Ratan Tata at IIT Bombay

[Music] h good evening uh this is today is indeed a very fortunate day for us that Mr Tata has uh graced the campus and has spr the opportunity to interact with the students and uh before we proceed with that uh we do have a solemn responsibility to recognize the very tragic loss the Campus Community suffered yesterday because of passing away of one of our the students so good afternoon everyone we extend a warm welcome to Mr atata who is visiting our campus today and we also have we also have the chairman of our Board of Governors Mr kodar who has been guiding and inspiring us now uh this is a session that is meant as an interaction between student students and Mr tataa and uh none of us would want to stand in the way Mr tataa needs no introduction is a sort of a toy which I don't even need to repeat uh the only thing I would like to mention is that during the uh one piece of introduction that may not be known to a lot of people is that during the golden jubilee convocation of IIT Bombay in 2007 uh Mr data was conferred the honor Spar degree in science by i [Applause] b i now request Mr Tata who would like to say a few words to the students before we throw the session open to the questions uh good evening I I don't know what what to say as a start of uh few words let me just say that I'm probably in a position no different to what you were when you entered IIT I'm I just finished um almost 50 years with the DAT group just like you finished high school or finished your uh bachelors and now looking at the world again to see how I shift gears and move into a new phase of My Life um more more driven by wanting to do something and give back to the communities uh in some way uh fuse or well technology to to uh human welfare in terms of nutrition drinking water and uh so right now I'm in in a phase of facing a new world uh different from what I've been used to so maybe this connects us more than it would have been here 2 months earlier as as the head of the T group um in I would just like to say that in the few hours I've been here and the last time I was here it was just at the function today is the first time I've had a chance to walk around some some of the labs and some of the schools and I have to say I'm most impressed most impressed uh by the quality of work that is being done the level of technology that's being utilized and I was telling Dr kotar that the only big difference I see uh is how well endowed the US universities are as compared to the kind of funding that an Institute like this has and what a difference that would make in terms of the environment that all of you have to work in the initiative that you have I I respect all of you for what you are doing and undoubtedly out of this group some of you will be leaders in technology or leaders in industry and I just feel that I should wish you all the very best and greatest success in what you undertake to do after you will be some of the leaders in our country in the years to come so it's a great pleasure to be with you and uh consider me to be a fledgling in the new world whereas maybe you know where you're going and I don't so I I hope we can interact uh effectively and I hope I can respond adequately do whatever questions you may you may have thank you [Applause] and now invite to conduct the session thank you so much Professor s it's not every day that we have the lives of Mr Tata in our Institute and following the sessions part of the Institute uh for the ceremony I would like to start with the question and answers before uh we invited the students to the session we sent out a registration form for a number of students so more than 700 questions have come up one by one I would like those to ask those questions on behalf of the students of I with your permission sir the first one it is a common perception that for all business enterprises need to manage the local environment to prosper this is often considered to be a part of the corruption chain how can one grow in spite of these hurdles I think it's it's an incorrect perception that all business enterprises need to manage the environment I think this is uh something that has evolved in India in the past few years good perception and the alleged need to do this is a a soft option taken by by many industrial companies and many industrial organizations to either facilitate what they want to do in the marketplace or to kill competition or to or to Advantage themselves it's a very unfortunate thing it's true that it's reasonably widespread but in the in the years that that we have in t has fought this I can say that it's not a necessary thing to to grow there have been cases where we have been disadvantaged where we have um lost an opportunity or been passed by there are moments when we have felt that we have been treated unfairly but on the whole I would say that looking back in the last 40 50 years um I look back in the last 15 years that I have been chairman we when I took over we were about5 billion $5 billion in in revenues and last year we were $100 billion so it is it is not that it was a debilitating thing to do and U I think each of us should in our own way fight this soft option of paying our way or seeking to pay for what is rightfully so understanding what you say what what would you rate higher working in tataa or building a competitive for you that's a question I don't um why would working in TAS be building a CO compor for me as an entrepreneur uh let me back up we had a lot of um I'm saying this with with my tongue in my cheek uh we we have a non compete clause in our retirement plans and Tas uh Ed by me 15 years ago and and that Clause uh basically says that your pension