Tag Archive for ‘Ratan Tata’ at Asian Window

Tag Archive for 'Ratan Tata'

Ratan Tata successor could be an expat

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on November 19, 2009

in Business and India

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Tata Group Chairman speaks to Paul Beckett of the Wall Street Journal:

WSJ: How are you conducting the search for your successor and when do you expect a decision to be made?

Mr. Tata:We are in the process of formalizing a successor to me. We have some outside consultants and a formal search process is on. There are no constraints. We are looking both within the organization and outside. The successor, I would hope, would have integrity and our value systems in the forefront and hopefully would carry on the path that we have tried to set for the company’s growth.

I would hope that there would not be a major disagreement in the way that we have operated. Otherwise, we will have some other disruption in what we do.In terms of who that successor might be, it could be he or she, it could be an internal or an external candidate. It would certainly be easier if that candidate were an Indian national. But now that 65% of our revenues come from overseas, it could also be an expatriate sitting in that position with justification now that we are a company that has global reach and global presence.

Click here to go to WSJ for full interview

Ratan Tata, India’s humble business king

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on May 10, 2009

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From the Sunday Times:

Ratan Tata; Right: Ratan Tata with JRD Tata

Ratan Tata is tired but has a smile on his face. The head of the Indian business empire that bears his family name has spent part of the day at Jaguar Land Rover’s test track in the Midlands driving top-secret new models.

He obviously likes what he has seen. Since Tata bought it last year, Jaguar has dusted off plans for a sports car – “The E-type was iconic, so we have resurrected it,” says Ratan – and accelerated development of fuel-efficient hybrids.

New models are the key to Tata’s plan for Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), which employs 15,000 people and was for years a financial millstone round the neck of its former owner, Ford. More:

[Photos: Wiki]

Nano is not a gimmick: Ratan Tata

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on March 24, 2009

in Business, India and Innovation

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Tata Motors chairman Ratan Tata speaks to The Times of India about his dream:

Q: Now that the car’s out, your first feelings?

A: We are the gates of offering a new form of transport to people of India and later to other parts of the world. I feel very excited also because we have gone more during the last mile by putting Plan B into action, by putting the car out now rather than waiting till December ”09. We have been able to successfully mitigate the loss of time. We hope our dreams come true and Nano proves to be the product that it was meant to be. More:

A Nano promise delivered

From Mint: The launch of the world’s cheapest car on Monday was anything but small. Spread over 4 hours at two locations-the iconic Taj Mahal Palace and Tower hotel and the 125-year-old Parsi Gymkhana-the launch was attended by at least 2,000 people, among them car dealers, parts suppliers, journalists and Tata group executives who gathered under heavy security cover. More:

European Nano in two years

From The Guardian: The European Nano will be rolled out within two years and the US Nano within three. “Given the present indications of the buying preferences in the US, we felt that we could further develop the European Nano to meet the requirements of the US,” he said.

Speaking to the Guardian, Tata said he had the Indian family in mind when he designed this car. “Here in India we see four people travelling by motorbike … I thought they could travel more safely by car,” he said. “However, in the United States it could be for younger [people] who want a low-cost car.” More:

India’s car for the people

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on March 21, 2009

in Business, India and Innovation

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From the Tata Nano website.

Tata Motors will launch the much awaited Nano, slated to be the world’s cheapest car priced at Rs 1 lakh (less than $2,000), at the Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai on Monday afternoon. Bookings will start in April.

The Tata Nano will initially be available in three models – the Nano (base model), the CX (mid-level model) and LX (top-end model). Click here for Nano specifications.

MSN News has a comprehensive story that tells you pretty much everything about the aspirational car, how to book one, what does it mean for the used-car market, and will people switch from two-wheelers.

Read also The National for more on “India’s equivalent to the Volkswagen Beetle and the original Mini,” the competition, and what it means for the already-choked roads of India’s cities:

Tata Motors chairman Ratan Tata

“Currently, there are about seven cars for every 1,000 people in India, compared to 600 to 800 cars per 1,000 in developed countries. Tata is banking on the logic that if it offers a car that is marginally more expensive than a scooter, Indians will buy it.”

