Remembering Ratan Tata

With the recent passing of legendary Industrialist Ratan Tata, financial journalist Govindraj Ethiraj takes a trip down memory lane to rediscover the entrepreneurial qualities of the man that made him so influential on Indian business. Joined by S. Ramadorai, former CEO and Managing Director of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS); Ravi Kant, former Managing Director of Tata Motors; Sudhir Sethi, Founder and Chairman of Chiratae Ventures India Advisors; and Roger Pereira, communications expert and former advertising professional who worked closely with the Tata group, this episode serves as tribute to Mr. Tata who will remain an icon of business.

NOTE: This transcript contains the host's monologue and includes interview transcripts by a machine. Human eyes have gone through the script but there might still be errors in some of the text, so please refer to the audio in case you need to clarify any part. If you want to get in touch regards any feedback, you can drop us a message on [email protected].

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Govindraj Ethiraj: One of my last interviews with Ratan Tata when he was still Chairman of Tata Sons and the Group - he stepped down in 2012 - was on going global.

This was in 2005 and on television.

I asked him why the Tata Group was on this acquisition spree.

He gave many reasons but the core of it, as it also became clearer, was that for him success meant being a globally recognised name and brand, not the same as just exporting products overseas.

“The environment is allowing me to do that. All these years I have been an Indian player and now I can be a global citizen,” he told me.

It turns out as we will shortly hear that Tata was clear on which way he wanted the Group to go even when he applied for the job.

For example, how Tata Motors, then Telco would become a car company.

And yes, if you caught that, he apparently had to apply for the Chairman’s position to JRD Tata against the then Tata satraps like Russi Mody, Darbari Seth and others and make a presentation on what and how we would take things forward.

Allegations then followed on favouritism but died down.

Today, we will delve into the operational side of Ratan Tata and what those who worked closely with him took away in the heat and dust of running businesses, whether passenger vehicles or software to his thrust towards the digital economy in his later years and what motivated him to do that.

And finally, a view from someone who worked with his predecessor and legend JRD Tata and him and the inevitable comparison.

But some of the biggest takeaways are small and they boil down to humility, patience and a sense of calm about things, about what you can control and not.

I started out by speaking with former TCS MD & CEO S Ramadorai on his time with Ratan Tata…one major milestone was the 2004 listing of TCS, a big one by any standards, also because TCS was privately held and a cash cow for the Tata Group.

Ramadorai took over as the CEO of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in 1996, when the company’s revenues were at $155 million.

When he left in 2009, TCS was a $6 billion global IT services company.

S Ramadorai: I think every interaction with Mr. Tata or travelling with him was a learning experience and more in terms of a friend or a professional rather than a boss versus an employee. We travelled together a lot even prior to the IPO after he took over as the chairman of the group as well as I became the chairman of CEO of TCS. Some of the anecdotes are, we went on a trip to Latin America and we took a very interesting route that is from Bombay to Joburg and then Joburg to Sao Paulo non-stop flight.

I think lo and behold, it was on a Sunday we decided to leave Bombay and then as we landed in Joburg, as we went into the immigration counter, people said to Mr. Tata that we cannot get out of the immigration.

He was very perplexed and I got my clearance and I was about to go out, then I saw he was not able to make it. Lo and behold, we found that his visa has expired, there was no way we could do anything to get the visa process done on a Sunday and as I come out of the immigration to the baggage area and then the people wanting to greet us from Tata group in South Africa, they got one bouquet for me, one for Mr. Tata and I had to tell them that give both the bouquets to me because Mr. Tata is stuck inside and he is not able to come out. I had a nice room, a shower right in the airport where I think I had a dry shower in the bathroom for the last almost 6-7 hours. There was an incident where we both laughed but it was a very experience where he never got irritated, he never started scolding his people or whatever it is but mistakes can happen by anyone, any place, anywhere and you get to face some of the situations with a colleague or with a friend and that was the lesson from that.

Now, similar anecdote but I thought I will give this one which is stuck in my mind all the time and I keep reminding him once in a while when we have a joke together saying that, do you remember the trip?

