Q&A: Ratan Tata

On a recent Thursday afternoon at his Mumbai headquarters, Ratan Tata spent an hour-and-a-half with BT's R. Sridharan to talk about his globalization plans, the dream small car, and succession, among other things. Here's the entire record of the interview:

Q: This is a triple centennary year for the group. How do you look back on the group's past 100 years?

A: The group has gone through different eras. The turn of the last century saw the group venturing into some very bold areas---steel, power, hospitality, textiles---and these were all national projects, if you like. We broke new grounds. It was very risky in those days because they were things being done in India for the first time. In the 30s and the 40s came Tata Airlines, which eventually became Air-India.

Then after independence, a lot of industries were nationalised, including banking and insurance. MRTP was introduced, the public sector got involved, and we found that our growth was blocked. And many of our attempts to enter new industries like synthetic fibres and petrochemicals were also blocked because these were areas now reserved for the public sector. Some visionary projects like that of Darbari Seth (of Tata Chemicals) to extract minerals from seawater were turned down. Similarly, two or three times we proposed a car project, but were turned down. Therefore, almost till the '70s, things were at a standstill at the group, and among the senior members of the Tata board there was a lot of frustration, in the sense of the Tatas not being able to move forward.

Then, in the early 80s--I was still not the Chairman of the group, nor did I know at that time that it was necessarily going to happen---we thought why should we not look again at breaking new frontiers. I sat down and wrote a kind of strategic plan for the group, looking at electronics, biotech and telecom, which were not open at that time to the private sector but were areas where I thought the group could be involved. Basically it was in the new economy areas--advanced materials, genetic engineering. TCS already existed but we were looking at expansion of IT services and trying to get involved in one form or the other with telcommunications.

Q: When you wrote your strategic report, India was still a decade away from liberalisation. What was your source of inspiration?

A: It was just a view that these were areas of growth for the country, and just like J N Tata at the turn of the century decided, why not hydel power or steel, I was trying to say 'Why should we not try and have a stake in these businesses?' One of the areas covered at that time (in the strategic report) was to grow outside India if we could not grow in India. I remember a meeting where I made a representation to the Tata Sons board. Everybody said, 'Very good, but none of this is going to happen'.

Q: Why?

A: Because the senior members of the group were frustrated and they weren't really going to approve anything that they felt was out of the ordinary. And in that (report) I had charted out what I thought each of the companies could do. Tata Industries, of which I had just become the Chairman, had all the new economy areas. The others (suggestions in the report) were somewhat prophetic...that Telco might enter light commercial vehicles, that Tata Steel might produce special steel and alloy steel. Then I made certain other suggestions that we should get out of soaps, edible oil, textiles. But none of this was acceptable to the powers that be at that time. So I decided to focus on what I had set out for Tata Industries, and where I was in control. So we went about setting up a series of new small companies, one of which was Honeywell.

Around that time, a fortunate thing for me took place. Rajiv Gandhi became the Prime Minister. And when he came into power, it was almost like he and I had collaborated on this document, because he introduced broadbanding, he brought in Sam Pitroda, telecom became a big issue, he opened up C-DOT, (manufacturing of) telephone instruments (was) opened up to the private sector. So we entered those fields in that manner. A new breed within the Tatas was created, a younger breed that was looking at newer technologies. In the past, when we looked at new businesses, they would be tucked under an existing company. For example, if something came up that was associated with automobiles, it would be tucked into TELCO. But being tucked into, say, TELCO meant it would never receive the attention a separate company would. So, much of the new starts in the 60s and the 70s, never really took form because they were all subordinated to the main business. The difference this time was that Tata Industries was promoting these new companies and each of those companies had its own focus, and its own drive. But what happened at that time was that all these companies were formed with contributions from all the group companies, which later became an issue because all the foreign investors and Indian investors felt that the crossholdings were negative, and why should Tata Power be involved in process control, why should Tata Steel be involved with IBM. But at that time, that resource fuelled the creation of all these new companies.

Q: If you looked at all the leaders that the Tata group has had in the past, would you say that you are more like JN Tata than JRD Tata?