would stop if you undertook the same business that you were working in in tata so if somebody who's working in tata steel they could not theoretically draw a pension and be in the steel industry uh another another Clause indicates that you cannot uh start a competing company that confused the brand name it took me 3 years when coming close to my retirement where I said I've been the head of the group anything I want to do one t company or another has done it so it's almost like saying that I will never get a pension because almost anything I touch will be in conflict with this and my name happens to be the same as the group so anything that I give my name to will be a violation of those Clauses so there was a bit of delicate uh tap dancing if you might to see how I could be excluded from from that whichever way it is I think uh there will be an area of of possible conflict but I hope never com never competition so for for a Tata alist or for anyone otherwise what do you think should be the broad areas in which then we need to improve the ecosystem with regards to startups in India I I can't say that I am an Authority on on trying to answer that question but the one thing that seems absent in India is an adequate um Venture Capital uh facility that would take young young of fresh or untried ideas and without applying banking criteria to them uh encourage them to take the risk that such a such an would have so the so the opportunity that a young drop out from from a university might have to start a a Facebook or a Microsoft or or Google would tend to be very difficult to do in India because there wouldn't be the the structure that would take the level of risk that some people have in the United States and those people who there are many people who lost money but there are many people who make fortunes uh from taking those risks and I think if that were available here we would see many more enterpreneurs uh starting up successful startups uh in this country so talking about the entrepreneurs and the number of startups and companies that have been coming up in India maybe inspired from other countries or otherwise tataa is one of the few large private sector companies with multiple collaborations with government of it what is the ideological motivation for tataa that has made it so different from other companies we don't have that many collaborations with the government of India we have we have a few a few joint ventures very few um and um we perhaps have at various times been uh considered to be companies that haven't endeared the government very much but we have founded them fin lar to be frank rather difficult to deal with uh we have uh found their their uh willingness again to take risk is very different and the empowerment of various departments in government that that might deal with the private sector is is also very very limited so it makes private sector and the government U somewhat on different pages in terms of what they stand so the group has had a name synonymous with equality and Trust how has it been maintained over the years and is it the work environment that induces quality or are the employees recruited with these qualities in mind um the question of values and and ethics enshrined in in the workings of tatas in from John tata's time uh the the industries he chose were by and large not so entrepreneurs they were National Industries and therefore when Independence came and and the government was had socialist uh goals many of the industries we had were nationalized and we were fortunate to re be allowed to retain power and steel which would also be would also go the same way and through that period of time till through Mr J's regime U Tas abided by that as best as they could um I I think the employees have have uh realized that if the people at the top are doing this that there's no scope for them to operate differently and where we have had eron employees or directors We have dealt with them terminally basically when I came in uh I thought it necessary that I that I put this in black and white somewh I found that there's nothing in in writing that defines what I'm value systems are or our ethics are so we sat down and wrote a code of conduct which we now expect every employee to read and to and that we renewed from time to time and and in fact we want every employee to sign it as having ITR but it's not a written code of conduct that makes values it's how you run your organization how you are not willing to compromise I think that's what every employee knows will not be so since the major section of the audience is of roughly the age of 20s now would like now I would like to ask questions from the perspective of students what reforms in the education system would you want to see at primary or college level in order to create more other data than [Applause] you might ask a question is is there is there really a need to say that you want more R datas in India or or you had enough of them seriously I would only say that what one wants to see what I would like to see is both an education system and a career uh Market that is based on Merit and equality and not based on whom you know what your name is what your wealth is ETC I would like to see in that sense India being an equal opportunity Country For Old people and it doesn't make any difference whether your background is a very poor one if you have the Merit that you can rise to the top it's wonderful in in various countries to see someone who who talks of being in Dorn clothes and who couldn't afford to have any of the luxuries in life now having succeeded the normous should give all of us tremendous happiness to know that that is a possibility with