Tag Archive for 'Tata group'

Ratan Tata successor could be an expat

Published on November 19, 2009 in Business and India. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

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

ratan_d_tataWSJ: 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

Restoring the Taj is just part of Tata’s challenge

Published on January 14, 2009 in Business, Economy, India and Terrorism. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

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.

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Steel amid adversity: Tata after Mumbai

Published on December 22, 2008 in Business, Conflict, Economy, India and Terrorism. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Joe Leahy reports from Mumbai in Financial Times:

ratan_tata

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.

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The Tata invasion

Published on January 22, 2008 in Business. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

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.