A: No. JRD Tata was my greatest supporter. Without his support, obviously, one could not have got participation of all the companies and the acceptance of this (new plan). The plan was not supported by him, but when we actually went through the implementation in the new areas, he was very supportive and took a keen interest in how they performed. JRD did bring in a lot of enterprises into Tatas, but he himself must have become quite frustrated at being rejected so often in everything the group tried to do.

Q: How would you compare yourself with JN Tata or JRD Tata?

A: It is very difficult to make that comparison or even to comment on that. If you look at the risks JN Tata must have taken when we formed Tata Steel or when he created a power company, the risks must have been immense. When Tata Steel went through a difficult time, Dorab Tata (JN Tata was no longer alive) actually pledged all the family jewellery to keep Tata Steel alive at that time. It was a tricky thing to do. Many years later when we embarked on a car project in Telco, Rs 1,700 crore is what we had to invest and it was viewed very critically by everybody, as being a huge huge risk, endangering Telco, perhaps mortally so, in the new venture. I am glad it has come out OK.

Now if you look at today, we are investing Rs 20,000 crore in telecom, and the same criticism is taking place. That you are endangering the whole group with tremendous risk by investing money that can launch many Indica projects etc. So again, it's a risky project, but the magnitude is very different. And each one of them in its own terms, in its own context has been risky. Maybe my successor will have to face a situation where he is investing Rs 50,000 crore in something that will supposedly endanger the group. Yet, these are risks the group must take, otherwise it stands still in time.

Q: Like buying Tetley?

A: Yeah...again a lot of people were concerned that a company (Tata Tea) was trying to buy a brand much bigger than itself. But look at Tetley now. Tata Tea and Tetley have been integrated, they have entered newer geographies, and they are better placed to tap opportunities than before.

Q: Coming back to the last 3 years of the millennium, there has been a very visible push to the group in terms of trying to take it global. Was all this a part of a larger plan that was already in play and this was perhaps phase two or phase three of that?

A: The globalisation issue, or less pompously, the internationalisation issue, is something that featured in the 1980s plan, but was never done. Strangely enough, when I was posted in Australia in 1970, I had come forward saying that our hotel company should go abroad. At that time we had only one hotel, the Taj Mahal in Mumbai. And I remember the management saying that there was no point in having a chain of hotels. Anyway, times change and the hotel company went on pretty successfully to acquire several hotels. Now we have 60-odd hotels and abroad too.

So there's always been a view from my side that we should go abroad, and that we have not done enough. The group's view of internationalisation was confined by and large to exports in those years, and we became one of the largest exporters of goods and services. We revived it in the 90s when we started to restructure and said we should look at going abroad but again we were overtaken by the downturn in the economy and our preoccupations in India.

Q: If that hadn't happened, you would have started your globalisation earlier?

A: Oh, yes. And what the downturn did was to accentuate the need to have a market outside India, so that you didn't have all your eggs in one basket. So it helped accentuate the view that we must prepare ourselves for business cycles in India and grow outside India.

Q: A lot of people tend to define globalisation pretty loosely. Any company that just exports says that it is going global. What is your definition of globalisation, or internationalisation as you said? Is there a threshold that would mark the Tata group having become global?

A: No, if you are looking for a quantified definition. A qualitative definition would be when the Tata group as a whole is an Indian company but doesn't have a definition of being in India, in the sense when it has operations in different countries of the world, some may be different from what they do in India, where manpower and management has a Chinese face, an American face, an Indian face, that in fact signifies that company, and we no longer are saying they are expats. We would be truly global when we are an international company operating in many geographies or several geographies, becoming an entity of the world if you like rather than be an Indian company located in different countries.

Q: How easy is that going to be, considering that two of your biggest companies are in the manufacturing sector? For example, steel. Unless you start acquiring plants abroad, how do you think Tata Steel can become global?

A: I think we have to look at acquisitions and JVs as the two ways to go in steel and for that matter in automotive and auto components, which is another big area of internationalisation. As far as companies like TCS are concerned, we'll need to go in for acquisitions and increase entities in those countries that have the face of that country. If we are going to China, we should have a Chinese face, not necessarily an Indian face in China; we should be like a Chinese company. If we are in the US, we should be like a US company, but we are owned in India. That in my view is the path we need to take.

