mcgillianaire (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mcgillianaire) wrote2007-02-16 07:45 pm
mcgillianaire) wrote2007-02-16 07:45 pm
The Rise of Tata - India's 1st Real MNC
Since I was a little boy, my dad would often repeat a mantra: "Tata will become India's 1st MNC. Just you wait and watch!" As happy and proud as that made me feel, I didn't really believe him. How could I? This was in the days when India was still smitten with outdated Ambassador cars, outdated Colgate toothpaste, outdated Cadbury chocolates, outdated Horlicks milk powder, outdated Bata shoes and best of all, outdated Doordashan TV programming. Amidst all this socialism, import-substitution and downright mediocrity, how could anyone have the audacity to predict an Indian MNC? Not even the great House of Tatas could escape the general mood of skepticism. Or could they?
The Tata Group is one of India's oldest & largest business conglomerates. It was founded in 1868 by Jamsetji Tata (right) as a trading company and since then it has grown leaps and bounds.
The Tata Group has always set itself apart. Tata Steel, for example, began the 8-hour work day for employees in 1912, long before the US or Europe, and a year after Britain accepted the 12-hour day. It introduced leave with pay in 1920, 25 years before it became law in India and it set up a provident fund for employees in 1920, 32 years before it became law in India. The children of its workers were given free education in 1917 and for decades it has provided town subsidized housing, electricity, free purified water & hospital care.
Not surprisingly then, Tata Sons, the controlling enterprise of the 96-company Tata Group, is 67% owned by charitable trusts that do good work in India. The Tata Group has always stayed ahead of its competition, despite the license raj and other domestic obstacles.
Today, the Tata Group sits on the threshold of taking the global arena by storm. Only a few of you may have heard about Tata Steel's takeover of the Anglo-Dutch steel giant, Corus. Fewer still may have noticed that before the deal, Corus was 5-times bigger than Tata Steel. Once merged, the new company will catapult itself to become the world's 5th largest steel producer. Rather interestingly, 2 of the world's 5 largest steelproducers will be controlled by Indians, after Mittal Steel's hostile takeover of Arcelor last year.
Jamshedpur is a city in Eastern India that was founded by and named after Jamsetji Tata in 1907 to establish Asia's 1st iron and steel plant - TISCO (now Tata Steel).
There is another lesson to be learnt from the recent spurt of Indian Inc acquisitions: We're not just about IT! India is slowly but surely emerging as an international manufacturing hub for metals, petro-products & auto components. For the Tata Group, this is just the beginning. Steel is just one of the many avenues in which the $22 billion enterprise is seeking to make its presence felt on the domestic and world stage. For example:
"If you wake up in India, you are likely to sip Tata tea, make early morning calls on your Tata mobile phone and take a Tata sedan to work. There is a good chance that you will be wearing a Tata watch or shoes sold by Tata. Back home, you may be surfing more than 100 channels on the local direct-to-home television system launched by Tata. Your children may work in any of the Tata companies already employing nearly 250,000 people or opt for higher studies at a science or social sciences school run by the Tatas. If you fall ill, you might head to the nearest Tata hospital.
If you are growing up in India, Tata buses and trucks are among the first vehicles you will ever see in the cities and countryside. Two years ago, the oil-epic Syriana starring George Clooney opened with a shot of oil workers struggling to get into an overloaded Tata bus in Saudi Arabia. There is no other Indian business conglomerate that dominates the lives of middle-class Indians the way Tata does."
Beyond India, the group has bought a stake in an international vitamin water company, bought hotels in Boston, plotted a coffee plant in Uganda, sold cars in Ghana, signed deals to launch hotels in Qatar and promised to build a new undersea submarine cable linking India, the Middle East and Western Europe.
Last year it entered China with its software company, TCS, in collaboration with the Chinese government and Microsoft. TCS is also Asia's largest software company. In the same fiscal year, the Tata Group made 15 acquisitions worth nearly $1.5 billion and in the last few years it has acquired some prominent names such as British-based Tetley Tea and Korean auto giant, Daewoo Trucks. Tata has operations in more than 50 countries!
Need I say more? Most certainly!