From the Wall Street Journal:

The Nano symbolizes the global auto industry’s rush to create affordable, lower-emission vehicles to tap developing nations from India to Brazil. Should the car succeed, it could represent the coming-of-age of modern India’s manufacturing prowess.

“But going by the auto industry’s experience with small cars, the upstart Nano won’t be much of a money-spinner. Manufacturers have traditionally made razor-thin margins on smaller cars, using them more to capture younger buyers in the hopes they will move up to more profitable models as they grow in age and wealth.

What Can Tata’s Nano Teach Detroit? BusinessWeek says U.S. carmakers would do well to learn from the innovations that brought it about:

“For Detroit’s Big Three, those first two lessons are easy compared with the third from the Tata Nano: Rethinking the supply chain. Looking upstream, Tata brought in suppliers such as Bosch, a German maker of appliances and motors, and Delphi, a world leader in automotive parts (and onetime subsidiary of GM), in early-stage design, challenging them to be full partners in the Nano innovation by developing lower-cost components.”

And in the Economic Times, Tata Motors CEO Ratan Tata on cars beyond Nano:

I think the next challenge would be to live up to the peoples aspirations. To make the experience of buying, owning, servicing and supporting the Nano different from what you might have experienced. At the same time, the challenge will also be to have people understand that the Nano is not a Honda, not a Toyota.

It is a low cost car and while there might not be any deficiencies, it might have some lack of refinement which will go with a low cost product, but surely won’t be a deficiency as such. I don’t think there’s been a car in India that’s planned to be produced in this kind of volume. It is therefore important for us to maintain a sustained quality from our suppliers and our own ability to meet product standards. All these issues should be very challenging.

Why India Inc loves Narendra Modi

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on January 24, 2009

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Can India Inc’s emphatic approval of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi extend to the political realm? Saba Naqvi in Outook.

Some captains of Indian industry recently let the nation know (on the eve of a general election) that in Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi they have spotted a leader of great ability, a man who should be the next prime minister. This is not the first time industrialists have sung paeans to Modi. It’s almost an annual ritual in Modi’s Gujarat. Every January, NRIs and industrialists collect for the Vibrant Gujarat meet and speak of the genius of the Man.

Indeed, the projection of Modi as a national icon is part of an ongoing political project, supported strongly by business that seeks to eventually instal him at the pivot of Indian politics. The transformation of the pracharak to a man who casually strides with the captains of industry is in itself a story. At the superficial level, it is about sartorial change. But it’s also about his mastery of media and image projection. From a hated figure, he has managed to clothe himself in positive hues.

Also in Outlook, R.K. Misra looks at Modi’s style of governance. Click here for that story.

India Inc’s poster boy

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on January 16, 2009

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India Inc’s love song to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in the course of a business conference in Gujarat has caused consternation among Congress circles and a few red faces in the BJP as well. The central leadership of Modi’s own party has taken credit for Modi’s peformance. And the Congress has called the claims of Vibrant Gujarat bogus, warning that German industrialists too were enamoured of Adolf Hitler. But corporate India is determined to love Modi, seeing him as the leader India needs. Alistair Scrutton reports for Reuters:

Two powerful industrialists have pitched for Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi to be India’s next leader, a sign of how the controversial Hindu nationalist is gaining momentum going into this year’s elections.

Modi is a brilliant orator who has a reputation for battling corruption to bring development to Gujarat, but he is accused of turning a blind eye to the murder of hundreds of Muslims during riots in 2002 and is fiercely critical of Pakistan.

The statements by telecommunications tycoons Anil Ambani and Sunil Mittal were unusual in their frankness and reflect how many executives and members of the middle-classes clamour for someone like Modi to cut through red tape and improve the business climate.

Restoring the Taj is just part of Tata’s challenge

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on January 14, 2009

in Business, Economy, India and Terrorism

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Richard Orange says rebuilding the terrorist-hit Mumbai hotel will be an easier task than steering Jaguar Land Rover and the steel group Corus through a deep recession. From The Spectator:

As guests made their way out of the Taj hotel in Mumbai after spending New Year’s Eve in its restaurants, many stopped to study a small memorial plaque erected to commemorate the 12 staff who died protecting guests from terrorists at the end of November. If it has the same dignified simplicity as a British village war memorial, that’s probably no coincidence. Because within the Tata Group – the Taj’s owner, through a subsidiary called Indian Hotels – the ideals of duty, loyalty, courage and grit, which seem to British sensibilities to come from another era, are still very much alive.

