FTF Ratan Tata 28 6 2000

my guest today is synonymous with big business and success since the 1990s when he took over as chairman of his companies profits and turnover have increased by over 3% a record that would be the Envy of most businessmen but what is he himself like what makes him tick well let's see if he tells us as I introduce you to Raton Tata welcome to the program thank you you were born in Bri India at a time when most people didn't realize that perhaps Independence was imminent what sort of memories of childhood do you have of that period not very many I I I recall some of the riots at the time of the independence movement my family house was across the street from Azad maidan which was the scene of of uh many meetings and many Lati charges and I remember watching them from from our balcony um as a young kid I I sort of wanted India to win and I remember as kids we used to you know pour sugar and in the petrol tanks or motorcycles that belonged to the British MPS whenever we could and things of this nature so as a little kid rotten Tata was busy spoiling all the British cars he could find not all the British guys unfortunately but several of them now your parents separated when you were just seven at that age was that a traumatic experience yes it was but we had a a u a close-knit family and and uh we overcame that we we both my brother and I had a hard time in school because they teased you because they teased us wasn't wasn't a common event in those days and and uh so we had to undergo that and became sensitized to it in a manner of speaking you had to learn to develop a thick skin or became very sensitive to that you became very close to your grandmother lady Tata would you say that in a sense she was the dominant influence as you were growing up I was always close to her she she was instrumental in my having her husband's name when I was born and and uh she was very much uh a person that I grew up with from from as far as I can remember did she spoil you was she indulgent she was indulgent but she never spoiled one she was very proper she was very demanding she had tremendous values and a tremendous sense of what was right or wrong and she had enormous dignity which she was very keen that everybody around her including herself maintain so I grew up with those kinds of standards imposed on me I don't think she spoiled she made you other people may think she's part me now I know she was a grand lady in her own way and she had this amazing Dage car that used to be sent to school to pick you up but it made you cringe at times didn't it yeah it didn't always come uh it came from time to time and yes we did cringe it was uh it was an a car where the driver sat in an open area you sat in an enclosed area it was high it had huge Wheels with tiny tires and Spokes and uh it was oldfashioned even in those days and whenever it came i' I'd almost prefer not to be seen in it and would walk home those were days when I presume the tatas lived in Grand style um for those were you also very close to the British your grandmother yes she was she she and sanata very close to Queen Mary and George V King George V and uh that was part of her life it certainly wasn't part of mine in your late teens you left indan you went to Cornell you did a degree in architecture and Structural Engineering but it wasn't something that your father really wanted you to do was it my father wanted me to go to England he wanted me to be a chartered accountant as he had been and I was the rebel who wanted to go to the United States and I wanted to study architecture and engineering so he didn't like it did you have a problem with him over this no he accepted your decision well I did it anyway what was Corell like I mean you were a rich Indian and suddenly you were in a big American University where the name Tata probably meant nothing no I was just one of 20,000 students uh believe me in those days when when an Indian went abroad the RBI gave you a very meager allowance so I was not a rich Indian I was a struggling student at that time wondering whether I'd make it to the end of the month before my next check came and quite frankly the the thing about Cornell was it was so big and so and you were so an honorable and you knew no one and you were in a new culture that was scary for the first few months I get you took to Corell because afterwards you stayed on in America and I gather you in fact initially weren't too keen on coming back to India I loved America and still do I feel very much at home there and uh I had a good job exciting job in a in a city I loved Los Angeles and uh yes I I had no intention of coming coming back what was it that Drew you to America the people the culture or just in a sense the freedom to be yourself it it's strange you should ask me that I don't know what drew me to America but ever since I was a kid long before I ever went there the first time I had a desire to go there was like a dream fulfilled yeah and Destiny whatever so what brought you back my grandmother brought me back she was old uh she was ailing and she wanted to see me again and she appealed to me in those days even telephone calls were hard you know you had to book a call and they they weren't an everyday thing and she appealed to me and it touched me and so I went back in the end the bond with your grandmother was stronger than the attraction to America well I came back not necessarily thinking I would live the rest of my life here I just came back because she wanted me back within 15 days of your return you found yourself bundled off to Jamshed for beginning a new career in the tatas and it wasn't a great job that they sent you to do was it no it was uh it was an endless training program in hindsight a very useful one but at that time seemed like a terrible waste of time they literally made you begin on the shop floor yes which is worthwhile and you lived in a hostel with all the other apprentices they wouldn't even let you take your car but they permitted a bicycle they permitted a bicycle or I was I was rather offended that I was told that you can't take your car but you can take a bicycle coming from Los Angeles I didn't see how anybody had the right to tell you what to do so I didn't get a bicycle and I walked so the rebel was there again yeah were there times when you said just said what on Earth am I doing here