Govindraj Ethiraj: The question I have posed to most people was what and where did the fundamental drive for Ratan Tata come from.

There could be lofty goals but in Ratan Tata’s case, as it is for many entrepreneurs, raw passion was an important motivator and driver.

And the satisfaction of seeing a product dream turn into product reality.

S Ramadorai: His whole quality of leadership was always excellence in everything and excellence has no bar, you keep raising the bar from your previous experience to the next experience and by challenging that whether it was in Tata Motors with the Nano car or in TCS with the Tata business excellence model to achieve the score of 600 plus, his behaviour was the same where he would challenge saying that I definitely want this to be done. Very similar situation is when we have done the IPO and the first quarter of results we had to disseminate, it is very particular that I will not have anything other than 16th of the end of quarter, we had to publish the results.

We said it is a horrendous task with all the subsidiaries, I do not know what you do but I want that to be done because we had to claim our number one place with the IPO by people who know what this company is and it will all beat all the benchmarks. Same thing when that Nano car and we had gone to Delhi together and I happened to be there and attended the inauguration or the launch of the Nano vehicle and the leadership is where a person across the spectrum the moment he saw the joy of launching that product he came and hugged me, which is very unusual for a group chairman to come and say that I could see the moment of team spirit at the moment of being together, almost tears in his eyes to see a product of his vision came out and here is the launch that was happening. So, I think these are instances where you again remember the man for what he is rather than what people claim him to be.

Govindraj Ethiraj: Combining the raw passion with execution focus and determination to set and stretch deadlines was another quality that Tata shone out in.

But there is something else to a stretch target because for some leaders, it might end at the point that the target has been set and the job defined. For Tata it went beyond that.

S Ramadorai: Two or three things, I think the can-do attitude is the first one that leaders conduct, and challenging the team to raise above the bar is the second thing. This happens whether it's in the Tata Group or I've seen in the government like the National Stock Exchange when we had to launch or the National Securities Depository where the late Dr. Manmohan Singh also raised those to say that these are the launch dates, guys, you got to deliver it.

So, you work backwards from that to say what are all the engineering challenges, what are all the financial challenges, what are all the integration challenges and what are all the manpower and capacity building challenges to make sure that it happens.

You cannot compromise quality, you cannot compromise the price point that has been fixed and the launch date is fixed. Then you work against all the odds to make sure it happens, that's how leaders do, but then whether it is Mr. Tata or anyone else, they will come and continuously monitor, are you having any problems? How can I be of help to you rather than saying that I've given you the deadlines and then you disappear?

I think this is another hallmark which we all learn from him and we practise more importantly than just learning and forgetting about it.

Govindraj Ethiraj: I had a question. Suppose you were to take a present day challenge, lets say AI upending jobs, how would Ratan Tata respond to it ? What can we take away from his leadership approach and response to a situation, either a static or evolving one and how he would problem solve.

S Ramadorai: The first one is, he understood the role of the board, the role consists of independent directors, the role consists of a chairman and this happens to be Mr. Tata in this case. The kind of R&D and the technology that are going to impact us is always thought through proactively rather than after it hits it. So if I was a thing that was going to disrupt the whole life, whether it's health, whether it's agriculture, whether it is IT industry or whatever or manufacturing, he would have opened his eyes couple of years ago based on the board deliberations or the R&D deliberations etc and say that let's make the necessary investments proactively for it to happen and that's a leadership quality which you will see in every single Tata person. That's what challenged us to say that let's look at the impossible and then let's put the learning hat on our learning hat, then make sure we are prepared when the tsunami hits you or before the tsunami hits you. That's the kind of leadership these people demonstrated and that's a lesson we all practised and also percolated.

So AI was going to be hitting you tomorrow, we will be prepared today, that's the point.

Govindraj Ethiraj: Ratan Tata’s successes and failures are often pegged around Tata Motors and passenger vehicles, being the company and projects he was seen most passionate about and also something he associated himself quite directly with.

For instance, he could have been more of a hotelier with Taj Group or a steel company executive with Tata Steel but his calling was clearly in cars and automobiles.

