His life was one of overcoming adversities. He had a difficult childhood because of his parents’ divorce, overcoming various challenges before going to the US to study at Cornell, a move that changed his life. As he said, sending him to university was the best investment his father made for him. Returning to India in 1962, he began on the shop floor of Telco (later Tata Motors), going on to Tisco (Tata Steel), shovelling coal into furnaces, living like an ordinary apprentice. By the late 1970s, he had earned a reputation for strategic vision, scientific temper and courage that impressed the legendary JRD Tata, who appointed him chairman of Tata Industries Ltd (TIL). In 1983, he authored a strategic plan for the group that earned him the reputation of an ideation factory. He updated it later, and these two versions became the blueprint for the growth of Tata companies over the next two to three decades.
In 1991, he was appointed chairman of group holding company Tata Sons to the disappointment of various Tata veterans who were unwilling to give up on their autonomy, while Ratan Tata’s emphasis was on cohesion. It was also the year of India’s economic liberalisation and not many expected the group to survive the onslaught of foreign competition. He was faced with an avalanche of negative press and exposed to the machinations of the satraps. Speaking of those times about a decade later, he said, “When I came in, I faced a fair amount of dissidence that was not visible outside.” Later, before he stepped down in 2012 as chairman of Tata Sons, he was more forthcoming about what he had faced. He had been seen as someone who would destroy the group, who didn’t have (JRD’s) competence, his capability.
But Ratan Tata would prove them wrong. He survived all challenges. He institutionalised reforms and introduced a retirement age to make room for young blood. He restructured the group and its companies, adopting innovative strategies. The most important was increasing the shareholding of Tata Sons in group companies at a time when even the Birla Group held more shares than the promoter in flagship Tisco. To achieve this, he raised finances through out-of-the-box strategies, working in tandem with Noshir Soonawala, the famed financial director of the group.
He lit a competitive fire in the bellies of Tata company managements through the JRD Quality Value (JRDQV) award programme for business excellence. To institutionalise transparency and integrity, he made it compulsory for companies and their staff to sign the Tata Code of Conduct and became a world leader in adopting the practice. He micromanaged change in the two largest companies of the group — Tisco and Telco — that were staring at adverse numbers. At the latter (subsequently Tata Motors), he was so hands-on that he modified car designs using workstations that he’d got installed in Bombay House. The impact was stunning. During his time as chairman of Telco/Tata Motors, its top line catapulted by an incredible 13,764% from 1988 (standalone) to 2013 (consolidated), despite even the global financial crisis of 2007-8.
His crowning achievements were the big, global acquisitions – Tetley Tea, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), Corus — made under trying circumstances. Piqued that a one-time colony was buying the marque, a leading British newspaper said Ratan Tata should “pray” for deliverance. Not to be outdone, Ken Gorin, chairman of the US Jaguar Business Operations Council, ridiculed the possible acquisition, saying that “a premium brand like Jaguar” should not be “owned” by India, a “nation of bicyclists.” And the British secretary of state for business was unabashedly hostile. These foreign acquisitions that he said were instances of “a bit of the empire striking back” have made the Tata name popular globally.By the time he hung up his boots in 2012, he had taken the group on a dizzying upward trajectory. The top line of the Tata companies had grown in dollar terms by nearly 1,742% during his tenure as chairman of Tata Sons, exceeding the record of Jack Welch, whom a leading US business journal had once dubbed “manager of the century” for his achievements as CEO of GE, which grew 1,360% under his charge.Ratan Tata was a pioneering industrialist who took India to the world, upholding foundational values considered too utopian to succeed and for according equal if not more importance to societal welfare. In doing so, he is a lodestar for the nation, like no other industrialist has been for any nation.
(The writer is a retired IAS officer and author of an upcoming biography of Ratan Tata.)