why am I not back in America yeah a couple of times and I did almost go back you seriously thought that you were going to throw it in and go back oh yeah what kept you on it's hard to say uh a couple of times I came very close to going back and and then didn't I I can't explain that it was just I think some things that happened here one of the things that happened uh that kept me back was uh being asked to take over nelo and it seemed like a like a challenge that was 1971 that's right and that was another moment when I was thinking going back you say it was like a challenge it was a loss making company at the time and presumably no one else in the tataa group wanted to take it over was it the challenge that attracted you or was it suddenly the feeling that you had a role to perform and that you were made to belong no it was a challenge it was an industry that was exciting the electronics Industry in those days was even making radios and TV sets was challenging and exciting and it was a a company filled with young young people and and above all it was an opportunity to to be you know to dig your teeth into something and you were looking for that and I I really was I was I was wasting away earlier now during those Bleak days at Jamshed you got to know jrg Tata really well what attracted you to each other we had one very very common and very private Bond our love common love for flying he was a pilot I was a pilot his flying was much more exciting than mine because in in his day it was open cockpit helmet flying in in uh in bip planes uh in my time it was uh it was different but we had that common Bond and that that is really what put us together uh he asked me to form a flying Club in jumpshort which I did and uh thereafter I think we we really became quite close did you in a sense become for him the son he never had no I I don't believe that that would be true I was very close to him very fond of him and I I think he was fond of me but it was a it was a an office-based relationship very seldom at home and uh but still very close very private very confiding and the wonderful thing was that in many ways not so much that I was the son that he never had but in many ways he was a father a second father to me I would I could share much more with him than I could sometimes with my own father so he actually fulfilled a need that you felt yeah now in 1991 he announced that he wanted you to succeed him as chairman of the Tata group how did he break the news to you do you remember that moment yes I do uh it's a very strange way uh we were in jamshedpur on on a visit and I had to go to stutgart for a meeting with the Mercedes and when I came back I heard he'd had a mild heart attack and he was in the hospital in Bombay and I called on him when every day while he was there and on a particular Monday he was back in the office and I went to see him and and he had this habit of when you walked in he'd say well what's new and I said Jay there's nothing new I just saw you on Friday and he said well I have something new for you I've decided to step down and name you my successor were you surprised I'm very very surprised you had absolutely no int well he'd often talked of it but no it came very abruptly and uh and then what followed was even more amazing and and amusing for for Jay because he said don't say anything about it now I have to pick an supicious day to do it and you know Jay was not a superstitious person he didn't believe in these kinds of things so I don't know what what had come over him so we stayed quiet and and at an appropriate board meeting he he brought this up and it was as much of a shock to the rest of the board members no he he spoken to each one of them he briefed them out but did you ever find out what the suspicious day was that he was waiting no I never did that remains a secret you took with yeah I yes I guess so let's take a break there I want in part two to come back and talk about the things that have happened since you became the Mr T we'll be back in just a couple of moments stay with us welcome back my guest is Raton Tata when you took over as chairman of tatas in 1991 your profits were just around 700es today they're 2,100 KES your turnover was 11,000 today it's probably touching above 37,000 is that a source of Pride and satisfaction or do you see it simply as a stepping stone on an unfinished Journey i' say it's a bit of both um it's it of course is an issue of pride pride in the in the team of people that the tatas had it's not it's not any one single person that's made that happen it's a team that has worked towards whatever tatas have done but it is it is an unfinished task on a road a task that I think is a challenging one because there's so much that is happening in the world around us and whatever that growth may be it's still it's still a growth rate that one could seem a little dissatisfied with or a little uh optimistic of of bettering in the coming years I suppose when you're a businessman you can always earn more they can always be better profits yes not only that uh there's so many new areas that that are emerging new technologies uh new fields of endeavor and the excitement of entering those fields and growing in them growing well in them and being deeply entrenched in them is is uh an exciting an exciting task you know you talk about taking the company into new fields and take it into exciting tasks and your colleague said that perhaps the most important thing you did was to restructure the organization it took you several years to do it but were you doing it simply to assert the hold of the tatas over what was then a loose confederal Empire or was it also to refocus redirect and give coherence we needed refocusing and we needed uh consolidation and that task is not finished in fact I'd say it's it's barely started uh we also we also needed to to have the right to manage if you might in many of our companies are our financial stake was very low and they it didn't need to be very high in the days of mrtp but today things are different and I think my own personal feeling is that the right to manage comes with a reasonable stake in your company and you have no right to or one can argue that you have no right to manage if you have a two or 3% stake in a company that you run so it's been a bit of both we we needed to consolidate our businesses and have focus and we