And then the Indica and Nano, one which turned out well and provided the springboard for Tata's eventual acquisition of Jaguar Land Rover from Ford who they almost sold the passenger vehicle business to by the way.

And then of course airlines which he made the group get back into.

But airlines are a story for a different day.

One person who worked closely with Ratan Tata at the time was Ravi Kant who joined Tata Motors in February 1999, ran the commercial vehicle business and then became managing director in 2005 and then retired in 2009 from his executive position.

Ravi Kant is credited, among other things, with turning around Tata Motors and also launching the famous mini truck the Tata Ace.

Ravi Kant: You know, let me start by some generalisation. Mr. Tata has been a very bold thinker and he doesn't get constrained by what is available and what the current situation is. He looks at what the possibilities could be and therefore thinks very big and that is something which was very unique to him. And that's why he could aim for some very big things and achieve, I would say, most of it.

And he imbued the whole group with this. And that is the reason Tata Motors included. The whole group grew from a very, I would say, modest level to over 100 billion automobiles.

You know, when I joined Tata Motors it was 1.6 billion dollars. 15 years later, when I left, it was 39 billion dollars. Now, it's a huge, huge jump.

It's a big thing by even world standards, 39 billion dollars. It couldn't have happened without Mr. Tata's thinking boldly and taking some very, very long leaps. That is one thing.

Number two, he had a lot of faith and trust in his people. See, you can't do this kind of thing without having trust in your people, having faith in your people that, OK, I'm thinking that way, but who's going to make it happen? And therefore, you rely on your people to make it happen.

And that people does not mean just the top leadership, it means people down the level, people, managers, people, workers, everybody is how to make this thing happen. So he trusted people and that trust was reciprocated. So in the sense that because he trusted people, the environment was very open.

So even junior people like engineers will not be afraid to speak their mind. You know, normally in a company, this does not happen, where the top boss, especially a person of the stature of Mr. Tata is saying something, then most of the time people will listen to it and say yes or no. But he encouraged views from people, especially younger people to speak their minds and people did that.

And that, I think, enriched the whole, I would say, whole process and newer things came out, many more things came out. And he had an open mind to look at the proposals irrespective of where it was coming from. And that was his great quality.

A combination of these two things is thinking big and having trust in your people. And that makes for a very deadly combination. And his third is he supports his people.

I mean, things can go wrong. He understands, he always understands that things can go wrong. But whether things are going wrong due to wrong intentions or it is a genuine mistake, that he was very, very clear about.

Even in my case, when I joined the company in 1999, two things. One is the economy was going through a very crisis period and the economy had tanked. At that time, Tata Motors were mostly only, in fact, commercial vehicles.

And because of commercial vehicles' strong linkage with the economy, commercial vehicles have also gone down. Although Tata Motors protected its market share, the overall table went down. And that resulted in a 500 crore loss.

And I joined a company about which I did not know anything. So Mr. Tata, in a way, Mr. Tata was a risk taker. So not only in products and other opportunities he took risks, he also took risks on people.

I mean, I can genuinely say that he took a risk on me, a person who had no experience of four wheelers, and then he took that person. Can you imagine how much he would have gotten comments from other people, even his colleagues or other people, that you are taking somebody who has no experience of this. And the auto industry, as you know, is a very incestuous kind of industry, where people just move from one company to another.

But he broke that ground, and he took another person. And the first two years, therefore, were very, very, very challenging, both for this reason that the market was down, and number two, I was new to the industry. But he kept faith in me, because things didn't happen overnight.

I was doing many things, many things were doing, other colleagues were there, everybody was working towards it, because it was a question of pride being heard of Tata Motors having turned in a loss. But two years down the road, the team did a remarkable job, and had a turnaround, as you know, we made a profit of 500 crores. At that time, he would have been under great stress.

He would have been, a lot of people would be critical of him, as to why have you brought this guy? Nothing is happening. Six months have gone, nine months have gone, 12 months have gone, nothing.

But he kept faith, he kept faith, he kept supporting. Had he not supported, there was no question. I mean, either I would have been chucked out, or I would have left.