each of us if we have mer as a 20-year-old kid what were your aspirations from your life how did these goals take shape and change in the decades to follow that's a that's a bad question you ask me when I was 24 years old I came back to India from the United States and from there for the first 8 years I was perhaps 8 years working in datas I was perhaps the most disillusioned individual in the DAT group disillusioned by what I was doing or not doing or not allowed to do disillusioned by the inequalities I saw in in India at that time and uh only by accident 8 years later so therefore when I was 32 that I chose to stay in India otherwise I think on three occasions I was said to return to the United States what were my aspirations the aspirations were the same that I describe an opportunity to be heard even though you were 24 years old rather than 50 and U and that you had a chance to express yourself without being told to shut up um I was very keen that my SU should be a younger person and and we've succeeded in making that happen and I wish I had been uh given more responsibility at the end of age it would have been a much more worthwhile uh part of my life in that context sir what advice would you give to the Indian youth today maybe to iitm with respect to Dr kalam's India Vision 2020 to make them able to better contribute to to the society and National develop I think the only advice I can think of giving you is is as you go as you leave this institute and as you start your career um you must be sensitive to the millions of people who have not had the opportunity that you have as as we s today and in many ways you should be sensitive to the fact that the education system and the knowledge that you have acquired from this they have not had the advantage to have and you should look at that with humility rather than arrogance and understand that you in turn need to do something that will enhance the quality of their life also so to some extent I think you just have to be sensitive to the fact that we should try not to create a uh a huge disparity between the Hales and the havn Nots and if you are lucky to have Prosperity you should not flaunt it and and have a Vulgar Display of of your wealth you should enjoy it but be prepared to understand that there many people who don't have it and would look at you with some Envy unless you related yourself to them if you good team's one incident if you could change one incident from your life that might have made things different what would it be I'm afraid I I can't answer that because I don't think I can determine one single incident the most important one sorry the most important one you might and you're you're making it when you switch from coffee to tea it was that the big moment in your life for when you chose to stop being vegetarian and being nonvegetarian that Chang your I don't I don't know there's so many instances that each of us must have had uh seriously U I probably would not have returned to India except my grandmother fell ill so I came back to she was ill and I stayed in the United States my life probably would have been very different uh I was very happy there and very comfortable had a very satisfying job and um when I came back here the first I mentioned the first eight years were frustration my masters thought that the best way to to teach me um how to operate me I don't think anyone at that time had thought that I would be Mr jata successor so I was on the shop floor shoveling Limestone working in the furnaces and I kept asking myself why am I doing this um and so perhaps looking back the most significant incident in my life was just my obstinacy to remain here rather than to go back so this one last question before we throw open the floor to the audience question is something that all aians would feel very strongly about it you might be aware of a gender disparity at I 10% female among the student population positive or negative does your bachelorhood have anything to do with your extraordinary achievements [Applause] do you think that I have had something to do with your recruitment [Applause] policy uh I think we all face an issue of of U being sensitive to the need for uh more gender equality and more recognition of of uh the fact that both men and women have equal opportunities this is not confined to the iits or to institutions this is also extends to Industrial operations and corporations the boards of companies uh all of us are struggling even with with a intention to do away with the disparity of making that move it's very different from what it is elsewhere and uh one's delighted even if it's 10% to see a 10% uh uh women uh students in in institutions to see Engineers on the shop floor or in in research labs and there should be more of them and I think that this will happen uh as time goes on U my my being a bachelor has probably nothing to do with that except that i' I've lost the enjoyment of of having a f companion thank you so much now I would like to and request the audience to ask that me life still still there so who knows this is the Contex of the extraordinarily huge endowment which the tataa group made to say the Harvard Business School uh so firstly I would like to understand the motivation for a private company to do this for a very well endow University and Sir secondly I wanted to know your views on the tataa group entering the engineering and management education sector in India like say the b I understand you're asking for the the motivation for the uh the endowment to the AR business school and the second part of your question was relating to uh sir I wanted to know your views on the data group enter in the engineering education