ALL ABOUT BEING ICONIC RATAN NAVAL TATA

Ratan Tata, one of India’s most iconic business leaders and the chairman of the Mumbai-based Tata Group between 1991 and 2012, provides compelling insights on his long career, especially the challenges he faced trying to transition the business, which had its origins in the nineteenth century, into the global and digital age. He currently holds the post of Chairman Emeritus of Tata Sons, the holding company of the Tata Group which controls some of the major companies including Tata Steel, Tata Motors, Tata Power, Tata Consultancy Services, Indian Hotels and Tata Teleservices. 

Brought up by his grandmother from the age of ten when his parents separated, he became actively involved in the family business after completing his graduation. He started as a fellow worker on the shop floor at Tata Steel and gained an insight about his family business. After the retirement of J.R.D. Tata, he became the new Chairman of the Tata Group. Under his leadership, the organization achieved new heights and generated large amount of overseas revenues. He was instrumental in the acquisition of Tetley, Jaguar Land Rover and Corus, which turned Tata from a major India-Centric company to a global brand name. 

Apart from expanding his multinational, he has also served in various capacities in organizations in India and abroad. He is also a leading philanthropist and more than half of his share in the group is invested in charitable trusts. Through his pioneering ideas and positive outlook, he continues to serve as a guiding force for his conglomerate even after retirement.

Tata discusses his globalization strategy, including the acquisition of major European brands such as Tetley Tea, Corus, and Jaguar Land Rover, and their integration into the Tata Group. Tata deplores what he discerns as deteriorating ethical standards in much of Indian business over recent decades, and sets a vision for India as a country which should offer equal opportunity for all its citizens.

 FEW QUICK FACTS ABOUT RATAN NAVAL TATA

Birthday: December 28, 1937

Nationality: Indian

Famous: Hoteliers Telecommunication

Sun Sign: Capricorn

Age: 80 Years, 80 Year Old Males

Also Known As: Ratan Naval Tata

Born In: Surat

Famous As: Chairman Emeritus Of Tata Sons

Height: 1.78 M

Father: Naval Tata

Mother: Sooni Tata

Siblings: Noel Tata

Religion: Zoroastrianism

Childhood & Early Life

? He was born on December 28, 1937 in Surat, India, to Naval Tata and Sonoo. Naval Tata was the adopted son of the Jamsetji Tata’s younger son Ratanji Tata. Jamsetji Tata was the founder of the Tata Group of Companies. Ratan Tata has a brother, Jimmy, and a step-brother, Noel Tata.

? When he was ten, his parents, got separated and thereafter, he and his brother were brought up by his grandmother, Navajbai Tata.

? He received his early education from the Campion School, Mumbai and finished his schooling from the Cathedral and John Connon School, Mumbai. In 1962, he obtained his B.S. in architecture with structural engineering from Cornell University, U.S.A.

? Later he got enrolled at the Harvard Business School and completed an Advanced Management Program in 1975

Career

? In 1962, he started his career with the Tata Steel division where he shoveled stones and worked with the furnaces along with the blue-collar employees. It was a difficult job and helped him gain a better understanding and respect for his family business.

? In 1971, he was appointed as the Director-in-Charge of the National Radio & Electronics Company Limited (NELCO) in order to help its struggling finances. He worked towards building a better consumer electronics division but the economic recession and union strikes prevented him from achieving success.

? In 1977, he was moved to Empress Mills, a struggling textile mill within the Tata Group. He proposed a plan for the mill but the other Tata executives rejected it and the mill was shut down. Later, he was moved to the Tata Industries.

? In 1991, J.R.D. Tata appointed him as the new Chairman of the Tata Group of Companies. This decision came under scrutiny following objections from other executives of the company and questions were raised regarding his ability to run the corporation.

? But he succeeded in improving the financial success of the industries and expanded the growth of the organization under his leadership. He transformed the management and vision of the division, and managed to bring in significantly larger dividends.

? He also became a member of the Prime Minister's Council on Trade and Industry. He served on the advisory board of the RAND's center for Asia Pacific Policy and is also an active participant in India's AIDS initiative program.

