ratan tata

The Tata Group of Companies is the leading conglomerate company of India. The company has over 90 operating companies in seven business sectors communications and Information technology, engineering, materials, services, energy, consumer products and chemicals. The group operates in over 80 countries. The Tata Group has over 395,000 employees working worldwide.The brand name Tata has been respected in the country for about 140 years. Their Market Capitalization is of about $99.78 billion and has a shareholder base of 3.5 million.

In June 2008, the Tata Group faced a global financial crisis due to the failure of the acquisition of Jaguar Land Rover (JLR). The bridge loan taken by them of US$ 3 billion which was used to fund the acquisition of the JLR was not paid back fully, only US$ 1 billion was paid.Complexity in raising funds before the acquisition was another problem for the Tatas.Tata had negative working capital and it was facing a problem in cash liquidity. The Tatas thought of merging with other big companies, but very soon it managed all the issues.Due to the Global financial crisis, the Indian automobile sector was highly affected the GDP growth declined and inflation took place due to which the prices of the fuels and automobiles products increased and hence Tata Motors, the leading automobile company of India suffered the most.

Ratan Tata is a philanthropist and more than 65% of his share is invested in charitable trusts. His aim has been to raise the quality of life for Indians along with Human Development.Ratan thinks that Philanthropy can be seen in different perspectives, earlier philanthropy was to develop institutions, charitable hospitals etc. whereas, now its more about nation building.

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Ratan Tata is an Indian businessman. He was the chairman of the most famous Indian brand Tata Group.Ratan Tata was born on 28 December 1937 in Bombay, India.Ratan Tatas father was Naval Tata and mother was Sooni. Naval Tata was adopted by Jamsetjis younger childless son Ratan Tata (Grandfathers name was same). At an age of seven Ratan Tatas parents got separated. He was raised by his grandmother Navajbai.Ratan Tata studied at Campion School in Bombay, Bishop Cotton School in Shimla and Cathedral and John Connon School. He completed his B.S. on Architecture from Cornell University in 1962. He got his degree in Advanced Management Program from Harvard Business School in 1975.From his childhood he was interested in the cars.Besides being great grandson of Jamsetji Tata, Ratan Tata started his career in Tata Group in 1962 as a general worker in the Tata steel. He did not have to work there for a long time.He was made chairman of Tata group in 1991 after the J.R.D Tatas resignation. At that time many people criticized that decision as he does not have that level of experience to run a company as big as Tatas.

Under the leadership of Ratan Tata, Tata Group became a global brand. Tata group acquired many companies including Tetley, Jaguar Land Rover, and Corus. TCS was also build in his leadership.His interest in car also helped to build Tata Nano and Tata Indica.On 28 December, 2012 Ratan Tata resigned from the post of chairman of Tata Group. Cyrus Mistry took his post.Ratan Tata won Padma Bhushan in 2000 and Padma Vibhushan in 2008. He was awarded Lifetime Achievement Award by Rockefeller Foundation in 2012.

Taking over from JRD as group chairman in 1991 didnt resolve matters either, even though it was a Tata Sons board decision to make him group chairman.Tata Group historian R M Lala recalls speaking with JRD some 10 days after the announcement and asking whether Ratan had been chosen because of his integrity.Oh no, I wouldnt say that; that would mean the others did not have integrity, JRD replied. I chose him because of his memory. Ratan will be more like me.JRD may have seen his own reflection in his successor but others, both inside and outside Bombay House, did not, at least initially. Who expected Ratan Tata to become such a towering figure in his own right. The first three or four years were engaged in struggles with the satraps, says Lala.Individual company heads were larger than life personalities in their own right, and had ruled these satraps for decades Russi Mody at Tata Steel, Darbari Seth at Tata Chemicals, Ajit Kerkar at Indian Hotels, and Nani Palkhivala at ACC. Getting them to toe a group line and work in tandem with other companies was next to impossible.

It didnt help that they were more experienced and, many believed, more deserving than Ratan to head the group. Indeed, in an interview a few years ago, Ratan recalled his surprise on hearing of his appointment he had thought Palkhivala and Mody to be neck and neck in the race for the top post.As it happened, Palkhivalas political views and Modys clashes within the group worked against them. Mody, though, continued to be a thorn in the flesh of both JRD and Ratan. His battles with Ratan were loud, acrimonious and conducted in full public view, which went against the ethos of this low key business house an inside joke at the time was that Russi Mody had become Rude i Mody. JRD finally dismissed him in 1993.

To his credit, Tata didnt let the criticism and internecine battles deflect him from his chosen path. On taking over in 1991, he dusted off the 1983 plan and updated it, taking the newly opened economy into account.Now, the thrust was equally on technology driven leadership, global competitiveness and being among the top three domestically, regardless of the line of business.That meant rationalising the Tata business structure. The remnants of the era of government controls combined with independent functioning of group companies in decades past could be seen in the way the group had grown till then unstructured, with overlapping business across multiple companies.