sector at the build okay in the Harvard Business School the uh what we donated was 50% of a of a building that would house the Executive Education Program not the NBA program and uh we did this because uh we we felt it would be symbolically a great thing for an Indian company to have leave it smart uh on on the campus where potential leaders of the world would all pass through that uh data Hall and be educated it's both uh residential and teaching for all the education Executive Education programs of of the Harvard Business School um I believe in course of time it will it will be looked at as a very strategic move that puts in on the map of uh a prominent uh business education uh Institute and uh it's it's something that I think if you look back it's not 100% endowment it's 50% from us 50% raised by the Harvard Business School itself so it's an equal equally shared uh expenditure um on the second part of your question we have no real plans to enter the education area in a big way uh we have had various schools in Jamshed Port that we have run um at times we felt that there's been too much interference on textbooks curriculum Etc so we got out of most of uh those areas from time to time we have felt that if the environment is right we would like to enter higher education in some form or another which we might still decide to do uh sir do you really think that mnc's are a threat to the country and as a consumer how much difference it really make if I use a Tata or a v product as opposed to didn't get the question uh are mnc's multinational companies are really a threat to the environment of the country my question is is how how much does it really matter whether as a consumer I use an Indian uh product manufactured by Indian company as opposed to something manufactured by a foreign company does it really impact if if your question is is are are mnc's a threat to Indian companies is that India as whole as a country okay my own personal feeling is that it is not a threat provided provided uh it is looked at as as a driver for competition and a driver for Innovation on the part of an Indian company I'll take the automobile industry as an example um despite the fact that we produce U about 2 million cars a year there are only two manufacturers two manufacturers of Indian cars it's Mahindra and patas every other International manufacturer is here in one form or another um yes there are disadvantages because scale Etc is is far bigger in the foreign manufacturers but if you look before that the 50 years of automobiles we had two manufacturers who never increased their production for more than 50,000 cars who never changed their model who never innovated who never gave the market anything other than what they produced and the market just bought what they you waited 7 years for a car 10 years for a car so if you look at the two two examples has India benefited I would say yes and do the two Indian manufacturers uh gain anything from this open market yes because we're driven to to compete with those people and the day we look at that that they're meant to drive us out I think is a nation would lose out all of you are being trained to be Innovative and hopefully outdo the mnc's when they come here it's our job as uh employers to encourage you to do that to encourage you to break new ground to to think of think out of the box and it's for you to do it and for us to support it so I don't think we should look at mnc's as a threat I think we should look at them as a as a motivated to be more competitive and beat them so uh if we you know it's given me great great joy to say that an Indian company owns Jaguar and Land Rover so that's not alone it's uh it should give us great joy that there's a Mr M who owns the largest steel Enterprise in the [Applause] world so we should not look at mnc's as being a threat we should look at we should just look at them being a motivator to to beat them and beat them in the market Market Place not beat them by protection U sir I have a question uh you mentioned about equal opportunity and also at the same time about uh Mery now uh the issue I see is that in India currently we tend to look at equal opportunity at a very higher level for example through reservations or uh maybe you know through including Clauses for recruitment purposes in companies etc etc uh but somewhere I believe the major issue is actually at the root level you know uh if if let's say I I come from a poor background the kind of environment or the kind of opportunities uh that are available to me sort of determine my development so unless we you know sort of uh build upon that I don't think the equal opportunity that you mentioned you know would really make sense in a what do you think about that so I'm trying to say how do you counteract this disadvantage that uh a lot of people maybe from the point of view of gender from the point of view of wealth Etc uh that people in India face you know in order to ensure real equal opportunity at the higher level you know uh as far as marit is concerned certainly the poor Foundation makes it very difficult for Merit to all be equalized I didn't say that I didn't say that that was the condition that there was I said I hope for in India that would provide equal opportunity and that equal opportunity goes all the way back to primary education goes back to an environment where all Indians are equal today they are not what I said to all of you in terms of when you leave here here is all towards helping make that equality a reality which can only come from you and maybe the next Generation after you um unless we do that we will have the situation that you described where an unfortunate background or an or