As a young boy, my dad used to take me to a hotel in Madras that used to be (and still is) the highlight of my summer holidays. For me, the Taj Coromandel was a brief opportunity (usually a couple hours) to escape the pollution & poverty of India. We would never stay there as one usually does in a hotel. Rather, we would bide our time in the coffee shop or in the lobby. Sometimes, my dad would get a haircut in the basement barber salon. During many of these trips, I failed to make the connection between the Taj & the Tata Group. The relationship epitomizes two trademarks of the Tata Group: 5-star quality service & public service.
In 1903, the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Bombay was built by the group's founder, Jamsetji Tata. As the story goes, he was refused entry to one of the city's grand hotels of the time, Watson's, on the grounds of a "Whites Only" policy. The rest as they say is history. Today, the Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Tata Group, is the largest Indian luxury hotel chain with 57 hotels in 39 locations across India and 18 hotels worldwide. During World War I however, it was converted into a 600-bed hospital to look after the sick & injured. 5-star quality & public service, thy name is Tata.
Jamsetji Tata's majestic Taj Mahal Hotel on the Bombay waterfront.
At the helm of this magnificent organization is Mr. Ratan Tata, an architect by degree and a relative of Jamsetji Tata. They both belong to the Parsi (Zoroastrian) community who make up less than 70,000 of India's 1+ billion population. The manner in which their conglomerate has succeeded in spreading itself across the country is simply staggering. Few companies in India or Asia can match Tata for the range of goods and services it offers.
And it hardly ends there. Last I heard, Tata Chemicals has forged a joint-venture with Ireland-based Total Produce, Europe's largest fresh produce company, to distribute fresh fruits and vegetables in India. The new company will target wholesalers and retailers across the country to tap into a burgeoning market and cater to the growing aspirants of modern trade entrants such as Reliance Fresh.
Almost 40% of fresh produce goes waste in India and therefore the new company is expected to increase efficiencies, improve shelf life and reduce product loss in the supply chain. It should also help Indian farmers improve their incomes and develop the skills needed to raise the quality of Indian farm produce both domestically and abroad.
Tata Airlines (left) was first flown in 1932 by JRD Tata, Ratan Tata's (right) predecessor. In 1948, the airline was acquired by the Indian government and renamed Air India.
Not bad going for a company that also founded India's 1st airline company in 1932 (see pic), manufactures India's 2nd biggest domestic carmaker by sales (Tata Motors) and recently engineered the country's largest ever foreign takeover (Tata Corus). After all these achievements, you may be forgiven for asking if there was anything left to accomplish?
Yes, absolutely! They have to become India's first MNC, just as my dad prophecized all those years ago. Today though, I don't just believe his mantra: I know it's gonna happen. The Tata Group has never let the nation down and this one will be no exception! In fact, as American singer Randy Bachman once crooned: "You ain't seen nothing yet!"
Jai Hind, Jai India Inc, Jai Tata!
The Tata Group is one of India's oldest & largest business conglomerates. It was founded in 1868 by Jamsetji Tata (right) as a trading company and since then it has grown leaps and bounds.
The Tata Group has always set itself apart. Tata Steel, for example, began the 8-hour work day for employees in 1912, long before the US or Europe, and a year after Britain accepted the 12-hour day. It introduced leave with pay in 1920, 25 years before it became law in India and it set up a provident fund for employees in 1920, 32 years before it became law in India. The children of its workers were given free education in 1917 and for decades it has provided town subsidized housing, electricity, free purified water & hospital care.
Not surprisingly then, Tata Sons, the controlling enterprise of the 96-company Tata Group, is 67% owned by charitable trusts that do good work in India. The Tata Group has always stayed ahead of its competition, despite the license raj and other domestic obstacles.
Today, the Tata Group sits on the threshold of taking the global arena by storm. Only a few of you may have heard about Tata Steel's takeover of the Anglo-Dutch steel giant, Corus. Fewer still may have noticed that before the deal, Corus was 5-times bigger than Tata Steel. Once merged, the new company will catapult itself to become the world's 5th largest steel producer. Rather interestingly, 2 of the world's 5 largest steelproducers will be controlled by Indians, after Mittal Steel's hostile takeover of Arcelor last year.
Jamshedpur is a city in Eastern India that was founded by and named after Jamsetji Tata in 1907 to establish Asia's 1st iron and steel plant - TISCO (now Tata Steel).