? He also holds the membership of the international advisory board of the Mitsubishi Cooperation, the American International Group, JP Morgan Chase and Booze Allen Hamilton

? On his 75th birthday, i.e, on 28 December 2012 he resigned from the post of Chairman of Tata Group and was succeeded by Cyrus Mistry, managing director of Shapoorji Pallonji Group. Even after retirement, he is still an active businessman and invests in upcoming promising business ventures.

Major Works

? As the Chairman of Tata Group, he was able to achieve international recognition and prestige for his company. The astounding financial success of the company brought the Tata Group to the New York Stock Exchange and under his supervision the corporation became a global brand by acquiring many companies including Tetley, Jaguar Land Rover, and Corus.

? He was instrumental in the conception and building of Tata Nano and Tata Indica cars.

? He is also a notable philanthropist and more than 65% of his share is invested in charitable trusts. One of the primary goals of his life has been to raise the quality of life of Indians along with human development.

Awards & Achievements

? In 2000, he was conferred the Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian honor awarded by the Government of India.

? In 2004, he received the ‘Medal of the Oriental Republic of Uruguay’ from the Government of Uruguay.

? In 2005, he was conferred the ‘International Distinguished Achievement Award’ by the B'nai B'rith International.

? In 2007, he was conferred the Honorary Fellowship of The London School of Economics and Political Science.

? In 2008, he was awarded the ‘Padma Vibhusan’, the second highest civilian honor awarded by the Government of India.

? In 2009, he received the ‘Award of 'Grand Officer' of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic’ from the Government of Italy.

? In 2009, he was awarded the title of Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire, United Kingdom.

? In 2010, he won the ‘Oslo Business for Peace Award’ presented by the Business for Peace Foundation.

? In 2014, he was conferred the ‘Honorary Knight Grand Cross of The Order of the British Empire’.

ALL YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT SRI RATAN NAVL TATA IN A NUTSHELL

IT IS easy to understand why Ratan Tata, who as chairman of Tata Sons conglomerate runs is India’s largest private-sector concern, accounting for 7% of the stockmarket. It pays 3% of all India’s corporate tax and 5% of all its excise duty. You can live in a house, drive a car, make a phone call, season your food, insure yourself, wear a watch, walk in shoes, cool yourself with air-conditioning and stay in a hotel, all courtesy of Tata firms. 

Polite, elegant and reserved, Mr Tata has been the king of India’s corporate scene for the past two decades. Indians look up to him in much the same way that Italians once looked up to Gianni Agnelli at Fiat or Americans did to J.P. Morgan.

In some ways, though, the reverence for Mr Tata is odd. He is not a geekish entrepreneur, like the high-tech wizards in Bangalore. He is an old-style dynast—the fifth generation to run his 144-year-old firm. He took time to grow into the job: when he took the reins in 1991 he struggled to assert himself. Even today, critics accuse him of being regal and secretive—and snipe that the group’s most successful business, TCS, its technology arm, is the one he left most alone.

Nor can Tata be hailed as a financial paragon. After a wave of takeovers during the past decade, its return on capital is mediocre.

And yet, for all that, Mr Tata’s career carries two powerful lessons for an introverted and corruption-obsessed India. First, that India has far more to gain than lose from the outside world. And second, that a company can be a force for progress.

The hereditary ruler as hero

Globalisation came easily to Mr Tata, who trained as an architect in America. Even today he would rather discuss car designs with young engineers than read management reviews. That education, and a streak of perfectionism, have served him well. He realised early on that as India’s economy opened in the 1990s its firms would have to raise their standards, benchmark themselves against the very best, and if necessary buy competitors. 

His foreign takeovers included Corus, a giant British steel firm, and Jaguar Land Rover. The first has been a financial disaster, the second a triumph. But both showed that Indian firms—and those from other emerging economies—deserve their place at the top table of global business.

Indians would love to claim that this lesson has been thoroughly learnt. Names like Mittal and Infosys are known all round the world. But India remains a country with too many protected industries, from shopping to coal mining and newspapers. Mr Tata himself was not always as keen to open up at home as he was to venture abroad. But for the most part he was a firm advocate of globalisation.