‘There was not a single person who did not rise to do their duty,’ Indian Hotels’ patrician deputy chairman R.K. Krishna Kumar told reporters proudly on the eve of the hotel’s reopening on 20 December. Karambir Kang, the hotel’s general manager, continued to direct the hotel’s evacuation even as his own wife and two sons burnt to death in his private suite, Krishna Kumar said. And when, during those dark hours, Kang telephoned his father, a retired Indian army general, for advice and emotional support: ‘His father said, “Do as much as you can to save your family. But don’t leave your post.”‘

This year, the Tatas will need every drop of that spirit as their group faces what will be one of the most difficult periods in its 140-year history.

Steel amid adversity: Tata after Mumbai

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on December 22, 2008

in Business, Conflict, Economy, India and Terrorism

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Joe Leahy reports from Mumbai in Financial Times:

Ratan Tata was at home in south Mumbai late on November 26 when the call came. On the line was a frantic R.K. Krishna Kumar, head of the Tata group unit that owns the city’s luxury Taj Mahal Palace and Tower Hotel.

The unthinkable had happened, Mr Kumar told the Tata chairman. Terrorists had taken over the Taj, the 105-year-old wedding cake-like structure on Mumbai’s waterfront that was built by Mr Tata’s great-grandfather and is the pride of India’s largest private sector group. Scores had been killed. The building was on fire.

Unable to leave his apartment that evening because of the chaos on the streets, Mr Tata made it to the group’s stately south Mumbai headquarters, Bombay House, the following day. As the country’s politicians engaged in a blame game, Mr Tata was one of the few public figures who seemed to strike the right tone on the attacks. He bluntly criticised the state’s lack of preparedness while expressing grief for those killed.

“This is a very, very unfortunate situation which none of us are going to forget. My message really is that the government and state authorities should also not forget,” he told journalists on the steps of Bombay House.

Ratan Tata’s Obama moment

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on December 4, 2008

in India and Leaders

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Is Ratan Tata the strong, credible leader India needs right now? He certainly has Robyn Meredith’s vote in Forbes. Who has your vote? Who do you think is most appropriate to lead the country? Send in your votes via comments.

The Mumbai massacre was unlike previous global terror attacks because of the choice of targets. When terrorists hit Islamabad in September, they bombed the Marriott hotel, a clear attack on Western interests.

The Mumbai attackers, when they weren’t firing indiscriminately at crowds, reportedly favored killing Americans, Brits and Jews. But their choices of buildings to shoot up is notable. They didn’t target American hotels. They aimed at the very symbols of proud Indian success: the Indian-owned Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels. Those are the homes away from home for India’s elite, along with visiting foreigners. Mumbai’s social and business elite and Bollywood stars alike regularly dined in the bullet-pocked restaurants of the Taj and the Oberoi.

Taj Mahal hotel owner: We had warning

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on November 30, 2008

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Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata in interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria:

Ratan Tata

It’s ironic that we did have such a warning, and we did have some measures,” Tata said, without elaborating on the warning or when security measures were enacted. “People couldn’t park their cars in the portico, where you had to go through a metal detector.”

However, Tata said the attackers did not enter through the entrance that has a metal detector. Instead, they came in a back entrance, he said.

“They knew what they were doing, and they did not go through the front. All of our arrangements are in the front,” he said.

“They planned everything,” he said of the attackers. “I believe the first thing they did, they shot a sniffer dog and his handler. They went through the kitchen.”

Tata forced to relocate ‘people’s car’ plant

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on October 4, 2008

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From a story headlined “Bullet into Bengal’s soul” in The Telegraph, Calcutta:

Ratan Tata with Nano

Bengal’s symbol of industrial resurgence, the Nano, died a violent death today, the trigger pulled by Mamata Banerjee, Ratan Tata said.