an U disadvantage background will leave you with scars and and disadvantages even today uh if you look at our situation we start our education with regional languages when you want to go to engineering school somewhere you have to redo your education in English you have to learn computation in English I've often often thought that those of us who started with in a regional school that that was in a regional language what a great disadvantage it it has been compared to students who went to an English school to start with and who was not available to everyone so there are these kinds of disadvantages and we have to hopefully with government awareness move away from that so that we can create uh create an environment where all people are equal or have an equal opportunity so uh I would like to ask question I'm a student of mobility and vehicle design and so I speak to only the automotive industry uh one question would be like uh all the manufacturers are coming into new technologies of coming up with a vehicle for example fuel cell electric can you ask very precisely okay so what is uh data motor take on coming up with uh new technology into vehicle would they be uh packaging this uh electric components into the same vehicle or create some breakthrough products which will set a new language so um we we so far have been looking at at using existing platforms um and accommodating battery packs and electric motors in that in that same in that on that same platform we're also looking at we're also looking at new platforms that our modular and and enable us to look at at packaging um both the batteries and electric motors as also range extenders as the case might be in in some of these vehicles whichever thing we do I think the packaging is an easier proposition than looking at it as a business case so long as battery uh costs are what they continue to be it involves a fair amount of subsidizing the the finished project hello sir uh my question is what would be the solution for for for converting India into product country rather than service country uh I don't think that one should look at a country is being a product company or a manufacturing company or a Ser service country rather um the UK did very well for itself as a service economy until the service sector collapsed earlier the manufacturing sector collapsed because it was uneconomical or uncompetitive I think most economies need a balance of of both the manufacturing sector is the the heartbeat of of the country and the service sector is is in fact a necessary part of part of that we for example have made the IT services a major part of our economy um I I believe that other countries like U Singapore Al those small have made the service sector very much a part of their economy I think there has to be a balance between between the two I I don't think you should strive to make a a country a manufacturing economy or service economy alone hello sir first of all it's a great pleasure to interact with you because I am from singur in West Bengal well um when I am a student in Kata University Institute of radio physics and electronics there is a bch student we fought for your Nano project and that project is just 5 minutes from my house we are me and some my doctor friends in Kata Medical College we are beaten by that person could you please ask the question directly so my question is what is your your company's future plan to do something in that skeleton that's all um I keep getting asked that question every time I go to Kolkata uh by the media I I think my honest answer is the same as it was at the height of the single controversy that we would we went to West Bengal because we felt that was a part of the country that was that industry had vacated and that we wanted to reestablish an industrial presence in in the state I don't want to go into the issues that took place on sigal but I said that at that time and I say today that if the environment is conducive to to an industrial operation we we would look at that it's a part of India it's not some it's not some alien country I think we have a cancer hospital in in Kolkata despite all this which uh is operating and hopefully saving lives we have other Industries in in West Bengal and we retaining the single property in in the hope that one day there will be a non hostile environment which would not U sort of uh lead one to leave West Bengal which today unfortunately is is the case you can't run a you can't run a plant with police protection you can't run a plant with uh violence so when there's a non hostile environment I think TS would increase their investment ining go last two questions from the audience one just question please do something there on that SK please do you yes thank you so much next question please yeah first let me claim that I'm not a student but I have preferred to stay as a student I'm a faculty ofy uh see often this discussion keeps coming that manufacturing sector needs talent and uh forget I even probably many of the second Grand engineering colleges also is not able to attract the talent to the manufacturing sector and since your group has got tremendous presence in manufacturing sector what are the kind of initiative here uh first what you what is your view on that and second is as a group what's the kind of initiative you have taken to make a change so that you get better tal to manur I I think that all sectors require Talent um if I if I look it to the future I would say that the next big sector in the manufacturing or in the technical area is going to be defense and Aerospace it's an area that has been the domain of the public sector uh there's much more interface between uh foreign companies