also needed to increase the stake in our companies so that we were rightful managers and promoters of that it was both a moral as well as a practical thing to do yes but it wasn't always easy was it because there were people they were called the Titans weren't they in those days who were either resistant or perhaps even in the case of rusi Modi defiant were they difficult to handle they were older and more seasoned members of a management team that Jay had had created over the years all of them had made tremendous contributions to Indian industry and they may have had difference of views from mine and mine was not necessarily the right view um so yes there have been disagreements that's that's good uh there was a great deal of moderation arising out of the experience and the the maturity of what they had to say of course even afterwards it wasn't always very easy for instance when you came up with the idea for private airline in collaboration with Singapore Airlines the market thought you had a winner but for some reason or the other it never really took off was it political obstruction that stopped you or was it in fact the Ambitions of rival businessmen that tripped you up I think it was the latter not the former we went through three governments uh different governments who were um if you might maneuver to take the same view were you bitter when it fell apart no no but was it a set back no not at all I don't think uh I don't think winning or losing a a license is a setback or or a reason to be despondent except that when you know you have a good idea and you know that the market believes you have a winning idea then not to be able to follow it through must be at least disappointing it's disappointing disappointing not that we didn't get it disappointing that the system was uh maneuvered in a way that this could happen they say that one of the problems perhaps the Aras have in handling the Indian system is that you don't grease Palms that you don't facilitate is that often a burden and a problem just as much as it's something to be proud of I would like to say first of all that more than anything else one is proud of that uh sometimes it is a problem and uh the way I look at it and the way I speak to others is that I really would like to go to bed at night or wake up in the morning saying that we have not succumbed and yet we've been successful that is important to that when you put your head on your pillow you can do it with your conscience clear it's very important to me but what do you say when critics turn around and say that this is also a reason why perhaps you don't grow as fast as you could and the it's a fair point they may they may be right I would prefer to live with the knowledge I have of upholding the values that we have and that that we've tried to uphold through these years rather than say that I've grown at three times the rate that we have conscience before profit uh conscience before profit perhaps or or profit in a particular way in a particular form that you can live with that you can be proud of let's talk a little about yourself those who know you say that you're very private you're reserved perhaps even solitary is that so perhaps so yes do you ever feel lonely as a result yes sometimes and do you welcome it no there are times I there are times that uh in a job like mine that you welcome being alone you seldom have time by yourself and there are times that you do feel lonely I presume that's when the day is done and you go home and it's still an empty home sometimes unfortunately I'm I'm seldom home but did you never think of getting married yes I did and and came close several times can I ask what went wrong oh different things went wrong at different times uh usually usually the the pressure work the the uh the feeling that that domestic life was secondary to my work life was usually the reason that things didn't work out because you said to yourself there's always time for this later on yes yes and today when you suddenly discovered that perhaps there hasn't been time do you regret not having married oh many times would you still consider getting married of course so you don't think that it's 63 it's too late I don't think it's too late to do anything there's uh if the right if the right person were there and uh I had the right feelings I would I would certainly do so now you mentioned that one of your great hobbies is flying your friends say that you're also a great mimic but that's not a solitary man's hobby is it it's almost a party game yes I suppose when I said solitary person or a private person it it isn't that I don't enjoy being with people and uh in a way I think uh anybody who's you know who draws or or tries to capture what they see inevitably is also a mimicker because they they not only see the visuals but they they also they also capture mannerisms and and uh words and and the manner in which somebody works and so in that sense uh mimicking is is uh very much an easy thing did you mimic people all the time when you're with your friends oh all the time who are the sort of people you mimic oh I mimic you when I finish with the session couldn't you do it just now no you're 63 or you will be later on this year will you retire in 65 as the rules of tasan say you should yes from an executive position I will and will another tataa succeed you the only other tataa is is uh my step brother who is in in the company he's young and he's uh he's moving through the organization I would imagine at some stage or another there may be another Tata in the in the organization whether it'll be another Tata that succeeds me I think is for my colleagues to decide not something you're going to comment on no you won't do what jrd did which is to nominate his successor and discuss it with the board or at least indicate his preference well I think I think uh a retiring chairman or CEO does have the responsibility to express his view but the choice of a success successor I think lies with the board they're responsible for what what happens and it should not be that an outgoing person nominates or suggests his successor Mr D for a wonderful interview thank you very much indeed thank you thank you

Channel: itvindia

Views: 153,799

Keywords: FTF, Ratan, Tata, 28, 6, 2000

Id: xTDGjZnQCiI

Length: 23min 16sec (1396 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 08 2011