Tata
Tata
Tata
By
PRAVIN UMEDLAL NISHAR
ROLL NO.:- 27
Submitted To
University of Mumbai
Mumbai-400001
2009-2010
“LEADERSHIP QUALITIES OF RATAN TATA”
“A BUSINESS LEGEND – RATAN TATA”
By
PRAVIN UMEDLAL NISHAR
ROLL NO.:- 27
Submitted To
University of Mumbai
Mumbai-400001
2009-2010
JAMSETJI NUSSERWANJI TATA:
THE
FOUNDER OF THE HOUSE OF TATA
Jamsetji believed the three keys to India’s industrial development were steel,
hydroelectric power and technical education and research. Tata Steel (formerly Tisco), Tata
Institute of Fundamental Research and Tata Power did not become a reality during his
lifetime, but are today organizations to reckon with. The foundations lay by him and the hard
work put in by his successors ensured that each of the ideas eventually bore fruit.
Borm in Navsari, Gujarat- Where parsi population was concentrated at that time-
jamsetji moved to Bombey when he was 14. He graduated from Elphinstone College in 1858
and joined his father’s trading firm and workd there till he was 29. Later he stepped out to
start his own trading firm. Acquiring sick mills, turning them around and selling them for a
hefty profit was his modus operandi.
Jansetji was, however, known for much more than just starting or taking over
companies. Apart from thinking of novel ways to manufacture textiles with the Empress
Mills, he also put in place pioneering labour practices, long before any labour laws came into
existence.
Though his three ideas did not bear fruit while he was alive, The Taj Mahal Hotel was
completed during his time. Jamsetji also had great visions for the city that is now
Jamshedpur. At the turn of the 20th century, the Tata’s wanted to build a steel plant in India.
Three years of painstaking search lead them to a village called Sakchi. During the
construction he did not just restrict himself to making a few buildings for the workers. He
insisted upon building all the comforts and conveniences a city could provide. The result is a
well-planned modern day city.
Jamsetji was honoured in 1919, when lord Chelmsford named the city after him.
Jamshedpur is the only Indian city without a municipality. Its maintenance is entirely funded
by Tata Steel.
The son of Mr. R.D. Tata and his French wife, Jehangir R.D. Tata
was born in France in 1904 and educated at Janson Besailly,
Paris. In 1925 he joined Tata and Sons, of which his father was
a founding Director, together with Dorabji and Ratanji (R.J.)
Tata. On his father's death in 1926, Mr. J. R. D. Tata became a
director of Tata Sons. In 1932, at his initiative, the Airlines
Division of Tata Sons was started. Tata Airlines marked the
birth of regular air transportation in the Indian subcontinent.
The airline finally evolved into Air India, of which, after
nationalization, Mr. J. R. D. Tata remained Chairman till 1978.
In 1938, the Directors of Tata Sons, all senior to him, elected
him as the Chairman of the Tata Group - at that time, the
largest industrial group of companies in India.
Jehangir R.D. Tata, affectionately known as "JRD," played a critical role in increasing India's
scientific, medical and artistic quotient. The Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, The
Tata Memorial Hospital, the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, the National Institute of
Advanced Studies, and the National Centre for the Performing Arts, each an exemplar of
excellence in its field, were projects that could not have come to fruition without the
steadfast support of JRD. He was married to Thelma in 1930. When JRD died in Geneva on
November 29, 1993, everyone agreed that a noble son of India had passed on.
NAVAL HORMUSJI TATA: THE PEOPLE'S PERSON
“A Company or business that remains static is a business that will die. A company that
constantly changes and accepts that there are better way to do things than the ways to do
things than the way they are done today, is a company that will survive in the global market
that we face.”
A BUSINESS LEGEND
Ratan Tata is the chairman of the Tata Group, India’s largest corporation.
He is the latest in a long line of Tatas to head the family owned company.
Born into an old Parsi family of Bombay on 28th December, 1937.