But he kept faith, and he kept trust. And I think that is the quality which brings out the best in a person, in a leader. And that is indescribable, unless you are in that kind of situation.

Ravi Kant: Yeah. You know, Nano is a difficult story, if I may say so. Because it was one of the best pieces of innovation in the auto industry.

I can say that. And it was something which is kind of a bite sheet of paper exercise, working backwards from what the price should be. And therefore, what components price should be, what should be the bill of materials and things like that.

It was an amazing thing. And kudos and compliments to engineers at Tata Motors and our suppliers, put together then finally made it happen. Seven years down the road, when the commodity prices shot up, and the concept of the car had changed hugely, because earlier, it was just an ordinary kind of vehicle.

But finally, when Nano came out, it meant all the safety and other what you call conditions and safety requirements. And therefore, it was impossible to make this thing. So he kept faith, he kept faith in people, his own engineers, because he could feel that it cannot be done by an outsider.

So of course, for design, we had somebody from Italy design out. But otherwise, the engineering and everything else was done there. And the team made it happen.

I mean, if he had not thought about it, if he had not challenged people, and because he challenged people, people would rise to the occasion. And you were not able to get either the cost or this thing. And every time things were getting bad and bad.

And I do remember a couple of occasions, we thought it's not going to happen. And we said, let's abandon the project. But the team came back, found solutions, and finally we made it happen.

So I think this is the greatness of Mr. Tata. It's not only he thought big, but he imbued people with the same thought process that you can think big, and you can make it happen. And that I think was a great quality which he inculcated in, I would say, in all of us.

Ravi Kant: As I said at the beginning, he was not constrained by what is available, what was available. He could see far and you could see that, okay, this could happen and why not? And he had the boldness and he had the guts to say, why not?

And therefore, when Jaguar Land Rover happened, which happened four years after our acquiring Daewoo truck company in South Korea. And therefore, by then we had some knowledge, some feel for what to do when you acquire a company in the foreign lands. In fact, South Korea was even more difficult because people didn't speak in English.

They spoke only in Korean and they were very, very nationalistic. They are very nationalistic. That's how the country has progressed so much.

It was a tough going, but I would say we laid the template for running a wired company at this Daewoo in South Korea. And that kind of worked very well. Later on, four years later, when we were going to acquire Jaguar Land Rover, in both times there were 10 bidders.

And we were perhaps thought to be in both cases, we were thought to be the most, I would say.

Ravi Kant: Least qualified. Both in the case of South Korea, people felt that we are from a third world country and therefore we don't have the wherewithal to do it. Of course, it's a long story how we overcame that.

And similarly, in the case of Jaguar Land Rover, if you remember, there was the president of the US Steelers Association who said, who's this tandoori chicken company trying to take over Jaguar Land Rover? And then it happened. And after it happened, we went round kind of a whistle-stop, a six-day trip across the US.

And we met with so many dealers that they do this thing in small groups. And finally, that person who made this comment became our best friend and best well-wisher. So that is Mr. Tata's personality. Because he comes across as a very open person, very sincere person, very genuine person. And therefore, you can't help but be not affected by that. Because everywhere, in case of Daewoo also, he went there, he sat in the canteen with the workers.

He told them, look, we have come here to help you realise your goals. Same thing happened in Jaguar Land Rover. We had a town hall meeting in which he said, we have not come here to take this kind of thing from you.

We have come here to contribute to your success. And we give you a free hand to make your own future. I mean, those are very, very important words for coming straight from a company that bears his name.

I mean, so can you understand the confidence that he's giving to those people and saying that, look, you carry on with your job. You're doing good work. You carry on.

We support you making it happen. I mean, that was his feeling that we will play a supporting role to you and not kind of acquirer role. We are not acquirers unlike the Western companies, unlike the American company.

We are here to help you chart your own future. It is a dramatic difference in the attitude and what you do to people whose company you are acquiring.

Govindraj Ethiraj: A facet of Ratan Tata which became more evident after he stepped down as chairman of Tata Sons was his desire to deep dive into the startup world which had begun exploding around him.

You have to remember that everything Tata ran until now within the group were essentially old economy companies.