The other lesson from Mr Tata has to do with integrity. His group has not entirely avoided scandals. It faced a rogue trader in the early 2000s, and did not completely escape the furore over the bent award of telecoms licences in 2008. No doubt somewhere today, in this firm with $100 billion of sales, funny business is taking place. Rivals grumble that Tata’s current respectability masks a past spent toadying up to politicians in the years before and after India’s independence in 1947. But the fact is that Mr Tata, in public, and by widespread repute in private too, has stood against corruption. His attitude towards India’s political class has been one of polite distance. He has long attacked what he calls “vested interests”—code for crony capitalism, in which firms make profits by buying favours from officials and politicians.

Looking in the mirror

Crony capitalism has seldom seemed more of a threat to India. Back in the 1990s, the country’s leading firms—technology companies as well as Tata Sons—went to extraordinary lengths to be squeaky-clean. Family firms, which still control about 40% of India’s stockmarket profits, professionalised their management and listed their shares. But over the past decade things have gone backwards. The new money has been made in “rent-seeking” sectors, such as mining and infrastructure, with a lot of government involvement and little foreign competition; some mouth-wateringly large corruption scandals have occurred there. 

Too many family firms have lost interest in improving governance. Some, unwilling to relinquish control by issuing shares, have piled on debt, and now that they are in trouble, are bullying state-run banks to “extend and pretend”—roll over their loans rather than write them down. Such firms thus become state-supported zombies.

The Indian public is fed up. Anti-corruption agencies are newly vigilant. Business has become a hall of mirrors in which fingers point everywhere. Suspicion is so pervasive that even clean officials are terrified to prod along vital projects by clean companies for fear of being accused of favouritism.

The problems in parts of the private sector have thus become a macroeconomic issue. Investment by private companies has slumped—the main reason why economic growth has slowed from 10% to about 5.5%.

It is easy to blame all this on corrupt politicians. But somebody is paying the bribes. By standing out against graft so publicly and consistently, Mr Tata was ahead of his time. The irony is that by doing so he was preparing the way for the end of businesses such as his own. 

As India’s economy modernises and becomes more open and transparent, the rationale may disappear for sprawling, hereditary conglomerates, which use the bonds of kin to deal with a shortage of trust, and pool their managers and capital because the outside markets for these resources do not work well.

To that extent, Mr Tata may come to be seen as both the last of one breed of feudal corporate leaders—and the first of another more open bunch. Anybody who cares about India’s future, especially its billion consumers, should hope that the transition picks up speed again.

Such greatness as there is in Ratan Tata’s legacy must necessarily be seen as hard-earned and not something conferred on him by a traditional succession arrangement.

Typical succession

It would be tempting to see Ratan Tata’s elevation in 1991 and his subsequent success in managing a disparate conglomerate of businesses as something that was preordained. Nothing could be farther from truth. Just how much farther can be gauged from an alternative scenario that is a classic textbook case of succession in a traditional family-driven business. This is how a succession would typically play out. You are born into the family of a very successful entrepreneur. He presides over a vast industrial conglomerate.

As the eldest child, or better still, as the only child, you are the heir-apparent and all set to formally take over, whenever the old man says it is time for him to quit. What would your career path be?

It would typically happen this way: You are inducted into the most profitable and, if possible, the most high-profile company in the Group. You are most likely to start from somewhere near the bottom of the totem pole.

You would be fast-tracked in a few short years, to the top and within sniffing distance of the very zenith.

Since the company you were pitch-forked into was, to begin with, a profitable one, chances are that it would have continued to do well, if not better its past performance, in the years since you joined.

In any case, since you were still working your way up the organisation you didn’t really have the opportunity, even if you had the natural genius, for messing things up, to have damaged its prospects in any significant way. In no time at all, the success of the organisation gets attributed to your own managerial excellence.

With some deft management of your public image, business schools could be lining up to write case studies on your management style and newspapers would be feting you with Entrepreneur of the Year awards. You may eventually take the Group to newer heights or run it to ground. But that is another matter.