After a meeting with chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Tata said: “Two years ago, I said if somebody puts a gun to my head, you would either have to remove the gun or pull the trigger. I would not move my head. I think Ms Banerjee pulled the trigger.” More:

Also in The Telegraph transcript of Ratan Tata’s media conference:”This is a decision we have taken with a great deal of sadness…” Click here for more

Indians count cost of pyrrhic victory over Tata

Amy Kazmin in Financial Times:

Rising from the lush green paddy fields 40 kilometres from India’s decrepit former colonial capital Calcutta, Tata Motors’ flagship Nano car factory was expected to bring jobs and prosperity to a region little touched so far by the forces of globalisation now transforming other parts of India.

Instead, the high-profile plant in Singur – where Tata planned to produce the world’s cheapest car for India and for export – foundered on resistance of farmers such as 55-year-old Prabhat Shi, who saw little role for himself in the industrial sector, and preferred to cling to time-tested ways of living.

Previously in AW: Time to say tata & bye bye?

Time to say tata & bye bye?

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on August 23, 2008

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Hours after Ratan Tata, chairman of India’s Tata conglomerate, threatened to pull out of his Rs one-lakh ($2,500) Nano car project from Singur, West Bengal, other state governments — most notably Maharashtra, Orissa and Punjab — have rushed forward with invitations to Tata’s boss to set up the project in their state instead.

In West Bengal, however, Mamata Banerjee, leader of the state opposition party Trinamool Congress, stands firm and insists that 400 acres of land acquired from farmers by the Tatas be returned to them. But, here’s the twist to the tale, the farmers of Singur don’t want the Tatas to leave, reports The Indian Express

In a twist of the tale, a day after Ratan Tata threatened to pull out of the ‘Nano’ project in Singur, farmers whose land have been acquired do not want the Tata Motors Limited Chairman to leave as they believe industrialisation would improve their lot.

Marginal land owner Debaprasad Das whose 0.75 acres was taken for the project, but who had not taken his cheque as he had supported the agitation against land acquisition, said he wanted industrialisation.

Tata’s new ratan

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on June 2, 2008

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Ford completes the £1.7 billion deal to sell British icons Jaguar and Land Rover to Tata. BBC News has that story.

Ford has completed the sale of its Jaguar and Land Rover businesses to Indian conglomerate Tata in a deal valued at £1.7bn.

The companies are being sold for £1.15bn with Ford paying £600m into the pension fund of the luxury brands.

The negotiations started last June and the deal was announced in March.

Ford is selling the firms to try and boost overall performance. Land Rover remains profitable but Ford has never made money from its Jaguar investment.

And for a story on India Inc’s global acquisition spree, read this story in The Economic Times here.

Tea, cars, steel, IT… Tata, the headiest brew in the world

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on May 4, 2008

in Business and India

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India’s extraordinary conglomerate has found unique solutions to many of its problems. But it’s still unclear what will happen when the boss retires. Heather Connon reports from Mumbai in The Observor, UK:

The favourite boast of executives of the Tata Group is that it accompanies the average Indian throughout the day. They wake to the alarm of its Titan clocks, drink its tea or coffee for breakfast, wear clothes bought from its Westside shopping centres, take a Tata car or bus to work on a computer set up by Tata Consultancy Services, lunch in a Tata hotel, arrange their evening appointments on a Tata mobile phone and use Tata power to light their homes.

These days, the influence of the Indian conglomerate is spreading beyond its home country. Back in 2000, it made the first major acquisition by an Indian group when it acquired the Tetley tea company; last year, that was trumped when it bought steelmaker Corus for £6.2bn, while in March it was confirmed as the purchaser of British icons Jaguar and Land-Rover from Ford. Next month, it will make its first foray into UK financial services when New Star launches an Indian investment fund that will be managed by Tata Asset Management.

Jaguar’s new boss

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on March 31, 2008

in Leaders

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In The Telegraph (UK), William Langley traces Ratan Tata’s lineage to discover a man of patrician bearing and why he is in such a hurry to leave his stamp on the world

It is tempting to look at Ratan Tata, the Indian tycoon whose company last week took over Land Rover and Jaguar, as a symbol of a nation’s headlong charge towards economic superpowerdom. This, we suspect, is how it tends to be with those pesky, nouveau riche Asians; one minute you’ve never heard of them, the next they are snaffling up all your best-known firms, and treating themselves to large, stucco-fronted mansions in Kensington.

