Ratan Tata — A businessman, philanthropist & a successful leader

Ratan Naval Tata was the chairman of the Tata Empire for 20 years and a role model for millions of Indians. He is also the recipient of the the Padma Bhushan and Padma Vibhushan, the highest civilian awards of India. He is considered as one of the most successful businessman in India, a great philanthropist, an investor and an inspiring leader. Under his leadership, the revenue of the Tata group grew 40x and the profits grew by 50x.

I am one of the millions of Indians for whom Ratan Tata is an inspiration. My father has been working in the Tata Group for the past 25 years. I have lived in the city TataNagar (Jamshedpur) for 12 years, which was founded by the Tata’s and is still maintained by them. TataNagar is the host of all the major industries of the Tata Group. Living in the city which is the host of the Tata Group and hearing the greatness of the Tata’s by the employees and by all the people of the city has also motivated me to know more about the man behind the success of the Tata Group - Ratan Tata.

Career in a nutshell

Ratan Tata was born on 28th December, 1937. He did his schooling from Campion School, Mumbai and graduated from RiverDale Country School in New York City in 1955. Then he went to the Cornell University in the United States and earned a degree in Architecture in 1959. He also attended the Advanced Management Program from Harvard Business School in 1975.

He turned down a job in IBM and returned to India and started working in Tata Steel, Jamshedpur on the shop floor in 1961. After working hard and rising to higher positions in the company, he was appointed as the chairman of the Tata Group by JRD Tata in 1991. Some of the significant companies of the Tata Group are Tata Motors, Tata Steel, Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Chemicals, Tata Communications, Tata Consumer Products, Tata Elxsi, Tata Power, , Voltas, Tata Cliq, Titan, Trent (Westside), Indian Hotels Company Limited, TajAir, TATA AutoComp systems Ltd, Vistara, Cromā and Indicash. The amount of responsibility placed on his shoulders can be seen by the number of industries owned by the Tata Group.

Notable Achievements

Ratan Tata served as the chairman of the Tata Group from 1991–2012. Then he was appointed as the interim chairman from 2016–2017. He ruled the Indian Industries for 2 decades and made many notable contributions to the Tata Group.

1. He launched the Tata Teleservices and then Tata entered the telecom sector in 1996. In 2009, Tata Teleservices launched Tata Docomo in partnership with NTT DOCOMO of Japan.
2. India’s first indegeniously designed passenger car Tata Indica was launched by Tata Motors under his leadership.
3. Tata Global Beverages acquired the Tetley group, which made it the world’s largest producer of tea. In 2012, it formed a joint venture with Starbucks.
4. Under his leadership, Tata Consultancy Services became the first Indian software company to generate a revenue of more than one billion dollars.
5. He went on to acquire internationally acclaimed companies like Daewoo Motors, Corus, NatSteel to strengthen Tata Steel and Tata Motors.
6. Tata Sky which is a satellite television service was launched across India in 2006. TataSky started replacing the traditional cable connections throughout the country.
7. He launched Croma, which is a retail chain for consumer electronics. Now, there are a total of 170 Croma stores in 32 cities in India.
8. In 2008, Tata Motors launched Nano which was the cheapest car in India priced at Rs 1 lakh only. It was launched to fulfil the dream of millions of Indians who wanted to own a car.
9. Tata motors went on to acquire Jaguar and Land Rover from the Ford Motors.
10. He also launched services like Tata Housing, Tata BP Solar, etc.

Investments

1. He invested his personal savings in Snapdeal — one of India’s leading e-commerce websites
2. In 2015, he partnered with American Express, investing in Bitcoin venture Abra.
3. In 2016, he invested in Teabox, an online premium Indian Tea seller and also invested in CashKaro.com, a discount coupons and cash-back website.
4. In 2016, he invested in Nestaway, an online portal to find fully furnished flats.
5. He also invested in Series A round of Ola cabs. From all this, we can see that he has made investments in both early and late stage companies in India.

Apart from being a successful businessman and an investor, he was also a philanthropist. He has donated millions of dollars to many schools, universities to enhance the facilities, research and also to give scholarships to the students. Tata Group donated ₹950 million to the Indian Institute of Bombay, which was the largest ever donation received in its history. Under the leadership of Ratan Tata, the MIT Tata Center of Technology was formed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with a mission to address the challenges of resource-constrained communities, with an initial focus on India.

His vision, expertise, leadership skills, business strategies & philanthropy works has contributed a lot to the success of the Tata Group and also made him an inspiration for millions of people.