For Ratan Tata, it has been anything but that. For no other reason but that the House of Tatas, in practically its entire history barring the initial years, never conformed to the archetypal family business when it came to succession.

Consider the evidence. Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata starts a business empire. On his death, his eldest son takes over. Up to that point, the story pans out as per the script.

Away from script

On the death of the son however, it is the founder’s nephew (Saklatvala), and that too, from the wife’s side, who takes over. On the passing away of the nephew, the mantle falls on another nephew once removed (JRD Tata).

Ratan Tata himself is a successor not as a lineal descendent but as the great-grand nephew of the founder J.N. Tata. There is also, along the way, a tale of adoption involving his father (Naval Tata) that saw the latter become, legally, the grandson of the founder.

To this already heady mix, throw in also the fact that the Group had by now only a tenuous hold on the companies under its control. The public financial institutions had acquired significant stakes in them and could have at a pinch decided the fate of managerial succession, if the Government of the day had so willed. Compounding his difficulty is the fact the incumbent CEOs in some of the blue chip companies under the Tata fold had acquired larger-than-life images of their own. The bottomline is this: For Ratan Tata, therefore, such greatness as there is in his legacy must necessarily be seen as hard-earned and not something conferred on him under a more traditional succession arrangement. This is also evident from the fact he didn’t get to manage any of the marquee names among the Group companies. His initial stints were in companies that were either struggling (consumer electronics firm Nelco) or were doomed to almost certain extinction (Empress Mills).

Transformation

Far from being seen as a man with the Midas touch, there were sniggers that he might be someone cursed with ill-luck and misfortune. He had weathered all that.

What, then, of his legacy? Shareholders in the Tata Group companies would have had little to complain. Their wealth had grown sixty-fold (by market capitalisation) in the 20 years that Ratan Tata had been at the helm — far better than the market as a whole.

He had managed to string together a number of overseas acquisitions across many Group companies that lifted the profile of the Group in the global arena in a manner that should be ranked as unprecedented among enterprises in the emerging market economies. He could justly lay claim to enlarging the technical capability of some of the Group companies, even if they had not quite mastered the new technology. Thus, Tata Motors has been transformed from a manufacturer of buses and trucks into one making cars as well. But Tata Motors is still struggling to evolve as a complete car-maker. The list can go on and on.

In the end, legacy, like history, must be assessed long after the man has ceased to be relevant. For now, chronicling some facets of it that will eventually make or mar that legacy will do.

The Ratan imprint

What, then, does Ratan Tata mean for the House of Tata? Several things, actually. But clearly, one of the biggest contributions he made to the group was bringing about a sense of renewal to it and getting back its purpose, integrity and wholesomeness at a very challenging time.

When Ratan Tata took charge of the Tata Group from the legendary JRD in 1991, critics did not give him much of a chance. Tata had major challenges to contend with. The holdings of the Tatas in various group companies were rather low, the economy was liberalising rapidly and new players from overseas were knocking on the doors.

JRD was getting on in years and many key group companies were being run by chief executives who were heavyweights in their own right and were used to functioning almost independently. The task before Ratan Tata, to put it mildly, was daunting.

Says R Gopalakrishnan, Executive Director, Tata Sons, who was a veteran at Hindustan Lever (now Hindustan Unilever) before joining Tata: "The model at the group was of 'distributed entrepreneurship' as I like to call it. 

JRD had got in several talented people during his time and having got them in, he had let them flourish. When one raises children, not all those children will function exactly as the parents want. That's what happened perhaps, though individually these people may have been great. These chief executives became used to running their own show and went on that way.”

Gopalakrishnan, who says he has the benefit of being both an insider for 14 years and an outsider having come in from Levers, points out at the time Ratan Tata took charge, the group faced the distinct possibility of disintegration.

Likening Ratan Tata's initial stint to that of earlier chairman Dorabji Tata who had to concentrate more on executing father Jamsetji's vision during his initial years, Gopalakrishnan says Ratan Tata came in as India threw its doors open to the world by way of economic liberalisation.