He received a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture from America’s Cornell University in
1962.
He returned to India and joined the Tata Group.
Tata is single and leads a modest lifestyle in his bachelor apartment.
The US educated bachelor lives alone with his two German shepherds in an
apartment in Mumbai.
He is known to be a supporter of the traditional Parsi way of life.
He has a passion for home cooked food and is known to indulge reply in art
collection.
A trained pilot who still takes to the skies on his own aircraft has picked a number of
awards.
He is known to slip into the front seat alongside his
driver to and from work.
The Recognition Honoured with Padma Bhushan he is a memeber on Prie Ministers
Council on Trade and Industry. Ratan Tata was also honoured by Cornell University as the
26th Robert S. Hatfield Fellow in Economic Education, considered to be the highest
honour by the Cornell University. He is also a member of the board of trustees of the RAND
Corporation. He is board member on the Republic of South Africa's International
Investment Council and is a Asia-Pacific advisory committee member for the New York
Stock Exchange
The Tata Group is today one of India’s largest conglomerates with revenues of
over US $14.25 billion in 2003-04. The Group companies employ over 22,000
people worldwide and exports products and services to 140 countries with
operations in over forty.
The Tata Companies share a set of five core values
derived from the Group’s early beliefs – and these are
still drive all business decisions: Integrity,
Understanding, Excellence, Unity and Responsibility.
Nationality India
Ethnicity Parsi
Citizenship India
Children None
Contents
1 Early life
o 1.1 Early career
1.2 Wealth
2 Career
3 Personal life
4 Quotes
5 Social and environmental record
6 Awards and Recognition
7 Bibliography
8 References
9 External links
Early life
Tata was born into the wealthy and famous Tata family of Mumbai. He was born to Soonoo
and Naval Hormusji Tata. Ratan is the great grandson of Tata group founder Jamsetji Tata.
Ratan's childhood was troubled, his parents separating in the mid-1940s, when he was
about seven and his younger brother Jimmy was five. His mother moved out and both
Ratan and his brother were raised by their grandmother Lady Navajbai.
Early career
Ratan Tata completed a BS degree in architecture with structural engineering from Cornell
University in 1962, and the Advanced Management Program from Harvard Business School
in 1975. He joined the Tata Group in December 1962, after turning down a job with IBM on
the advice of JRD Tata. He was first sent to Jamshedpur to work at Tata Steel. He worked on
the floor along with other blue-collar employees, shoveling limestone and handling the
blast furnaces. Ratan Tata, a shy man, rarely features in the society glossies, has lived for
years in a book-crammed, dog-filled bachelor flat in Mumbai's Colaba district.
Wealth
Ratan Tata has his own capital in Tata Sons., the holding company of the group. His share is
around 1%, valuing his personal holding at approximately US$ 1 Billion. About 66% of the
equity capital of Tata Sons is held by philanthropic trusts endowed by members of the Tata
family. The biggest two of these trusts are the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust and the Sir Ratan Tata
Trust, which were created by the families of the sons of Jamshedji Tata. Ratan Tata is on the
board of trustees of the Sir Ratan Tata Trust, and is the chairman of the board of trustees of
the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust, giving him significant influence on the board of Tata Sons,
despite his minority personal shareholding.
Career
In 1971, Ratan was appointed the Director-in-Charge of The National Radio & Electronics
Company Limited (Nelco), a company that was in dire financial difficulty. Ratan suggested
that the company invest in developing high-technology products, rather than in consumer
electronics. J.R.D. was reluctant due to the historical financial performance of Nelco which
had never even paid regular dividends. Further, Nelco had 2% market share in the
consumer electronics market and a loss margin of 40% of sales when Ratan took over.
Nonetheless, J. R. D. followed Ratan's suggestions.
From 1972 to 1975, Nelco eventually grew to have a market share of 20%, and recovered
its losses. In 1975 however, India's Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a state of
emergency, which led to an economic recession. This was followed by union problems in
1977, so even after demand improved, production did not keep up. Finally, the Tatas
confronted the unions and, following a strike, a lockout was imposed for seven months.