Q: Tata Motors is making some big moves. It has signed an MoU to acquire Daewoo Heavy Commercial and it has a tie up with Rover to export Indicas, besides an assembly line in South Africa for commercial. When BT last interviewed you, you said you would be happy if Tata Motors managed to get a niche for itself in the global market. Do you think these are indications of that happening?

A: Yes, I do. I think we have a lot more to do, but yes we have planted the seed of having that happen. Initially when we went into the car business I thought we would have products in each of the segments of the car business, from the small car to the large car, from the low end to the high end. But the way consolidation is taking place internationally and the kind of economies of scale that exist...we could never match that. That we could never be as fast in bringing out new products in all those segments as I had visualised. So we have to confine ourselves to being leaders in niche areas where we have the greatest edge and that edge is the ability to design and develop products at the low end and produce good value for money products at lower volumes.

Q: But even in the low end you may have to refresh models regularly...

A: Yes, but instead of having new models in all the segments, it is better to focus on a few segments to better use our resources.

Q: So that would mean coming out with another Indica?

A: Yes.

Q: Your dream has been to give India a one lakh rupee car. How close are you now to realising that?

A: We wouldn't like to say whether we are close or not close. We have a team working on it. It's an exciting project because it is a clean-sheet-of-paper project. It's going to be a new car in terms of material and in terms of the structure of the car. We are looking at things like, do we need to weld the body or can we use adhesives? So it's a clean-sheet-of-paper exercise, because if we don't do that...we cannot look at it as taking a conventional car, stripping it down and getting it down to that level. It really has to be 'let's do it differently'. We've looked at all kinds of things...do we take scooter engines, where we have high volumes; do we take scooter tyres, where volumes are high and cost are low and build from those components...or do we look at car components that have volumes? It's a completely free exercise, and we have a team going through that just now. I would imagine in another 6-8 months, we would have figured out which way we are going and then it would be an issue of proving the concept.

Q: How many prototypes have you personally seen? Have you seen any prototype so far?

A: This has always been a dream, so a few years ago in the Auto Expo we actually displayed a car, but hardly anybody noticed it because it was also the time when the Indica was launched and all the attention was there. But we don't have any prototypes, we have what the industry calls a jig, which soon will be drivable. But it doesn't have the skin, and that's what we are looking at now.

Q: I read a news report today that said Tata Motors had become the number two car company in terms of sales. Two questions: What are your chances of becoming No.1 by replacing Maruti Suzuki, and by 2008 where would you like Tata Motors to be?

A: Becoming No. 1 would depend on our really break new ground. We'll have to grow in the segment. Today, we have 20-odd per cent market share, So how much will we grow? It will have to come out of our eating into somebody else's piece of cake. I think the real possibility of becoming No. 1 is if we break new ground--are we able to do what I hope we can do and that is to introduce a vehicle that is between the lowest priced car and the motorcycle and address that market, which I think is huge, and support it with the right kind of credit, to enable the young Indian and the family to migrate from the scooter or motorcycle to a 4-5 seat car, which will give him an all-weather transport with a certain degree of safety and meet emission standards. If we can do that, I think we can definitely be No. 1. If we do not achieve what we have set out to...I mean, you can coast up from the goal of Rs 1 lakh and end up with Rs 2 lakh, but then you don't achieve what you set out to do. We could have had a car at that level much earlier. Then you are just below Maruti or something...you are just another car company. Here we really need to push ourselves to be different.

Q: So does that mean that if that small car does not happen, then Tata Motors would remain No. 2 or No. 3 car company?

A: No. Much would depend on what happens to Maruti, in terms of Maruti refreshing its small car portfolio.

Q: Back in Japan, the Maruti 800 is seen as an ace the company will play here once your small car is out. They'll knock the price down heavily and make sure you have stiff competition.

A: The answer to your question is in, in a manner of speaking, what Maruti is going to do. If they bring out a new innovative small car, their market share will grow. If they do nothing, their share to some extent will decline. So if Tata Motors does break new grounds, we have a very good chance of being No. 1.