"He came in with a modern mindset and had to confront a set of tough situations." The Cornell-educated Tata, known to be very American in his way of thinking, decided to bring the group together and ensure it did not fall apart. Dealing with the heavyweight CEOs-Darbari Seth at Tata Tea, Russi Mody at Tata Steel and Ajit Kerkar at Indian Hotels, among others-was important and necessary, and Tata did exactly that, though it did result in bitter face-offs with them.

Gopalakrishnan, who likes to divide Ratan Tata's tenure into two phases-1991 to 2001 and 2001-2011-says if one went by the history of empires, the fifth generation is when the decline of an empire is supposed to begin. But Ratan Tata ensured this did not happen at the House of Tata.

"One of Ratan Tata's very big achievements has been to stem an imminent decline and renew the purpose and integrity of the group. This took all of the first 10 years," he says.

"He prevented the place from falling apart. It's almost like the flight of a rocket. You first have to build a huge amount of energy to get it into space, and then need to have the energy to hold it at elevation, since the rocket starts to flag. You need booster rockets to ensure it does not flag off. Ratan Tata came in as the booster to the Tata Group," explains Gopalakrishnan.

Having tackled the initial challenges in the first 10 years, Tata spent the second phase in doing what heads of institutions would be expected to do. He concentrated on nurturing the principles and purpose of the institution, its processes and its people. 

He put in place the Tata Business Excellence Model (TBEM) across the group, covering seven core aspects of business operations: leadership; strategic planning; customer focus; measurement, analysis and knowledge management; workforce focus; process management and outcomes of financial and non-financial parameters; and business results. He also got in senior people from other companies for an 'outside-in' perspective on the businesses.

Recalls Gopalakrishnan: "I was a Levers man and no one from Levers had joined Tata Sons directly earlier. There was an eclectic mix which Ratan Tata built up. The group already had brilliant and talented people like Ishaat Hussain and Noshir Soonawala. As a pattern, internal people were moved to key roles and so were those who came in from outside. There were those like B Muthuraman and Prakash Telang from within and others like Prasad Menon, Ravi Kant and me." While the first half of Tata's tenure was about re-establishing the group's credentials and its right to grow, the second half saw rapid and aggressive growth.

A scorching pace

Renewal apart, one of Ratan Tata's other big contributions has been the imparting of a global footprint and ambition and an aggressive pace of growth.

Says Harsh Goenka, Chairman of the diversified RPG Enterprises and a self-confessed admirer of Ratan Tata: "During the first five years, Tata appeared somewhat tentative but exercised control; in the next five, he consolidated shareholding in all Tata companies and later, he saw to it that the group grew on an entirely different orbit.”

Under Ratan Tata, the group grew into a bold, dynamic and fleet-footed entity which dared to take on the biggest on a global scale. Viewed in totality, the 21 years Ratan Tata has been at the helm have seen a kind of transformation few chief executives in corporate India-or even worldwide-can boast of.

Consider the facts and figures. Between 1994 and 2012, the group's revenues pole-vaulted from Rs 18,953 crore to a jaw-dropping Rs 4.75 lakh crore. As the group expanded abroad, international revenues also soared from a modest $4.7 billion in FY05 (27 percent of group revenues) to a hefty $58.5 billion in FY12, accounting for a 58.5 percent share of total revenues.

Today, the Tata Group boasts of several companies of global scale. Tata Steel is among the top 10 steelmakers in the world, Tata Motors among the world's top five commercial vehicle makers.

Tata Global Beverages is the world's second-largest tea company, while Tata Chemicals ranks second in the world in soda ash.

Two group companies-Tata Motors and Tata Communications-are listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

It was during Ratan Tata's tenure that the group dared to move into and capture international markets on a scale that few Indian conglomerates have been able to match. The Tata Group now has 100 operating companies (31 listed) spread across 80 countries in six continents, employing 4.5 lakh people worldwide. Significant to note also is the acceleration in the pace of acquisitions. While in the first 12 years of his tenure the group saw only five acquisitions, between 2006 and 2010 there were as many as 37.