TCS being a IT company was also services and surely not a new age technology company as we think of them in the internet and ecommerce age.

While he invested some of his money in a few startups, the fate of all am not so sure of, he also reached out to venture capital firms and worked with them, as much as I can see to understand what was happening in India’s new economy and meet young entrepreneurs as perhaps to capitalise on some good investments.

It was in this context he met with Sudhir Sethi, Chairman of Chirate Ventures, formerly IDG Ventures which manages around $1.2 billion of venture money.

Prior to starting out in venture capital, Sudhir worked in senior positions in companies like HCL and Wipro.

I began by asking Sudhir how we met with Tata and how the relationship developed.

Sudhir Sethi: No, thank you, Govind, good to see you again. I think many. I first met him in 2015, August 12th, 4 p.m. to be precise at his office in South Bombay and he had given me 30 minutes and after 30 minutes I remember him sort of going to the phone and saying, you know, I just need some more time and I got another 30 minutes and you know what struck me at that point of time, I mean, I was awed, if I may say, in my first meeting with him and we, from my point of view, I did not know what I wanted, I just wanted to meet him and Venkat, his EA had told me that, look, he will ask you something at the end and so after about 50 minutes, you know, and he had got all the information on the startup ecosystem, Venkat had obviously given that to him, whatever we had sent, he knew about us as such and I think in the first 50 minutes, I found him extremely curious and extremely to the power of n curious, what's happening, what our entrepreneur is doing, what kind of innovation is happening and it was a barrage of questions which were to find out what, he had just stepped down as the chairman at that point of time and he was chairman emeritus at that point of time. So, I was overawed by his question and of course answered everything and then at 50 minutes into the meeting, he said, what can I do for you and I said, Mr. Tata, it will be such a pleasure and a privilege if you could sort of ongoing advise us and you know, be on our advisory board and so he said, it would be a privilege. I had almost tears in my eyes at that point of time, you know, very humble, very curious to learn and after that for about six years, he gave us almost every quarter between two to four hours, that was amazing when we brought entrepreneurs and his curiosity was amazing, his value-add was amazing and one anecdote I do remember, his sense of humor was amazing, very humble and I think once he did get late to the meeting by about five minutes and his assistant came and said, Mr. Tata will be late and he came five minutes late and he was profusely apologise, you know, that humility is something which we, you know, have to learn from. Secondly, he never made us feel that he's in front of Mr. Ratan Tata, that was another quality which he had, we were so comfortable, I was so personally comfortable and one meeting, I requested him that I would really like some of our entrepreneurs to meet him and this anecdote I will never forget because in a room we were sort of there and his assistant the last told me that he's just had a surgery on his foot and so kindly ensure that he doesn't stand too much. I said, that's fine, there was I think 16 or 18 entrepreneurs from our portfolio who were in the room and I had sort of briefed everybody that keep sitting, don't stand up because if you stand up, Mr. Tata will stand up but you know, young entrepreneurs were overawed to be in front of him and one by one everybody gave a few minutes about what the company was doing, he listened, he added value and so on and so forth. There were conversations and after about I would say 75 to 80 minutes, maybe 90 minutes that it was time to go and young entrepreneurs, there was a lady who came up front and they were shaking hands but suddenly she said, can I take a selfie and Mr. Tata was standing. Now that was not what was supposed to be and he was courteous, he was absolutely indulgent, he was thoroughly enjoying himself in spite of the pain and so all the 18 entrepreneurs and there was a cameraman also at the back and all the 18 entrepreneurs took selfies, took photographs and they were literally overjoyed.

At the end of those 18 entrepreneurs who were with me at that point of time from our portfolio, I actually saw, you know, felt a tap on my shoulder and somebody tapped on my shoulder and said, sir, if you don't mind, can I take a picture with Mr. Tata and he handed me the camera, that was the cameraman who handed me the camera and I took the cameraman's picture and Mr. Tata, that was an amazing and he obliged of course.