When Ratan took over, there were three group companies manufacturing cement; five were involved in pharmaceuticals, while nine companies operated in the IT space. One of his first acts was to sell Tomco; swift exits from pharma and textiles and, later, cement, followed.Management consultancy McKinsey was brought on board to help with the reorganisation. The Tata Group is still a diversified, salt to software group, but now there is a method to the business expansion.Tata also paid attention to brand Tata. By 1998, there was a single group logo and the Tata brand belonged to Tata Sons. Now, companies needed to sign brand equity and business promotion agreements with Tata Sons before they got use of the brand name.

Still, the markets have usually considered Tata to be out of his depth, questioning and dismissing his big, bold moves as Ratans follies.The Indica was the first. People scoffed openly, when, in 1995, Tata spoke of building a passenger car with the Zens size, the Ambassadors internal dimensions and the price of a Maruti 800.The scepticism seemed justified as project costs escalated to Rs 1,700 crore (Rs 17 billion) and Tata Motors posted Rs 500 crore (Rs 5 billion) in losses the biggest splash of red in Indian balance sheet history.Even within Tatas, people kept asking me to distance myself from the project so that when it failed I wouldnt be stuck with the blame. And when I refused to do that, they distanced themselves from me, Tata said in an interview a few years ago.

Ratan proved his detractors wrong, and how. Indica went on to become Tata Motors great success story about a million units have been sold since its 1998 launch.The groups global ambitions were greeted with similar scepticism. The Corus deal would lead the group to bankruptcy, critics declared investors dumped Tata Steel shares after the announcement, and the share price plunged 11%.And Tata was driving straight to disaster with the Jaguar Land Rover deal the brands were troubled, demand was low. Tata went on to prove everyone wrong. The groups international acquisitions are doing well, some have started making money.When Tata took over, less than 5% of the groups revenues came from overseas. As the self consciousness eased, the confidence grew. And with it, the scale of ambition.

In many ways, the successors task will be easier than Ratans. It begins with the selection process itself. When Ratan took over from JRD, it was a succession fraught with intrigue, suspense and bad blood.Resentment from established camps within the group at what was seen as an arbitrary decision was only compounded by Ratans own admission of surprise at the announcement. The ongoing selection process may be equally opaque at least, at present but there is some logic and purpose behind it, which should make the panels decision easier to accept.The new chairman is also not likely to be battling cliques and fiefdoms within the group his predecessor has already taken care of that. Instead of the corporate commonwealth that Ratan inherited, the Tata Group now operates more or less as a cohesive unit, which will work to the successors advantage.

Besides, there is now frequent churn at the board level as senior members attain retirement age most Tata Sons board members are nearing 75, when non executive directors have to retire. The heads of the three biggest companies in the group also retired last year theres fresh blood at the top at Tata Motors, Tata Steel and Tata Consultancy Services.Also, when Ratan took over, the Tata family had neither financial nor managerial control over many group companies. Indeed, at one point in the 1980s, the Birlas owned more stock in Tisco than the Tatas (through Tata Sons) did. That vulnerability to outside interference is now greatly reduced Tata Sons holding in most group companies is now around 26%, sometimes more.Clearly, the old order has changed. But some things will remain constant Tata stepped into the shoes of a giant in 1991. His successor will do likewise.

Once the dust over the succession issue settled, the conglomerates new chief came into his own. His primary focus was the improvement of the operational efficiencies of several of the groups manufacturing companies and reiterating the very conglomerate nature of the entity. The main beneficiaries of the focus on operations were Tisco and Telco (Tata Engineering and Locomotive Co.). The former soon emerged as one of the lowest cost steel makers in the world. The two companies were also renamed Tisco as Tata Steel and Telco as Tata Motors. Simultaneously, Tata convinced group companies to pay royalty to Tata Sons for the direct or indirect use of the Tata brand name. He also moved towards increasing the promoters shareholding in key group firms. Until then, the promoting firms held minority stakes in most group companies, making them vulnerable to takeovers. The group also exited businesses such as cement, textiles and cosmetics even as it increased its focus on others such as software, and entered telecommunications, finance and retail.

These divestments and investments helped the Tata group shake off the slightly fusty image it had built up in the 1980s and make it fit for purpose in the modern world, according to Witzel. Indeed, today, the Tata groups most profitable company is information technology firm Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS), which boasts around $10 billion (around Rs.54,700 crore) in revenue and serves customers around the world. I think the creation of the corporate brand was quite important. The Tata corporate brand is one of the worlds most valuable global brands because it harnesses the power of the whole group and creates a strong image in the minds of the stakeholders, Witzel added. Tata himself sees the re establishment of the group identity as one of his achievements. In the interview that was posted on the groups website, he said one of his most satisfying moments as chairman was the welding of the organization together in a more cohesive way than it had been in the past, that it was able to identify itself more as a group. And, even as some of these efforts to establish himself, improve the operational effectiveness of some companies, and reiterate a group identity were bearing fruit, Tata went out and made a big ticket global acquisition the Tetley group in 2000.