Says Gopalakrishnan: "While globalisation is really a mindset and we may still be on the way to achieving it, what the acquisitions did was to trigger the imagination of people not just within Tata but in corporate India in general. By his actions and the frequency of those actions he restored the native spirit of entrepreneurship which always existed but was suppressed for 60 years. And what is important is he did all that by example, not just by speeches or by preaching."

Hungry for M&A

The rapidly growing pace of M&A in the second part of Ratan Tata's tenure left most in the corporate sector in awe. The group, once perceived as slow-moving and stodgy, began pulling off massive and bold acquisitions with the world as its playground. If it was the Tetley Group in the tea business in 2000, it was Tata Consultancy Services' acquisition of Computer Maintenance Corporation (CMC) as part of the government's disinvestment process the very next year. The other big acquisitions which followed were those of Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL), again by way of the government-sponsored disinvestment process in 2002, Tata Motors' acquisition of Daewoo Commercial Vehicle Company in 2004, Indian Hotels' buyout of Starwood Group of Australia (2005) and Tata Steel's purchase of NatSteel Asia of Singapore the same year.

But the biggest and boldest came in 2007, when Tata Steel gobbled up Anglo-Dutch Corus Plc for $12 billion (6.1 billion) in a nail-biting bidding war with CSN of Brazil, which finally proved to the world that Tata was now a truly global name. But this wasn't enough. Ratan Tata followed this up quickly with another awe-inspiring acquisition, this time of iconic British auto company Jaguar Land Rover for$2.3 billion.

The spate of M&As is seen by many in corporate India as one of the highlights of Tata's tenure at the top. "Look at the audacious acquisitions. Ratan Tata has the ability to turn opportunities and to infuse growth. He remains an icon of Indian enterprise on a global platform," says Goenka.

Though some of his bold acquisitions were initially panned by critics and analysts, Tata did not fail his stakeholders despite tough global conditions. Says Prashant Sawant, Convertible Bond Specialist, KNG Securities LLP, London, "While many Indian companies either defaulted or deferred payments on FCCB obligations citing the impact of the slowdown, Tata Motors and Tata Steel have never defaulted on FCCB repayments. Their commitment to stakeholders remains unquestioned.”

If equity markets are a barometer of how Tata has fared, he has done rather well on that front as well and kept his 3.8 million shareholders largely satisfied. The group's 31 listed companies together command a market capitalisation of about Rs 4.79 lakh crore ($87.72 billion) today, which is over 7 percent of the total market capitalisation of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), which was listed on the bourses in August 2004 and is the jewel in the group's crown as far as market cap is concerned, accounts for about Rs 2.53 lakh crore.

Bankers who have worked closely with the group also have high words of praise for Tata. Says Vishwavir Ahuja, Managing Director and CEO of Ratnakar Bank who, during his long stint as India managing director and CEO of Bank of America, had worked on several strategic deals for Tata, "His stature as an entrepreneur is immense. He has made India proud.”

Ahuja points out that despite the Tata footprint spreading across the globe, one of the most important attributes of the group under Ratan Tata is that it still remains very much an Indian brand. "Though over the years, a majority of the revenues and assets of the group have come from outside India, Tata still embodies patriotism and pride in India more than any other business house. The Tata brands are household names and the group makes us hold our heads high," says Ahuja.

All About Being RNT

What is it about Ratan Tata that makes him the distinguished entrepreneur that he is? Tata's style of functioning is characterised by his low profile as a person despite the fact that he holds one of the most important corporate positions in the land. Simply put, he likes to let his bat do the talking. That he hardly gives interviews and rarely reveals his personal side makes him somewhat of an enigma in corporate circles. Tata Group insiders who have worked closely with him for long say it is his quiet resolve which is the hallmark of the man as a leader.

"He has a silent determination which is often underestimated by his critics," says FA Vandrevala, Chairman and Managing Director, Hirco, who was managing director at Tata Power Company between 2002 and 2005.

Tata has been able to seamlessly straddle the diverse businesses in the group, making the Tata brand a global name. "He has ensured that the group companies are in safe professional hands. They have clear growth strategies as well," says Kavil Ramachandran, Thomas Schmidheiny Chair Professor of Family Business and Wealth Management and Clinical Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Indian School of Business.

