India
Ratan Naval Tata
- Former Chair, Tata Group; Chair, Tata Trusts (Diversified)
Born Surat, India, 1937. Bachelors, Architecture and Engineering, Cornell University (1962). Advanced Management Program 71, Harvard Business School (1975).
“[W]e need to encourage Indian venture funds ... the important change is that we have a situation where some young people can get together, get an idea, and find the funds to establish and implement that idea, which didn’t exist five years ago.”
Summary
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. 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.
Video Clips by Topic
Base of the Pyramid
Ratan Naval Tata, former Chair of Tata Group in India, assesses the base of the pyramid market and the need to respect the dignity of those consumers.
Keywords:
India, Base Of The Pyramid
Global Expansion
Ratan Naval Tata, former chair of the India-based diversified business group Tata Group, describes his company's acquisition of Jaguar/Land Rover in the UK and some of the challenges in convincing the employees that Tata was not going to sell the plant.
Innovation
Ratan Naval Tata, Chair of Tata Trust and Former Chair of Tata Group, discusses the external acquisition of technology using the example of Tata's acquisition in 2008 of Jaguar Land Rover.
Keywords:
India, Innovation
Leadership
Ratan Naval Tata, for Chair of India-based Tata Group, explains his faith in India's future: "I'm an optimist… there is perhaps the highest degree of entrepreneurship in our country… we need to harness that."
Keywords:
India, Leadership
Social Impact
Ratan Naval Tata, Chair of Tata Trust and Former Chair of Tata Group in India, explains his belief that corporations must become a part of, and engage with, the communities in which they operate.
Keywords:
Social Impact, India
Additional Resources
Additional Resources
- Emerging Giants: Competing at Home-How Emerging Market-Based Companies Can Build Competitive Advantage at Home [Harvard Business Press Chapters]
- Emerging Giants: Going Global-How Emerging Market-Based Companies Can Overcome Barriers to Competing Abroad [Harvard Business Press Chapters]
- House of Tata: Acquiring a Global Footprint [HBS Case]
- "Right Way to Restructure Conglomerates in Emerging Markets" [HBR article]
- [HBS Case]
- House of Tata—1995: The Next Generation (A) [HBS Case]
- Tata Nano: Dilemmas In Sustainable Development [HBS Case]
- Tata Nano—The People's Car [HBS Case]
- Creating a Corporate Advantage: The Case of the Tata Group [Indian School of Business]
- Tata Motors' Integration of Daewoo Commercial Vehicle Company [Ivey Publishing]
- Tata Motors: Compensation Restructuring [Ivey Publishing]
- “Who is Ratan Tata?” Nikkei, September 4, 2014
- “Ratan Tata: The Visionary,” Business Line, January 1, 2013
- “Ratan Tata, India's Corporate Czar, Retires With a $500 Billion Vision,” Bloomberg, January 3, 2013
- “Ratan’s Early Days Were Tough,” India Today, February 14, 2013
- “Ratan Tata’s Legacy,” The Economist, December 1, 2012
- FTF Ratan Tata 28 6 2000 [Interview posted to Youtube]
- R. M. Lala, “Challenges and Opportunities of Economic Liberalization:The Tata Group,” in Medha M. Kudaisya, ed., The Oxford Indian Anthology of Business History. Oxford University Press, 2011
- Jayati Sarkard, “Business Groups in India, “ in Aslı Colpan, Takashi Hikino, and James R. Lincoln, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Business Groups. Oxford University Press, 2010
- Dwijendra Tripathi, The Oxford History of Indian Business. Oxford University Press, 2004
- Ashis Ray, "It's sad Mukesh Ambani lives in such opulence: Ratan Tata," Times of India, May 22, 2011.
- Simon Mundy and Victor Mallet, "Tata boss: ‘I needed to stop the bleeding’," Financial Times, February 19, 2018.
- Tata Central Archives
- Tata Group International Businesses, 1903–2014 [Historical Data Visualization trends over time map]
- Video file of this interview available at Baker Library Historical Collections, histcollref+hbs.edu. Harvard ID holders can access the full-length video above.
Interview Citation Format
"Interview with Ratan Naval Tata, interviewed by Tarun Khanna, April 27, 2015, Creating Emerging Markets Project, Baker Library Historical Collections, Harvard Business School, http://www.hbs.edu/creating-emerging-markets/."