Ratan continued to believe in the fundamental soundness of Nelco, but the venture did not
survive.
In 1977, Ratan was entrusted with Empress Mills, a textile mill controlled by the Tatas.
When he took charge of the company, it was one of the few sick units in the Tata group.
Ratan managed to turn it around and even declared a dividend. However, competition from
less labour-intensive enterprises had made a number of companies unviable, including
those like the Empress which had large labour contingents and had spent too little on
modernisation. On Ratan's insistence, some investment was made, but it did not suffice. As
the market for coarse and medium cotton cloth
(which was all that the Empress produced) turned adverse, the Empress began to
accumulate heavier losses. Bombay House, the Tata headquarters, was unwilling to divert
funds from other group companies into an undertaking which would need to be nursed for
a long time. So, some Tata directors, chiefly Nani Palkhivala, took the line that the Tatas
should liquidate the mill, which was finally closed down in 1986. Ratan was severely
disappointed with the decision, and in a later interview with the Hindustan Times would
claim that the Empress had needed just Rs 50 lakhs to turn it around.
In 1981, Ratan was named director of Tata Industries, the Group's other holding company,
where he became responsible for transforming it into the Group's strategy think-tank and a
promoter of new ventures in high-technology businesses.
In 1991, he took over as group chairman from J.R.D. Tata, pushing out the old guard and
ushering in younger managers. Since then, he has been instrumental in reshaping the
fortunes of the Tata Group, which today has the largest market capitalization of any
business house on the Indian Stock Market.
Under Ratan's guidance, Tata Consultancy Services went public and Tata Motors was listed
on the New York Stock Exchange. In 1998, Tata Motors introduced his brainchild, the Tata
Indica.
On January 31, 2007, under the chairmanship of Ratan Tata, Tata Sons successfully
acquired Corus Group, an Anglo-Dutch steel and aluminium producer. With the acquisition,
Ratan Tata became a celebrated personality in Indian corporate business culture. The
merger created the fifth largest steel producing entity in the world.
On March 26, 2008, Tata Motors, under Ratan Tata, bought Jaguar & Land Rover from Ford
Motor Company. The two iconic British brands, Jaguar and Land Rover, were acquired for
£1.15 billion ($2.3 billion).
Tata Nano car, 2008
Ratan Tata's dream was to manufacture a car costing Rs 100,000 (1998: approx. US$2,200;
today US$2,000 US$2,528). He realized his dream by launching the car in New Delhi Auto
Expo on January 10, 2008. Three models of the Tata Nano were announced, and Ratan Tata
delivered on his commitment to developing a car costing only 1 lakh rupees, adding that "a
promise is a promise," referring to his earlier promise to deliver this car at the said cost.
Recently when his plant for Nano production was obstructed by Mamta Banerjee, his
decision of going out of West Bengal was warmly welcomed. Banerjee had the support of
the people of Singur, where the Nano plant was being constructed, and many social
movements. They criticised Ratan Tata for forcing people out of their land in collusion with
the Left Front government in the state, headed by Budhadeb Bhattacharjee.
On October 7, 2008, After a controversial stay in West Bengal, Ratan Tata and his men
shifted their Rs 1-lakh car Nano project to Sanand near Ahmedabad at an investment of Rs
2,000 crore (Rs 20 billion), declaring that efforts will be made to roll out the world's
cheapest car from a make-shift plant to meet the deadline. Praising Modi for speedy
allocation of about 1,100 acres (4.5 km2) of centrally located land, Ratan Tata said that the
company had a great deal of urgency in having a new location and was driven by the
reputation of the state. He successfully made a secret deal with Narendra Modi who agreed
to give him a soft loan to the tune of approximately $10 billion to make the car in Gujarat.
The car was launched on March 23, 2009 amid much fanfare with advance bookings that
preceded its launch by months.