Q: Have you given the people at Tata Motors a deadline by which you'd like to see something on the road?

A: No. We first have to have something that meets this requirement. Then I think we'll set some deadline on when we want to have it on the road.

Q: Does that mean the D-car Tata Motors spoke about won't happen now? And what about the sports car?

A: The sports car could happen. The problem with the sports car is that it has to make a market outside India and the volumes would be small. And we have to justify the economics of that. On the larger car, we decided not to go ahead because the market was so proliferated in the D segment, and we neither had any price edge of any magnitude or in fact the ability to keep on refreshing that additional product. So we decided that we would hedge our bets for the time being. That does not mean we could not form an alliance with someone and bring in somebody's car and have a product. Or jointly develop a product, as at one time we were doing with Peugeot, except that the Latin American market for which they were looking, collapsed. So we shelved that project. But we could have had alliances of that nature with other car companies.

Q: When the President of Senegal was in Pune, he also wanted your help to build a small car for his country. Has any work begun on that?

A: No, but he did express a desire to work with Tata Motors on developing a people's car for his country. At this point, all I can say is that we are very keen to work him on the project.

Q: What's the way ahead for Tata Steel?

A: Muthuraman (Tata Steel MD) has been pursuing several, if you might, directions. One is, can you have alliances with various companies where we supply intermediates or semi-finished products for finishing in those countries? Can you look at investing in some companies, and can you look at acquiring some companies? And I think what Tata Steel is doing right now is priming themselves up. I know that they are looking at opportunities in Korea, China, Thailand, and in Ukraine.

Q: Tata Steel seems very keen on tapping the Chinese market. Probably one of the reasons is that it is a huge consumer of steel. But is there any strategic reason why Tata Steel has to be in China?

A: I don't think Tata Steel has to be there. I think what they did find was that there were two or three very well-equipped steel companies and many old-fashioned steel companies that needed to be upgraded and I think they felt there was an opportunity for them to invest in the modernisation of those companies. Other than that, China is the largest consumer of steel in the world and has the largest steel capacity in the world in terms of its own manufacture. So, I think anybody would like to have a piece of that market.

Q: Moving to Indian Hotels, you have brought in an American CEO, which means you would like to make the company more global. I also believe acquiring assets may not be the way forward, rather management contracts may be. Could you give us a sense of what will happen at Indian Hotels in terms of internationalisation?

A: In the past what Indian Hotels has done in its urge to have entities abroad is to have focussed on what happened to be good real estate deals, not necessarily the best hotel deals. It's a strategy, and it gave us hotels in the US and the UK, but they were based on a good real estate proposition. Where the strategy went wrong is by way of location or by way of the quality of the property. The viability was in question as a hotel. But in real estate terms, they could keep revaluing the property upwards when there was a rise in real estate prices and everything looked good because they could borrow. But they never got a black ink on their bottomline. And none of those properties really tied into our group in India. We were loath to put our name, they were not called Taj hotels. What we want to do now is to have hotels abroad that will be an extension of the Taj group of hotels and that we could truly say that we have a Taj hotel in the London or the US. So we are looking for hotel properties or a group of hotels which would be in consonance with the image we have abroad. The reason we are trying to go away from buying assets is a pretty obvious one: your P&L is heavily loaded with amortising the asset and by the time you do amortise that asset and have an opportunity for earning on that, you are already having to look at other assets, otherwise you don't grow. So the way to grow is to keep expanding on a management contract basis.

Q: And you also do not seem keen on tying up with any international brand like Hilton. You seem to think that Taj can do abroad what brands like Hilton have done in India.

A: First of all I think today is that we have an entity that is reasonably successful and the largest hotel entity in India. And if we choose to subordinate ourselves to a Hilton or an Intercontinental, we would have lost that entity because undoubtedly those are global entities and will dominate. I think to subordinate yourself to them or to have JVs with them today would serve no purpose; it would commit us to where we are, they would be operating the hotels. And we would then really be financial investors.

Q: Coming to TCS, its IPO has been hanging fire for a long time now. Is there any hitch?