Brand Tata, too, has gone up several notches under Ratan Tata's stewardship. That is why, Goenka says, "he is identified as the keeper of the Tata flame". Colleagues call him imaginative and laud his ability to advocate what he believes in and successfully sell a business idea both internally and outside the group.

"Ratan Tata is passionate about what he believes in," points out Gopalakrishnan.

And Tata is quick, too. Says Kishor Chaukar, former managing director, Tata Industries and Chairman of Tata Centre for Community Initiative (TCCI): "Ratan Tata takes a decision which is his, but it comes about after a lot of internal discussions. It is not correct when people say that he dithers when it comes to taking a decision. In the 14 years that I have been here, no decision of significance has taken more than 24-48 hours.”

His style, his senior managers say, is highly delegative. "He delegates enormously if he believes what you will do is good for the business. For instance, I have raised issues regarding risks and costs and he has said, 'Do it.' He allows you to define parameters of resources and time limits and then lets you do it," says Chaukar.

Even other entrepreneurs who don't know him that well applaud the energy he has brought into the group. Says Harsh Mariwala, Chairman and Managing Director of consumer goods major Marico: "I don't know Tata, but as an entrepreneur, he has delivered the right mechanism which has enabled the group to foster growth."

Steely resolve

Despite the successes the group has seen under Tata, it's not as if he has not had his share of setbacks along the way. Tata joined the group in 1962 working on the shop floor at Tata Steel, Jamshedpur. When JRD gave him independent assignments as director, Nelco (National Radio and Electronics), and later Empress Mills, both were stymied by political problems and the infamous Mumbai textile strike, respectively.

As chairman, Tata had to contend with problems of varying degrees. Success was never easy, especially with regard to Tata Motors. Though Tata trucks were ubiquitous on Indian roads, the dream to make it a name in passenger cars faced several roadblocks. While his plan of launching a passenger car was severely criticized, Tata Motors went ahead and launched India's first indigenously designed and manufactured car-Indica-in 1998.

The company also ran up hefty losses in the early 2000s and later again in 2009 after its ambitious acquisition of JLR, as the global economy went into a tailspin.

The biggest challenge for Tata Motors came when Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee stoutly resisted his plan to set up the ambitious Nano "Rs 1 lakh car" project in Bengal, arguing against the manner in which land had been acquired for it by the then Left Front government in Bengal. The opposition to the Nano project was so intense that Tata was forced to relocate it to Gujarat, leading to intense debate.

But once he had taken the call to move out of Bengal, he stuck to it, ready to face the political fallout which came with such a decision.

Other fronts threw challenges at Ratan Tata too. Tata Finance, the group's finance company was beset with massive governance issues which also tested his resolve to the hilt. And then there was the 2G scandal in the telecom industry which, at one point, threatened to envelope the group too in its wake.

But all these problems also showed Ratan Tata's firmness of resolve as he went about addressing each of these problems personally. He not only set things right at Tata Motors (the company clocked consolidated net revenues of Rs 165,655 crore and profits of Rs 13,517 crore for FY12), the Tata Finance problem was also set right with a deft hand which is typical of the manner in which he handles crises.

After admitting to the existence of the problem and its severity without hesitation, Ratan Tata put the group's full strength behind the troubled company and its depositors, pumping in funds and arriving at a swift solution. Eventually, Tata Finance was merged with Tata Motors. The Nano, despite niggling issues, is on the roads, and the Tata Group has been given a clean chit after a government probe into the 2G scandal.

Tata-watchers see a common thread in the way he thought through most of these problems. The first was an enormous, unshakeable and almost obstinate commitment to the principles he believes in, which are rooted in certain values.

The Nano was born from the simple question why a family of a husband, wife and two children should be forced to commute on a scooter. In the 2G case, he firmly put forward his stance that the group had done nothing wrong in securing the spectrum allocations. At Tata Motors, he went about identifying the problems and addressing them one by one. In the Tata Finance case, he admitted the company had made a mistake in governance, accepted responsibility and ensured no one lost money.

