now on expanding our Intellion "Commercial Leasing & Asset Management" portfolio from 5 million to 30 million square feet. This year, we will build robust solutions to enable construction project management for efficient delivery, optimise operating costs, strengthen quality processes for consistent delivery and reduce cost overruns from design and coordination issues. We will also develop a scalable platform to strengthen commercial leasing operations and facility and asset management.
What is the size and skillset of your tech team? Are there plans to expand?
Tata Realty implements technology through Fusion Teams, combining business and technology members, alongside expert partners. Fusion Teams are formed around key transformation areas such as analytics, customer experience, finance transformation, commercial business and project execution. We prioritise upskilling existing employees through a comprehensive plan that includes formal, social, and on-the-job learning.
How does technology drive innovation at your company?
Let me give you a few examples to answer your question. In the first instance, Tata Realty streamlined its quality control by digitising processes with Autodesk Construction Cloud and MS Analytics. The transition from paper-based documentation to mobile, cloud-based capture of field data provides enhanced visibility into project issues, reduces rework, and accelerates quality assurance. Standardised workflows enable real-time dashboards via MS Azure, accessible to stakeholders across projects in India and internationally. This digital transformation yields annual savings of INR 1.3 Cr on paper and printing, and INR 0.3 Cr in related operational costs.
Another example is our implementation of Salesforce Agentforce AI to support Relationship Managers (RMs). This AI assistant streamlines customer ticket management by enabling quick information retrieval via conversational language, smart ticket summarisation, drafted responses, and intelligent search. The "Assistive AI" improves efficiency and productivity, resulting in faster response times, quicker resolutions, and improved customer NPS.
How would you explain your organisation's digital transformation journey and what specific technologies helped you stay afloat?
Beginning in April 2020 with strong leadership support, our digital transformation addresses the real estate industry's technology adoption gap through two core principles: a cloud-first approach, prioritising best-of-breed solutions, and a platform-centric approach leveraging scalable SaaS solutions. Our core solutions operate on cloud platforms including SAP S/4 Hana (ERP) on MS Azure, Salesforce (Sales & Marketing/Data Cloud) for the customer lifecycle, Oracle HRMS for employee management, MS Fabric for business intelligence, Autodesk Construction Cloud for BIM, and EffiGO for contracts and procurement.
Besides, a microservices architecture, integrated with Magic XPI, enables advanced digital solutions like Yello Skye Drone Tech for construction monitoring. OutSystems facilitates rapid mobility solution deployment. We also utilise Customer Experience Apps/Portals for an integrated user experience, MS Power Automate (RPA) to automate tasks, video analytics for AI-driven alerts, and MS Copilot (GenAI) to enhance employee performance. Recent implementations, such as Digital Twins and Agentforce AI solidify our position in digital transformation.
What areas need improvement based on competitor benchmarking?
We are prioritising Commercial Leasing & Asset Management, noting competitors' successes in this area. We plan to enhance our CAFM stack and improve data collection via IoT sensors and NFC. Similarly, recognising competitors' advancements in Customer Experience & Conversational platforms, particularly Metaverse implementations, we will also pursue multiple projects in this space.
What is your technology vision for the next 2-3 years?
Our vision is to establish "Technology as a Strong Driver of Business Growth," moving beyond traditional bottom-line improvements (operational performance, productivity, cost efficiency) to focus on top-line results: revenue growth, improved customer experience, and new product/service development.
How does Tata Realty align its smart building initiatives with TRAI's digital connectivity framework?
We believe that strong connectivity is critical for future developments. Connectivity is integrated into the MEP design process, implemented through telecom partners (Tata Communications & Tata Teleservices) to ensure TRAI guideline adherence. Future plans include external audits and certifications to guarantee network value delivery.
What cybersecurity measures are in place to protect infrastructure and tenant data?
We have incorporated secured IoT and OT Infrastructure into our infosec strategy, reflected in IT policies and SOPs. Our cybersecurity measures include strong firewalls for perimeter security, a zero-trust network architecture, data backup on isolated instances, a security operations control platform, and threat intelligence tools, as well as AI/ML-based antivirus solutions and vulnerability assessment and penetration testing. Further, we annually conduct Cyber Assessments like CIS / TCS Blue Tick, which benchmarks us with the best in the world. We have also recently got certified under ISO 27001:2022 for robust Information security practices.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from TechCircle.