House of Tata: Acquiring a Global Footprint

Tarun   Khanna; Krishna G. Palepu; Richard  Bullock

Case | HBS Case Collection | May 2008 (Revised June 2009)

House of Tata: Acquiring a Global Footprint

by Tarun Khanna, Krishna G. Palepu and Richard Bullock

Abstract

Chronicles the globalization of the Tata Group, one of India's largest business groups. Since 2000, many Tata Group operating companies have aggressively built international businesses, particularly through overseas acquisitions. After describing the globalization rationales and approaches of the major Tata Group companies, the case asks students to consider whether Tata Motors should pursue the acquisition of the Jaguar and Land Rover brands owned by US-based Ford Motor company.

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Developing Countries and Economies; Globalized Firms and Management; Growth and Development Strategy; India; United States;

Format: Print

33 pages

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Citation:

Khanna, Tarun, Krishna G. Palepu, and Richard Bullock. "House of Tata: Acquiring a Global Footprint." Harvard Business School Case 708-446, May 2008. (Revised June 2009.)

Entrepreneurs in developing countries who assume they will have the same legal, governmental, and institutional protections as their counterparts in the West will fail. To succeed, they need to build trust within the existing structures—and this book shows how it's done.

Article | Harvard Business Review | July–August 2018

When Technology Gets Ahead of Society

Tarun Khanna

New technologies can be unsettling for industry incumbents, regulators, and consumers, because norms and institutions for dealing with them don’t yet exist. Interestingly, businesspeople in emerging economies face similar challenges: The rules are unclear and infrastructure is lacking. In this article, the author suggests that tech pioneers would do well to heed a lesson he’s gleaned from his research in the developing world: For long-term success, companies must invest in the surrounding ecosystem.
The author presents examples of entrepreneurs who have done just that in China, Bangladesh, Africa, and Chile, benefiting the public as well as their own enterprises. He then describes how an Indian health care organization is tackling institutional voids as it expands into medical tourism in the Cayman Islands. An in-depth look at the nascent drone industry follows, with profiles of companies that are helping create the conditions for the industry’s growth by amassing knowledge about best practices, influencing the development of regulations, exploring new uses for drones, developing a professional workforce, and so forth.
The argument is that when firms launching innovative products or services look beyond their self-interest and work to collectively build the institutional infrastructure, they—and society as a whole—are more likely to prosper.

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Society; Situation or Environment; Infrastructure; Entrepreneurship; Performance Effectiveness; Cooperation;

Citation:

Khanna, Tarun. "When Technology Gets Ahead of Society." Harvard Business Review 96, no. 4 (July–August 2018): 86–95. View Details

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Tesla’s board of directors proposed an unusual compensation plan for the company’s CEO Elon Musk. The plan payouts were entirely contingent on achieving very ambitious market value, sales, and EBIT targets over the next ten years. If all the targets were achieved, Tesla would be one of the most valuable companies in the world, and Musk would receive the highest compensation of any CEO in US corporate history. If the targets were not achieved, Musk would receive nothing. Proxy advisors (ISS and Glass Lewis) expressed serious reservations about the plan and urged shareholders to vote against it. Should shareholders approve or reject the plan?

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House of Tata: Acquiring a Global Footprint

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