Ratan, 70, and his faintly mysterious Bombay-based family, do not fit this caricature at all. Resoundingly non-nouveau, the Tatas have moved among India’s business aristocracy since Queen Victoria was on the throne, and while the last 150 years have seen a steady growth in their power, wealth and reach, the family is famed for never having done anything even remotely headlong.

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The reverse Raj: Indian businesses turn tables on imperial master

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on March 30, 2008

in India

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Britain took commercial and cultural advantage of India as its imperial master. Now a new generation of wealthy Indians is reversing the roles. Dean Nelson in The Sunday Times, UK:

The assembled businessmen wore black ties and listened politely to a string quartet under crystal chandeliers in a magnificent ballroom. The room buzzed with talk of the old country, but more importantly with commercial speculation about their new domain. What was to be their next takeover target in the local economy?

It could have been a sepia print of the British East India Company, which effectively ruled India as a private colony for 100 years, but a closer look revealed a different kind of burra sahib. More Chandigarh than Cheam, the men gathered at the Grosvenor House hotel in Mayfair, central London, last year were the representatives of a new Indian raj, powerful men intent on buying up chunks of the homeland of their old imperial masters.

Is this the Indian century?

Aditya Chakrabortty in The Guardian, UK:

Shishir Bajoria is meant to be talking about India’s rise and the world economy, but first he wants to raise the really big stuff. “Have you seen the cricket?” he asks, and launches into an unkind description of the Australian player he saw whingeing on telly this morning about the bullying Indian cricket board. “A white man – a white man! – complaining about racism.” And he throws up his palms as if to say, how upside down can you get?

That’s not the only topsy-turvy thing around here. Take our location: the Bengal Club, the leading social club in Calcutta, former capital of British India. There was a time when it wouldn’t have let the likes of Bajoria through the door. “In the Bengal Club, they don’t allow dogs or Indians,” reported Somerset Maugham in 1938, “but in the Yacht Club in Bombay they don’t mind dogs; it’s only Indians they don’t allow.”

Tata lands Rover and Jaguar

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on March 26, 2008

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Ford on Wednesday confirmed that it has agreed to sell its luxury UK-based car brands Land Rover and Jaguar marques to Indian group Tata for $2.3bn (£1.15bn). In The Guardian, UK, Randeep Ramesh reports from Mumbai on how Tata has persevered – and largely succeeded:

When Italy’s L’Expresso magazine last month splashed with the news that Ratan Tata (photo), chairman of India’s Tata group, was going to buy up luxury car marque Ferrari the story made front page news across the world.

Although later denied, what was surprising was no one thought a bid from Mumbai’s Tata for Milan’s most wanted brand implausible. After all Tata had spent £6.7bn buying Anglo-Dutch rival Corus. It was certain to snap up Jaguar and Land Rover.

Few remember that Tata’s first car 10 years ago, the Indica, was little more than a noisy box on wheels. It was instantly dubbed “Ratan’s folly”.

Tata buys into 40 years of trouble

In Fortune, John Elliott has a word, or two, of warning for Ratan Tata

Ratan Tata, who runs the Tata Group, one of India’s two biggest conglomerates, is buying into a history of trouble with his $2.3 billion cash deal, announced today, to acquire the Jaguar and Land-Rover companies from Ford (F). Transfer of ownership to Tata Motors is due to be completed by the end of June, and the question is whether Tata can then break a cycle of decline.

It’s been 40 years since the British government, in a bid to rebuild the country’s automobile industry, cobbled together ailing car brands such as Jaguar, Rover, Austin, Morris and Riley into a giant called British Leyland. BL, as it became known, was a failure, mainly because of endemic labor problems, uninspired products and poor quality. Since 1968, there have been many rescue attempts, but only rare short bursts of success. Several of the once proud names are long forgotten and none is British-owned; the iconic MG brand was bought three years ago by China’s Nanjing Automobile to make sports cars in China and the U.K., and the Morris Mini cult car is with BMW.

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Previously on Asian Window:

India’s most powerful people

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on March 3, 2008

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In its annual power list, India Today mixes new names with old to come up with a list of those who matter most in the creation of a new India. Some of the names, Ratan Tata (at #1) and Mukesh Ambani (#2) are now standard bearers on the list. Anil Ambani inches his way up to #3.