A: No, there is no hitch. Whenever we feel the market is ripe...and the market looks good just now. But I won't be drawn into saying anything else.

Q: But are you looking at the Indian market at all, because the kind of valuation and the size of float you are looking at may not be possible in India.

A: Let me be frank. Very early in the process, we had a tax issue which we have resolved. Subsequently we had an issue that the threshold of 10 per cent that was demanded we put on the Indian market may be a huge amount for the Indian market to absorb. Our earlier view was that it would be a real Indian retail offering. It's now clear that if we go for an IPO, the major buyers will be the FIIs. Why would we go for an IPO? We would really go for an IPO if we also wanted a foreign listing. But there's a concern that we may be hammered between the two (domestic market and market abroad). So we cogitated over that for sometime, and when we feel the market is right both in terms of Indian appetite and our ability to command the price to not get caught in the middle, we will make that.

Q: I don't see how you can avoid that kind of a situation...

A: There are a couple of ways we can avoid that situation. Basically by having a clearer definition of how we will make the offerings and the timing of the offerings. Our hope had been that the government would put a monetary threshold in addition to a percentage threshold. Where the government, for example, said that it had to be a Rs 1000 crore rather than 10 per cent. However, Maruti and some other IPOs have shown that the Indian appetite is also quite significant.

Q: And the TCS IPO has been keenly anticipated by retail investors.

A: Maybe. We won't disappoint them.

Q: Unlike Infosys or Wipro, TCS hadn't made any recent acquisitions abroad ...

A: They use their (stock as a) currency to do that. That's one of the great pluses of having a foreign listing.

Q: So does that worry you?

A: TCS has made acquisitions but they've been very small acquisitions, so they were not really visible. But even Wipro and Infosys didn't make acquisitions for a long period of time. I'd also like to say that in this particular business, it's all very well to talk of acquisitions, but all these acquisitions are knowledge-based acquisitions. And the success or failure of those companies is in retaining people of target companies. And I've always asked myself when you buy a company, actually the knowledge base that is there in the three or four founders of that company. You buy them, and they cash out, or they have a stake in the company, but end up being part of a company that is 8,000 miles away. If you don't meet their entrepreneurial needs of freedom and operating autonomy, they will walk out of that company. So, it's not like a manufacturing company where you buy a product, you get embedded technology in that product, which will carry on. It's much more entrepreneurial. And, therefore, these acquisitions are usually made because of a particular business scale that it offers. But then it has to be driven by continuously upgrading the technology and I don't know how this will work even for Infosys and Wipro. If you have a strong enough base to bring your technology to that company or make something happen, it's fine. Nobody's missing the founder of Lotus Notes because IBM has enough power to distribute Lotus Notes and to fund its further development. It may not be so in the case of some of the Indian companies.

Q: Just one question on Tata Power. What is the way ahead for the power company, considering that it is invested heavily in telecom? Does it form part of your internationalisation plan?

A: Yes. Let me just explain. I think Tata power has been subjected to undue criticism for its investment in telecom and I think it requires a little bit of explanation. Until the new Electricity Act came into being, if you look at it through Tata Power's position, it had nowhere to go. It had generation activity in Bombay, it could grow in the generation area elsewhere, but could not go into distribution. Delhi was the first exception. And I'm sure the question was, 'What would be the future of Tata Power?' And it seemed to us at that time that since Tata Power in the past had made quite an investment in putting fibre optics in the city of Bombay, another good infrastructure activity would be the telecom business, either in terms of owning infrastructure-let's say a backbone across the country-or of being involved as a service provider. Both, in a manner of speaking, were utility. So it seemed like a good second line of business for Tata Power, because the business cases were similar...large ticket entry, long payback periods. Today, the Electricity Act gives Tata Power new opportunities that did not exist. So Tata Power has indicated that there will be a cap on their investment in telecom.

Q: Coming back to telecom, how do you think the move towards unified licensing affects your own plans? For example, Tata Teleservices now competes with Idea, where the Tatas are an investor.