Personal life
Mr. Ratan Tata has a metalic blue Maserati. He sometimes likes to fly his private jet himself.
He has a Falcon Jet. He has never been married and is very shy about his personal life. He is
also left handed.
Quotes
"Question the unquestionable." & "a promise is a promise,"
Dow Chemicals, Bhopal Gas Disaster: In November 2006, survivors of the Bhopal gas
disaster were outraged by Ratan Tata’s offer to bail out Union Carbide and facilitate
investments by Carbide’s new owner Dow Chemical. Tata had proposed leading a
charitable effort to clean-up the toxic wastes abandoned by Carbide in Bhopal. At a time
when the Government of India has held Dow Chemical liable for the clean-up and requested
Rs. 100 crores from the American MNC, survivor’s groups felt that Tata’s offer was aimed at
frustrating legal efforts to hold the company liable, and motivated by a desire to facilitate
Dow’s investments in India.
TATA supplies to Burma’s military regime: TATA Motors reported deals to supply
hardware and automobiles to Burma’s oppressive and anti-democratic military junta has
come in for criticism from human rights and democracy activists. In December 2006, Gen.
Thura Shwe Mann, Myanmar’s chief of general staff visited the Tata Motors plant in Pune.
["Myanmar Ties." December 8, 2006. The Telegraph, Calcutta, India]. In 2009, TATA Motors
announced that it would press ahead with plans to manufacture trucks in Myanmar.
Singur displacement: The Singur controversy in West Bengal led to further questions over
TATA’s social record, with protests by local villagers and some political parties over
forcible eviction and inadequate compensation to those being displaced for the TATA Nano
plant. As the protests gathered steam, and despite having the support of the ruling CPI(M)
government, TATA eventually pulled the project out of the state of West Bengal, citing
safety concerns. The Singur controversy was one of the few occasions when Ratan Tata was
forced to publicly address criticisms and concerns on any environmental or social issue.
Ratan Tata’s subsequent embrace of and praise for Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of
Gujarat, also earned him brickbats on account of Modi’s openly communal stance and his
performance as Chief Minister during the 2002 pogrom that saw hundreds of Muslims
killed in riots within the state.
Dhamra Port: On the environmental front, the Dhamra port controversy has received
significant coverage, both within India and in Tata’s emerging global markets. (‘India – Tata
in troubled waters’, Ethical Corporation, November 2007, London, UK)
The Dhamra port, a venture between TATA Steel and Larsen & Toubro, has come in for
criticism for its proximity to the Gahirmatha Sanctuary and Bitharkanika National Park,
from Indian and international organizations, including Greenpeace. Gahirmatha is one of
the world’s largest mass nesting sites for the olive ridley turtle and Bitharkanika is a
designated Ramsar site and India’s second largest mangrove forest. TATA officials have
denied that the port poses an ecological threat, and stated that mitigation measures are
being employed with the advice of the IUCN. On the other hand, conservation
organizations, including Greenpeace, have pointed out that no proper Environment Impact
Analysis has been done for the project, which has undergone changes in size and
specifications since it was first proposed and that the port could interfere with mass
nesting at the Gahirmtha beaches and the ecology of the Bitharkanika mangrove forest.
Ratan Tata serves in senior capacities in various organisations in India and he is a member
of the Prime Minister's Council on Trade and Industry. In March 2006 Tata was honoured
by Cornell University as the 26th Robert S. Hatfield Fellow in Economic Education,
considered the highest honor the university awards to distinguished individuals from the
corporate sector.
Ratan Tata's foreign affiliations include membership of the international advisory boards of
the Mitsubishi Corporation, the American International Group, JP Morgan Chase and Booz
Allen Hamilton. He is also a member of the board of trustees of the RAND Corporation,
University of Southern California and of his alma mater, Cornell University. He also serves
as a board member on the Republic of South Africa's International Investment Council and
is an Asia-Pacific advisory committee member for the New York Stock Exchange. Tata is on
the board of governors of the East-West Center, the advisory board of RAND's Center for
Asia Pacific Policy and serves on the programme board of the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation's India AIDS initiative. In February 2004, Ratan Tata was conferred the title of
honorary economic advisor to Hangzhou city in the Zhejiang province of China.
