Consumers get discounts and cashbacks through a special coin named “Neu coins”, which can be redeemed on the platform. The App launch needed a huge amount of publicity, and Tata cornered that with the title sponsorship of the 2022 IPL. Within a week of its launch on 15-Apr, Tata Neu recorded 20 lakh app downloads, which has now exceeded 50 lakhs (as of mid-Jun).  The big question remains: Has Tata Neu lived up to the expectations from the massive budget deployed for publicity, and more importantly, has it done justice to the idea itself?

Neu – not really new

In simple terms, a super app is a platform where consumers can get multiple services in one place. The first App that was termed a super-app was “WeChat”- an app from China that offers services like messaging calling, payments, hotel bookings, flash sales, movie ticket booking, etc. In India, we have apps like Justdial, Paytm, Flipkart, Amazon, Reliance’s Jio, and now Meta’s WhatsApp that are attempting to do this.

Amazon and Flipkart have already acquired a place in people’s lives over the years. On top of this, Reliance’s Jio Mart is trying to establish its place in the market. To understand how Tata Neu differs from these existing apps, we spoke to a Product Manager from a leading global tech company who shared a lesson from an earlier e-commerce battle between Google and Amazon.

Google dominated the search engine space, and its advertising model gained huge popularity and revenue. In December 2002, the company forayed into shopping and tried to leverage the comprehensiveness and exhaustiveness that it possessed. On the other hand, Amazon believed in enhancing customer experience and focused on quality over quantity. They perfected their business with a single product – books – and perfected the entire value chain. Amazon then extended these capabilities to other products and became the largest e-commerce company globally, whereas Google is finding it difficult to overcome Amazon in e-commerce segment.

Tata Neu is very different from the other platforms because it has not ‘integrated’ but ‘stitched’ different brands. For each brand, Tata Neu has a different logistics channel, giving rise to inconsistency in deliveries, returns, and issue resolution. For Tata Neu to thrive, the Product Owner must define the experience of the App, which currently seems to be missing among various companies listed on the App. Moreover, multiple teams from multiple companies with different working cultures are working on building one super app, which is likely to lead to significant issues in the dev-ops cycle. How Tata has worked out the interfaces between the product management team and the various businesses will be an interesting case study in itself.

In a market with tough competition flooded with discounts and offers, the question arises- how will Tata Neu differentiate from others? Having an app that focuses only on rewards isn’t something that will attract consumers if the App itself isn’t up to the mark.

All Not So Good?

Most users have encountered issues with Tata Neu App – broken pages, delayed OTP, increased waiting time, redirecting to web pages, and privacy concerns. But there are other important points which needs to be addressed to understand the value proposition and strategy.

Tata Neu App is currently trying to solve a significant issue for the Tata Group of companies; they are trying to stitch together all the companies and leverage the possible synergies. But this is an internal problem they are trying to solve, not a customer problem. Ideally, the focus should be around what the user wants, and then build a product around that.

The App is currently just trying to bring in consumers by offering ‘Neu Coins’, which is supposed to create loyalty. Consumers can use these coins as real money to purchase Tata products. But consumers are already dumped with numerous offers, cashback, and points offered by Credit Card companies and UPI service providers. So, how effective are Neu Coins?

Having said that market is flooded with offers and coins, the current USP of Tata Neu is ‘Neu Coins’, thus making it essential to maximize the usage of coins and form a habit for its user? 

• Tata Neu should try and change the existing habit of consumers using their individual apps and prompt them to Tata Neu at the check-out page by offering added discount. After repeated usage, consumers will realize that Neu offers a better price and will eventually move to Neu, but to be a market leader Tata Neu has to offer unmatched in-app shopping experience, faster resolution to the issues and quicker delivery.
• In addition, it is crucial to show the tangible value of Neu Coins to users. They can do this by offering coins for time spent on the App, completing the user profile, and making purchases. This should then be tied up by prompting users to buy products

Lastly, the App offers products across different Tata companies. Instead, the App should personalize the experience for each user based on their past transaction history and usage. Personalization will drive usage, which can be leveraged to prompt users to buy other products. But, another issue is unwillingness of users to move from existing apps such as Big Basket, 1mg to Tata Neu, below is the graph showcasing different app usage by devise.