A: In the case of Idea, we are a one-third partner, we don't run the company. We brought our GSM operation into it because I was of the view that having Andhra Pradesh alone (for GSM) made little sense, we needed to consolidate geographically, not in terms of services. In Teleservices, or rather in CDMA, that's the route we will grow. That's where our investments will go. The two are not truly competing because unlike GSM where you can move from one service provider to another, here you need to change your handset, move to a different regime.

Q: But isn't the market for mobile telephony the same, be it GSM or CDMA? Both are chasing the same set of consumers.

A: Sure, but in one case we are the financial partner, we are not running the company.

Q: But are you happy with the way the telecom scenario is evolving, especially in the context of what happened with VSNL? Besides, your stakes are high in telecom.

A: I think we have had a couple of lessons to learn. Of course, we had some issues and others that were needless. But when we got involved with VSNL we did so in good faith and in certain cases the government has not been truly fair, which we are taking up with the government in terms of due compensation for early termination of the monopoly. And this is under consideration. But more importantly, I think the lesson we have learnt is what we did not see is that the government cannot be truly fair in its dealing with an ex-government company when in has another of its own incumbent company. And we find that there is great favouritism towards BSNL and MTNL, to protect them at the cost of VSNL. So, if I were to write a guideline for the group I would say that any disinvestment where the government still has an incumbent in that field, we should not touch it.

Q: But would it be right to say that your larger telecom plans remain unchanged despite the developments?

A: Yes, I would say that I am pleased with the move towards unified licensing. I think for the first time the TRAI has taken a pragmatic view on how the industry should grow.

Q: Changing tack, everybody's talking of a brand India. What according to you is should Brand India? Would you say that Brand Tata is in some ways a proxy for Brand India?

A: No, I wouldn't want to say that. I think we have a brand that we believe is quite trusted in the country, and I think we should promote that brand beyond the shores of India. I would hate to say that it's a proxy for Brand India because that seems to imply that any other brand is kind of endorsed by us or that we should notionally have the responsibility for the operating style, the ethics, the values, the quality of that brand. I don't think we want to do that. And I don't think any single brand in any country would or could say that it will be the proxy for that country. For example, Coca-Cola is American, but who would say that Coca-Cola is a proxy for General Motors, Cisco, Microsoft, IBM or whatever. So I don't think we could say that.

Q: How would you define Brand India?

A: Oddly enough, Brand India is what we do here. What is Brand China or what is Brand Singapore? The attractiveness of Singapore is the fact that the country works, it is investor friendly, it is tourist friendly. I think Brand India is what India is. I think it's wrong to think of Brand India as an aggregation of brands that go abroad representing India. They can represent India, but the most important thing that we must do in India is to project India as an investment destination, as a tourist destination, and as a place where things work. And the best way to do that is to kill the phenomenon that is killing India today----that is vested interest. We keep blaming the government, but the government is not the place where a lot of the negation of its plans takes place.

Very often you find that the government has a plan, but it gets thwarted. Thwarted by whom? Thwarted by a vested interest that does not want to see something opened up or wants continuation of protection, and the government steps back and concedes to that vested interest. If the government were forceful enough, maybe it's difficult to do that in a coalition government, then we would move onwards faster.

Q: But is there a need for the country to position itself as a new economy powerhouse? You told BT when we met last that services is really the way ahead, although manufacturing is important too.

A: I think all things in terms of new economy and manufacturing will follow if India could focus on one thing it needs to do: tourism within India. If you consider that today we have 2.4 million visitors, of which 700,000 are Indians visiting India from abroad. Why do we crow about the 2.4 million visitors? Why don't we set ourselves the target of attracting 9-10 million visitors? Why don't we put in infrastructure that would make it easier for people to travel within the country, why don't we change our visa requirement, develop the enormous wealth that we have in terms of what the country can offer? Look at the jobs that it will create, look at the foreign exchange that it will bring. And it can be done much faster than trying to be the lowest cost manufacturer.