Media barons continue to matter. Brothers Samir and Vineet Jain (#9) of the Times of India group, Raghav Bahl (#18) of TV18 and Prannoy and Radhika Roy (#22) of NDTV continue to be on The List, while Ronnie Screwvala (#24) of UTV is the new entrant.

Other names debuting on the list include former President APJ Abdul Kalam (#7), K.V. Kamath (#13), managing director of India’s largest private bank ICICI and Lalit Modi (#29), BCCI’s powerful vice president and the creator of the Indian Premier League.

Film stars continue to make the list with Shah Rukh Khan (#6) way ahead of Amitabh Bachchan (#16), Rajnikant (#28) and Aamir Khan (#38). And cricket, the other religion of India along with films, rules with Sachin Tendulkar (#25) and Mahendra Singh Dhoni (#35).

For a complete look at who’s on the list, and why, click here.

Confidence and pride beyond political class

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on January 22, 2008

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Indian self-confidence is despite and in spite of its political class writes Namita Bhandare in Mint

Politicians aren’t known to be thin-skinned. Yet, even the thickest of this amazing breed must have noticed a serious image problem that just got worse this past one week.

In no particular order: Uttar Pradesh chief minister Maya memsaab had a birthday party—her own symbolic “let them eat cake” moment, with diamonds and a helicopter as gifts. Even as a shocked nation watched senior bureaucrats feed behenji her favourite cream cake in a spectacle of sycophancy came the news that one of New Delhi’s most awaited, and needed, expressways (to Gurgaon) was ready to roll but that the aam aadmi (common man) would have to wait.

The reason? No VIP was available to inaugurate this “very important road”. Despite a “people’s inauguration”, the expressway remains shut—it is now to be inaugurated by Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit and other significant politicians later this week.

Then there was the absolutely unedifying hullabaloo over the Bharat Ratna.

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The Tata invasion

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on January 22, 2008

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James Surowiecki in the New Yorker

Americans are used to foreign cars—nearly half of us, after all, drive one—but no American has yet seen a vehicle bearing the brand name Tata Motors tooling along the highway. So when, a few weeks ago, news broke that this same Tata Motors, an Indian auto company, was close to buying Jaguar and Land Rover, the first reaction of many was “Who?” The implausibility of the bid was magnified when Tata rolled out its newest product, a tiny, stripped-down car that will sell for a mere twenty-five hundred dollars. The spectacle of a low-end specialist trying to buy a couple of established luxury brands looked to some like a cubic-zirconium peddler making a play for Tiffany.

The new Asian tiger poised to match China

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on January 19, 2008

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Randeep Ramesh on the rise of the Indian economy in The Guardian

It took one minute to sell all $3bn (£1.53bn) worth of shares to the public in India’s biggest share floatation. The buying frenzy of stock in Reliance Power will almost certainly see 48-year-old Anil Ambani overtake his older brother Mukesh to become the country’s richest man with a fortune of more than $60bn when the shares debut on the Bombay stock exchange later this month.

What is remarkable is that Indians have been buying into a company that has little more than a famous name, Reliance, and big ambitions. The soaring stockmarket is a symptom of India’s overflowing optimism. Little wonder that Gordon Brown, who arrives in the country tomorrow night, has decided to make India the second stop on his Asian tour.

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India driving

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on January 12, 2008

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Hindustan Times

The launch of Tata’s Nano marks the beginning of the end of an India shaped only by the privileged few writes Barkha Dutt

If the travels of a country were to be chronicled by its cars, in the journey from the Ambassador to the Nano is, perhaps, the story of India’s evolution as a nation.

When Hindustan Motors rolled out the first Ambassador Car in 1957 its sturdy body, rounded contours and Mother Earth simplicity immediately bagged it a place in our collective consciousness. Fifty years on, its unchanging form, plodding-yet-comfortable manner and homegrown efficiency has imbued the Ambassador with a sepia-tinted nostalgia. The ‘Amby’ may have been modelled on the Morris Oxford but for most of us, it is quintessentially and uniquely Indian and marks a milestone in our growth as an industrialised country. Continue reading ‘India driving’

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