Sudhir Sethi: Many meetings were between me and him or between my co-founder TCM, myself and him and we used to take challenges which we are facing to him as a venture firm and you know, I consider us as an entrepreneur and which is a mix of venture and entrepreneurship and in one of the area we were talking to him about strategy and how to scale, how to build an organisation. Very interestingly, he said, you know, skills can be taken and attitude is something which you need to build, culture of the firm, so a lot of discussions on that because you know we were new into the whole system when I first met him, building an organisation which we wanted to be a leader and then during the course of 2015, three four years later, there was a need from a market perspective that we change our name from IDG Ventures to Chirate Ventures and a lot of things happened. We went to an agency etc etc and 18 months later, we had a new name Chirate and I'll give you the background of that but during that time, I had three meetings with Mr. Ratan Tata. The first meeting, I was telling him that look we have to change our name from IDG and what do you think, what should be the brand, what should be the characteristics of the brand and he said give me some interesting insight into the industry and I gave an industry that an industry is almost 95 percent foreign capital and Indian capital is, so he had read about it by the way, so every meeting I thought I was coming prepared but he was always prepared and he said look you should keep an Indian name, do not keep a foreign name as such and I still remember his words, I asked him why an Indian name, everybody's keep up a foreign name. He said Indian capital will one day be predominant and he had also read that something like this is happening in China at that point of time, so domestic capital is something which you should reflect in your name, you should be a domestic firm that means an Indian firm and you should, I remember his words that you should stick out like a sore thumb and that was very interesting and I asked him why, he said you will get better people to join you, you will be servicing your clients which is your investor in a much better way if the brand is your own and you have ownership, your team has ownership and somebody like an entrepreneur, you'll get better entrepreneurs to come to you.

It is amazing going that we act and I had three meetings with him over 18 months on the brand itself and we finally kept the word Charate because some of us are wildlife photographers and it's a Kannada word for the wild leopard but we did see a huge benefit overall, a huge benefit and the benefit was we had people joining us from international firms. Entrepreneurs thought that this is a local firm, decision-making here could be faster and so many benefits came to us and of course, we became very large in Indian rupee capital raising. So that is one very clear example which he gave.

I think the other thing was one anecdote I want to remember, I do remember we were fundraising and I got a call from Kazakhstan and this was about a year after Mr. Tata joined us on the advisory board and it's important to realise many of us don't realise the value of governance, the value of brand reputation in such a massive manner which he did have and I was on the call with this Kazakhstan investor and I said, how did you hear about us?

He said, well Mr. Tata is on your board and we know Mr. Tata very well in Kazakhstan. So it was obvious that we will at least call you and get to know you better. That is amazing, it is stunning how one individual was known on a global and domestic basis in terms of reputation.

So that's the value that he did to us. I think fundamentally, our reputation was heightened because we shook hands with Mr. Tata and he allowed us to do that. He did allow us to do that and we give lifetime achievement awards also and I was so hesitant, a jury chose Mr. Tata to give a lifetime achievement award and I was talking to Dilnaz and Dilnaz said, don't worry. I was like, will he accept it and he said, it's up to him and then she said, look he's going in his car to the airport and why don't you just give him a call and I gave him a call and there and behold he said, it'll be a pleasure and a privilege. Such a humble man has an amazing, amazing history.

Govindraj Ethiraj: I asked Sudhir a question that was on my mind for some time.

How did Ratan Tata sync with his world and why did we feel the need to immerse himself with the startup ecosystem, more so because he came from a traditional industrial background.

Sudhir Sethi: …He belonged to the old world. I think Mr. Tata belonged to the world, there was nothing called old and new. He was always innovating, he was always agile, he was always in our conferences, he came thrice and I can tell you he was walking faster than me during that time as such.

Agility, innovation, curiosity to change things, build bigger with the highest governance level and reputation and he stood for India, he stood for a very strong India and I think that will motivate us forever.

Govindraj Ethiraj: And finally, the inevitable comparison.

JRD Tata was a legend like few others. He was a builder and carried forward the principles of founder Jamsetji Tata.

Remember, he not started Air India but also flew the first aircraft.

Though flight and aircraft are something Ratan Tata and JRD had in common though Ratan Tata was not directly related to JRD.