There is another lesson to be learnt from the recent spurt of Indian Inc acquisitions: We're not just about IT! India is slowly but surely emerging as an international manufacturing hub for metals, petro-products & auto components. For the Tata Group, this is just the beginning. Steel is just one of the many avenues in which the $22 billion enterprise is seeking to make its presence felt on the domestic and world stage. For example:
If you are growing up in India, Tata buses and trucks are among the first vehicles you will ever see in the cities and countryside. Two years ago, the oil-epic Syriana starring George Clooney opened with a shot of oil workers struggling to get into an overloaded Tata bus in Saudi Arabia. There is no other Indian business conglomerate that dominates the lives of middle-class Indians the way Tata does."
Beyond India, the group has bought a stake in an international vitamin water company, bought hotels in Boston, plotted a coffee plant in Uganda, sold cars in Ghana, signed deals to launch hotels in Qatar and promised to build a new undersea submarine cable linking India, the Middle East and Western Europe.
Last year it entered China with its software company, TCS, in collaboration with the Chinese government and Microsoft. TCS is also Asia's largest software company. In the same fiscal year, the Tata Group made 15 acquisitions worth nearly $1.5 billion and in the last few years it has acquired some prominent names such as British-based Tetley Tea and Korean auto giant, Daewoo Trucks. Tata has operations in more than 50 countries!
Need I say more? Most certainly!
As a young boy, my dad used to take me to a hotel in Madras that used to be (and still is) the highlight of my summer holidays. For me, the Taj Coromandel was a brief opportunity (usually a couple hours) to escape the pollution & poverty of India. We would never stay there as one usually does in a hotel. Rather, we would bide our time in the coffee shop or in the lobby. Sometimes, my dad would get a haircut in the basement barber salon. During many of these trips, I failed to make the connection between the Taj & the Tata Group. The relationship epitomizes two trademarks of the Tata Group: 5-star quality service & public service.
In 1903, the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Bombay was built by the group's founder, Jamsetji Tata. As the story goes, he was refused entry to one of the city's grand hotels of the time, Watson's, on the grounds of a "Whites Only" policy. The rest as they say is history. Today, the Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Tata Group, is the largest Indian luxury hotel chain with 57 hotels in 39 locations across India and 18 hotels worldwide. During World War I however, it was converted into a 600-bed hospital to look after the sick & injured. 5-star quality & public service, thy name is Tata.
Jamsetji Tata's majestic Taj Mahal Hotel on the Bombay waterfront.
At the helm of this magnificent organization is Mr. Ratan Tata, an architect by degree and a relative of Jamsetji Tata. They both belong to the Parsi (Zoroastrian) community who make up less than 70,000 of India's 1+ billion population. The manner in which their conglomerate has succeeded in spreading itself across the country is simply staggering. Few companies in India or Asia can match Tata for the range of goods and services it offers.
And it hardly ends there. Last I heard, Tata Chemicals has forged a joint-venture with Ireland-based Total Produce, Europe's largest fresh produce company, to distribute fresh fruits and vegetables in India. The new company will target wholesalers and retailers across the country to tap into a burgeoning market and cater to the growing aspirants of modern trade entrants such as Reliance Fresh.
Almost 40% of fresh produce goes waste in India and therefore the new company is expected to increase efficiencies, improve shelf life and reduce product loss in the supply chain. It should also help Indian farmers improve their incomes and develop the skills needed to raise the quality of Indian farm produce both domestically and abroad.
Tata Airlines (left) was first flown in 1932 by JRD Tata, Ratan Tata's (right) predecessor. In 1948, the airline was acquired by the Indian government and renamed Air India.
Not bad going for a company that also founded India's 1st airline company in 1932 (see pic), manufactures India's 2nd biggest domestic carmaker by sales (Tata Motors) and recently engineered the country's largest ever foreign takeover (Tata Corus). After all these achievements, you may be forgiven for asking if there was anything left to accomplish?
Yes, absolutely! They have to become India's first MNC, just as my dad prophecized all those years ago. Today though, I don't just believe his mantra: I know it's gonna happen. The Tata Group has never let the nation down and this one will be no exception! In fact, as American singer Randy Bachman once crooned: "You ain't seen nothing yet!"
Jai Hind, Jai India Inc, Jai Tata!