Secondly, we spoil every tourist location there is by way of overselling it, allowing it to get cheapened, not being sensitive to making it a worthwhile experience for the tourist. And if you look at a place like Dubai or Singapore, which has relatively nothing to offer, and you see what they have done, you ask yourself, 'we have so much to offer, why can't we do that?' And why can't we allow that to be the main thrust for the next five years for India? It involves added capacity of airlines, airports, and so forth. Why can't we focus on making India, which is a huge country with beautiful assets, a country that will attract tourists from all over the world. To transform India into a totally different country?

After that, investment will come. You'll have scale. The domestic market will not only have Indians, but foreign visitors, and I think it'll change the face of India. But we do not look at it from that angle. The Ministry of Tourism needs to tie up with the Ministries of Commerce, Finance, External Affairs. We should have an integrated, holistic view of how to make this happen and our sight should be ambitious, not minuscule.

Q: You're a good friend of Amar Bose. Are you deeply into music, what kind of music do you listen to? Are you an audiophile?

A: Amar and I are good friends not so much because of music. We became friends because we share a lot of common interests. He's an extraordinary individual in terms of his span of interest. Amar and I share the same inquisitiveness as to why something should happen, or why is it not possible for something to happen, can we make it happen. And his quest is not confined to music. The last time I met him he had developed virtually a revolutionary suspension system for cars. And, as someone in the car business, I would say it is truly revolutionary. Oddly enough, he spoke to me about this in 1981 when I spent a weekend with him and he said, 'You know, I don't know why this couldn't happen. I worked out the algorithm.' And when I was at his home about a year ago, he said, "Remember we talked about this some years ago, I have something now which I am starting to talk to car companies about'. And it would truly revolutionise the suspension in cars. And I mean truly revolutionary, because what I saw was you could go over an unpaved road and you can sit in the car and write. There's absolutely no transfer of that motion into the car. And after that it will be something else (for Amar). In fact, when he and I talked in the 70s of doing something in India, and he's spent hours in Nelco (which Tata used to head then)...you know when you are in the same business you have a lot of common experiences and problems, and we became very good friends when I was at the Harvard Business School. For that period of time I was always at his house or we were meeting at his plant, and we've shared many many things together. Unfortunately in the last few years we've drifted apart because both of us are doing our own things.

Q: Is there an inventor in you?

A: Yeah, but I have nothing to show for it. I have a similar bent of mind, but I don't have Amar's intensity in technology and I don't have undergraduates of MIT that I could work together on things. The closest I have come to (inventing) is in Telco, where we are doing something that one had wanted to.

Q: You are an architect by education. Do you get time to design anything?

A: Yeah, I designed my beach house across the harbour, a couple of other things...and I designed a house for my mother that still stands. But that's about all.

Q: What do you do to unwind?

A: For me possibly the greatest relaxation---because it's not relaxed but forces you to concentrate---is flying. It's a great unwinder for me, totally absorbing and it makes great demands on your performance.

Q: You seem to be in good shape for a man of your age (67). Do you work out?

A: No, unfortunately I don't. I swim on the weekends, that's about all. But I used to be a big scuba diver at one time.

Q: I am told you are a frugal eater too...

A: I'm not one who craves food. So food doesn't interest me. But I have a lot of friends who live to eat.

Q: One last question on succession. Are you still determined to step down as Chairman when you are 70?

A: Yeah.

Q: Does that mean you already have identified someone to groom?

A: I won't be drawn into that. I have some views on that, and we'll do it in a particular way. And you don't necessarily have to groom somebody for a period of time. If there's somebody you think as the person who fits in---be it from within or from outside, and I think the judgment on whether the person has the capability of doing something... frankly, when you make that decision is when the grooming starts.

If I look back in time in the Tatas , I think there were many people who were seen to be successors to JRD, and who didn't become successors. And I think sometimes it's detrimental to define a person and to have everybody shower their envy on him... destroy that person. There will be a successor.

Q: But you would want to spend six months or a year helping that person make the transition...

A: Sure, but I am not leaving in another six months or a year. Don't worry, that will happen.

Issue Contents  Write to us   Subscription   Syndication 

INDIA TODAY | INDIA TODAY PLUS | SMART INC  
CARE TODAY |  MUSIC TODAY | ART TODAY  | SYNDICATIONS TODAY

© Living Media India Ltd