that are looking at India as a possible low cost and a skill Rich uh Country and when this is truly opened up to the private sector which perhap today it is not I think the greatest uh new avenues of growth and capability and and knowledge attainment will be in the defense and Aerospace sector it may be components for it it may be avionics it may be structures it may be composits whatever it is new materials and eventually uh the global position of India in the sector is not unrealistic so a lot is going to depend on opening up that area truly to like like other areas in the country have been open up perhaps we could request one of the ladies in the audience to ask the last question namaskar sir sir I feel that meditation and introspection can help people fight better with stress uh so has it ever helped you and uh can that be incorporated in uh institutes politici Politics as well as corporates could you please repeat your question hello I'm saying that uh I think meditation helps people to fight their stress better and lot of agitation is there in uh country in institutes like I as well as corporates and politics so do you think these things can be incorporated as a important aspect of curriculum as well as the practices in corporates for both gender [Applause] so I I really I really don't know I I've never I've never um practiced meditation so don't know I don't know what I'm [Music] missing and U so I I couldn't give you any advice on that in how do you deal with stress or what's your mode of introspection so any kind of thing that can help us I think Mr T looks pretty relaxed but I think at this point in time what you release my stress would be um the nervousness of facing all of you no seriously uh I think each person has to find their own way of releasing stress um mine might be to run with my dogs and somebody else might might be to listen to music I I think each person has to find their own formal really some people like to paint or draw it's it's very it's very individual thank you so resarch in the country because we don't do as much research in the country as it is done in foreign countries Us in particular so I wonder how much T group does research in all Fields including Aerospace and defense like you mentioned and how can we improve how can we increase the research budget in the country research done by the Private Industry so that there is more collaboration between government of India and the private Industries how do we how to increase this I I think it's a known fact that we are not spending enough on Research or even product development and I've often felt that that's a hangover of the license R were all companies had license agreements and they just manufactured under license with very little uh freedom to develop products most companies still uh don't truly undertake research over product development uh expenditure most of the uh most of the cost that they claim they have incurred is usually in Brick and morar producing a research building or facilities rather than actual Project work um I believe there there really what we really need is is uh more contract research from the government to companies to institutions uh research work between corporations and institutes uh on a contract basis where the Institute is willing to Bear the risk of nonperformance and and penalties relating to it that sometimes is one of the reasons why in India there is not that much interaction between corporates and and institutions but if we had major contracts with private sector companies without concern about whether this was uh favoritism or otherwise some really um well defined methodology of of Contracting research I think that it in itself be a form of income to company and would result in in Greater activity but I think uh we have to have a culture in our corporate uh sector to do research and not to be afraid of failing in what we intend to do so I think it's a cult issue so I guess what I would like to know why why don't you do res in bu like maybe as well as other private companies why don't we do research why why don't we do research but not enough at least I I I think you have to say that today the first step in in that direction would be product development rather than fundamental research or applied research and we are to be a country that that could even do reverse engineering well which we don't do we haven't understood what quality or durability really is we we're still behind there and we get discredited for anything we try to do because it's done in India uh so I think the first thing we have to do is overcome that step and then we should start to pay more attention to uh basic research or applied research uh not for the technical excitement or to publish papers but to do Frontier work in that area and I think that's part of what institutes like this should be encouraging people to do think we are sh out This truly has been one of the longest Q&A sessions we have had here and what an experience it was I would like to call Professor y to give a word of thanks to Mr T for spending his time with us at [Applause] I indeed thank you very much for coming here and spending time with uh students and taking all the questions uh with the characteristic I also want to thank Dr for being come here and Grace the occasion uh and of course all of you for being very nice audience we like to do um I would I like to invite drka to hand over to Adonia on behalf of I bomb [Applause] I request our director Dr to hand over I this okay thank you

Channel: [IITBBC] IIT Bombay Broadcasting Channel

Views: 94,468

Keywords:

Id: 0Y5rORqKIik

Length: 59min 9sec (3549 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 26 2013