Recalls Chaukar: "When the Tata Finance crisis took place, he stood behind what was right and took a personal beating because of someone else. But he was rock solid. 'We haven't done anything wrong. We will see it through,' he said. He told me, 'Kishor, for God's sake, let us stand up for the truth.’"

"He has an almost workman-like approach to fixing problems," says Gopalakrishnan. "If there is a leak in the pipe, don't debate it and try to palm off responsibility. Fix the leak. Put a team together and set things right-that's his style."

Little wonder then that the chorus within the group with regard to Tata is almost reverential. "He speaks little and yet conveys decisions without being overbearing," says a veteran at Bombay House.

The SOFT side of RATAN N TATA Humane and dignified

Indeed, dignity in the manner in which he conducts himself is one of the key attributes of Tata as an entrepreneur. "Tata hardly ever lets himself get involved in public spats," says a Bombay House insider. "He knows such spats can get inelegant and that's never going to be an option with him."

At a time when several industrialists are seen doing the rounds of the corridors of power in New Delhi, few can claim to have seen Tata hobnobbing with politicians and lobbying with government officials to get things done.

"One often sees industrialists moving in and out of North Block in Delhi to get their way. Ratan Tata's style is far from that. He seeks to depoliticise business, and that can be a good sign for the future of entrepreneurship in this country," remarks a Tata official on condition of anonymity.

"In times of crises, it is important to check where the leader was. Was he in the deck or engine room or commentating from the shore? In the US, if companies fail, no one hangs around Washington," adds the official.

Some people speak of Tata's commitment and compassion which they feel the outside world does not get to know or hear about, but which speak for the kind of man he is. Gopalakrishnan has an interesting story to tell. It was a few months before the Kargil War that he had joined the Tata Group.

Various business houses were giving funds for Kargil martyrs and their families. What Tata decided to do was unusual. He convened a meeting of senior people in the group and asked them instead to find a way to ensure that the company could reach relief to the right people who were really in need of assistance.

"Around four to five meetings were held, a welfare trust was set up and Rs 14 crore raised. The money was given also to next of kin of martyrs who died in the 1964 and 1971 wars. Funds were specified for education, prosthetics etc and reports sent every six months. To me, it was a moment of revelation. Tata defined the problem instead of blindly aping Corporate India," recalls Gopalakrishnan.

This humane side of Tata captures the attention of anyone who has known him. Says Chaukar: "When we closed some of our companies involved in floriculture and sericulture, he told me, 'Kishor, I don't have any issues with closure but do it the Tata way'. What he meant was that labor should never be short-changed."

Vandrevala says Ratan Tata possesses qualities similar to JRD's. He recounts what he says was an embarrassing moment with JRD when he and his son, then all of six, were waiting for the lift at the lobby of the Taj Mahal hotel.

"The lift doors opened and my son ran in, bumping into JRD who was inside. I got nervous. JRD went down on his knees and asked my son, 'What does your father do?' My son replied, 'He is a senior officer at the Tatas.' JRD then had a conversation with me, combed his hair and went out. It is the same dignity that JRD shows to others no matter what their rank or importance which I have seen in Ratan Tata.”

Industrialists have their own Ratan Tata moments too. When Goenka met Ratan Tata at a wedding, both began a conversation in earnest. "A Tata shareholder-the persistent kind-came up to him and I walked away. After some time, Tata came back to me and said, 'I am sorry, Harsh. I had to attend to that shareholder and could not talk to you.' That is what Ratan Tata is all about-dignity and humility," adds Goenka.

"Every time you meet him, he is so affable, warm, friendly and down-to-earth. It's just so easy to talk to him," adds Ahuja.

It is this humane element in Ratan Tata which will come to the fore after he steps down from Tata Sons in December: Tata will remain Chairman of Tata trusts, which control 66 percent of the shares of Tata Sons. The trusts support a wide variety of causes and Tata has already said he would focus on issues like child nutrition and rural development after his stint as Tata Sons chairman.

"Post-retirement, he will pay a lot of attention to trusts and look at them in a holistic and organised manner and undertake programs with a futuristic perspective," says Chaukar.