Ratan Tata was an inheritor in some ways for sure but made his mark by building upon what he inherited and taking the Tatas and some sense India into the post liberlaisation age, in some ways a tougher task than starting from scratch.

I spoke with Roger Pereira who worked with both, though more with JRD as it happens.

Pereira used to workin advertising and then started a communications company which worked closely with the Tatas for many years.

Pereira also shares a story on Ratan Tata’s entry into the Tatas which you may not know, at least I didn’t in this form.

Roger Pereira: Okay, sure. You know, JRD was, my relationship with JRD was kind of very personal and it started when at the age of, when I was just 21 and a trainee copywriter and he was flying the route that he started with from Karachi Ahmedabad in Mumbai, Bombay at that time and I was a trainee copywriter and he wanted to know who's the person who wrote this ad and so and then it went on right till his death.

Roger Pereira: This was commemorating his 30 years of Air India and of his flying, okay. I don't remember the exact headline at 85.

You know, his philosophy for Air India was that each ad has to work 500 times harder than any Pan Am or TWA ads because those were the leading airlines and those, he said, you don't have the kind of money. And so, I got a tongue-in-cheek ad for that. We used to take topical, very much like what Amul is doing.

Amul is doing exactly what the Air India, we used to do for Air India. And then I got into trouble because of that and there was a furore in the media. Nehru was very upset and Congressman Chelas, if I might use that word, had asked that I be summoned to the Lok Sabha, etc.

And the ad, you know, the ads used to change every Friday because JRD's philosophy is movies change every Friday, ads also should change every Friday. And the primary one was at Kem's Corner. So Saturday, Bairam Kondrakta, you know, glorified the ad, etc.

And I was a hero, or Friday rather, and I was a hero. And suddenly on Saturday, those days when there was no TV, there was a lot of criticism and, you know, how can a person be so unpatriotic? And Air India, at that time, was private.

Be so unpatriotic, the person should be summoned, etc., etc. Then, to cut a long story short, on Monday, I got a call at closer to 12 noon. I was totally deflated by then.

And the person on the other line is that Mr. Tata here. And so, oh, I, you know, virtually stood to attention in my seat. And he said, who created this ad?

I said, I did, sir. So he said, but you're not an artist. The problem is with the color of the shorts.

So I said, no, Bahadur did it. But I requested Bahadur to make the color red. So I take full responsibility.

He burst out laughing and he said, I'll tell Nehru that I did it. They called him Pandit, I think. I'll tell him that I did it and let's see what he says.

And the controversy died. And after that, I became much closer to him. You know, right through my career, he followed it.

Ratan, I came to know much later. Unlike, you know, Adi Godrej was in college with me.

And it was, I think the year was 91 and JRD was going to Jamshedpur. The previous year, he had missed going to Jamshedpur on Founders Day because he had fractured a leg when getting off from the helicopter to the Alps. You know, he still loves skiing.

He must have been about 88 at that time. And you know, but that was the phenomenal man. And so there was a fire in the tent on Founders Day.

So he was very keen to visit Jamshedpur on Founders Day. And then he asked me, would you like to come? Have you ever been to Jamshedpur?

So I said, I have been but many years. Would you like to come? I said I'd love to.

I'm going back to Bombay. And you know what had happened? Rusi Modi declared himself as Chairman of Tata Steel.

And I believe just before that, JRD had declared Ratan as Chairman of Tata Suns, starting with Tata Industries, etc. And I don't know if you are aware of this. He had asked each one, each chief of company to make presentations on what they would do for the Tata group, should they be appointed the chairman.

So each one, Garbhari Seth, Kherkar, Rusi Modi, all of them made presentations. But then, you know, they just spoke off the bat. Ratan had taken the trouble of working together with Raju Bhinge, who was the head of Tata Strategic Management and a professor of marketing from IIM, I forgot his name.

And they presented a plan. I've got a copy of the plan somewhere. I think I have the only copy available.

And in that plan, he suggested that they should get out of soaps. That means they should sell Tomco, they should sell Lakme and focus on steel and automotives, start passenger cars. At that time, they only made trucks, and they should move into passenger cars.