He recently received an honorary doctorate from the London School of Economics and
Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur.He was listed among the 25 most powerful
people in business named by Fortune magazine in November 2007. In May 2008 Mr Tata
made it to the Time magazine's 2008 list of the World's 100 most influential people. Tata
was hailed for unveiling his tiny Rs. one lakh car 'Nano'.
After the 26 November 2008 Mumbai attacks, Forbes opined Ratan Tata be brought into
politics, calling him India's most respected business leader.
References
1. Times of India Article: Man of the Year? Its Ratan Tata
2. "Faces of Enterprise: Ratan Tata". http://www.rediff.com/money/2008/jan/02tata.htm.
3. "profile Tata". http://people.forbes.com/profile/ratan-n-tata/2766.
4. India Today Power List 2009
5. India Today Power List 2009 - flys the jets himself
6. India Today Power List 2005
7. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/04/business/worldbusiness/04tata.html?
_r=1&sq=tata&st=cse&adxnnl=1&scp=7&adxnnlx=1238497443-
4R16x3p9Aj5a8CErvf45bw
8. India Today 2005 Power List
9. [www.rediff.com/money/2006/dec/09tata.htm]
10. "Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy, 2007".
http://www.carnegiemedals.org/news/2007.html.
11. "Tata: Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy, 2007".
http://www.carnegiemedalspittsburgh.org/tata.html.
12. "26th Robert S. Hatfield Fellow in Economic Education - Announcement".
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/March06/Tata.Hatfield.prewrite.html.
13. Board of Trustees, University of Southern California, Accessed April 13, 2008.
14. Ratan Tata Joins USC Board of Trustees, USC News, August 30, 2005.
15. "India's Obama Moment?". Forbes. 2008-12-03.
http://www.forbes.com/2008/12/02/ratan-tata-government-oped-
cx_rm_1203meredith.html. Retrieved on 2009-01-01.
16. http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/about-the-fco/what-we-do/honours/honorary-awards-2009
UK Foreign Office
Tata Group
TATA COMPANIES
The Tata Group comprises 91 operating companies in seven sectors in addition to six
international operations:
MATERIALS INFORMATION SYSTEMS &
Metals COMMUNICATIONS
o Tata Steel Information Systems
TATA INC. o Tata Consultancy Services
Composites
o Tata Advanced Materials o Tata Infotech
o Tata Technologies
ENGINEERING o Tata Elxsi
Automotive o Tata Interactive Systems
o Tata Motors o Nelito Systems
o Tata Construction Equipment Communications
Company o Tata Teleservices
o Tata AutoComp Systems o VSNL
Engineering Products & Services Industrial Automation
o Voltas o Nelco
o Tata Projects
SERVICES
CHEMICALS Hotels, Property Development
o Tata Chemicals o Taj Hotels Resorts and
o Rallis India Palaces
o International Technology
ENERGY Park
o Tata Power Financial Services
o Tata BP Solar India o Tata AIG Life Insurance
Company
CONSUMER PRODUCTS o Tata AIG General Insurance
o Tata Tea Company
o Titan Industries o Tata Asset Management
o Tata McGraw Hill o Tata Finance
o Trent o Tata Investment Corporation
o Tata Share Registry
Other Services
o Tata Services
INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS
o Tata International
Brands
Good Earth Teas
Tanishq
Taj Hotels
Tata Sky
Tata Indicom
Titan
Westside
Voltas
Notable People
Jamsetji Tata
Dorabji Tata
Nowroji Saklatwala
J. R. D. Tata
Ratan Tata
Pallonji Mistry
TATA COFFEE
CERTIFICATES