Govindraj Ethiraj: Coming to the present, this is perhaps the start of it all, the clarity and vision that would define Ratan Tata as people outside would see over the years. And it started with the Indica.

Roger Pereira: That's right, the Indica. He had a terrific vision. And he similarly said the only company that is doing exceedingly well is DCS.

All the others have to be redone. And at that time, I believe Tata Steel, as it was called, was the most unprofitable steel company, next only to the sale. Because, you know, steel was subsidized in India, etc.

So his vision was to make Tata Steel the most profitable steel company in the world for Tata locomotives to move into passenger cars, etc., etc., you know. And on that basis, JRD appointed him the chairman. You know, this was before liberalization, but he said it has to be inevitable.

Liberalization has to happen. And as I mentioned, Raju Bhinge helped him on that. And JRD was so impressed that he appointed him chairman.

He was accused of being partial to a relative, etc. But that was not true. It was totally on merits.

Roger Pereira: Well, you know, in Jay's case, I was more an advertising man, you know, except when I started my own company, that's a separate story altogether. In Ratan's case, I was more a crisis management guy.

And he said, why don't you start doing this, you know, he referred to the campaign that Tata Steel ran for so many years to put George Fernandez's nationalization program off. The campaign was, we also make steel, although they used advertising. And he said, if you can do this sort of work, I'll help you, all the Tata companies will be your clients.

And the first assignment he gave us was, he was implementing this, the surrender of or sale of Tata oil mills, that is Tomco to Hindustan Lever. Now, the two, Tomco and Hindustan Lever would have, what should I say, had 87% of the market share, there was a concern about MRTP laws being enforced, and they would not be, but we managed, really, it was how we positioned the merger. And he was very happy.

Roger Pereira: Sure. The biggest crisis was the, thanks, Gopinath. The biggest crisis, I think, was the, you know, the other chiefs were very upset.

So they started a massive campaign against Razan, saying that, you know, he was a failure in NELCO, and how can he be chairman of Tata Group? And, you know, the media, and I'm sure you would have been exposed to that, was full of negative stories about Razan. And, you know, the Tata Group was doomed, etc.

And that's when Razan came over and said, Look, I'd like you to work with us. And he spent hours with us and came to a tiny little office at Kemps Corner. And I think we went on to 12 midnight, because he said, You need to know me in order to help me.

And, you know, and we met, I think it was 1030, we realized we hadn't had dinner. So we went across to Shalimar Hotel, which was next door, and had dinner. After that, he insisted that I meet him at his home in Colaba.

And, and he was very, very generous as a person. In fact, although I said the relationship was not so personal, there was quite a few exceptions. For example, when he came, Razan never drank, but he'd keep a bottle of good whiskey for me, because I'd like a peg or two, especially in an evening session that goes on to 9, 10 or 11 o'clock in the night.

But he was very gracious. I remember once Roma was returning from California, but she had got to do a postgrad program. And he was on the same plane and Roma was getting married.

So she had a lot of hand baggage. And he insisted on carrying the hand baggage for her. He also attended their weddings.

So there were personal factors, but otherwise, it was more professional.

Govindraj Ethiraj: Do inheritors do better than their founders ? Usually not, unless they hand over management.

JRD Tata ensured that while Ratan Tata was family, he got the position by fighting for it.

Ratan Tata also had to prove himself time and again, partly because of what what the job brought with it and largely because of his own stretched goals, like the passenger vehicle projects.

Ratan Tata showed that he would not give up easily, as a matter of fact he hardly gave up.

He empowered and monitored.

He advanced the principle of social cause that the Tata group stood for.

And he retired and took a step back.

And handed over to an incoming professional, the fracas with Cyrus Mistry notwithstanding.

He never gave up on cars or on airlines, as is evident from the Tata’s obviously risky move to buy Air India from the Government when it already the successful Vistara and Air Asia joint ventures running.

His mind and heart and soul were in the skies.

Author:   Govindraj Ethiraj

In this episode, Govindraj Ethiraj takes a trip down memory lane to celebrate the iconic businessman Ratan Tata

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Tata Indica Tata Motors JRD Tata Ratan Tata Tata Group