9 ms·

Ratan Tata, Head of $100B Tata & Sons, Retires

89 points by azifali 14y ago

monsterix 14y ago
I would salute and remember Ratan Tata even for the last two years of his work. He has achieved some of the most unthinkable awesome things as an entrepreneur off India: 1. Delivered Tata Nano, an awesome product built ground up that just works. 2. The way they managed their injured employees, and even those not working for them, after the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Indian Government did not provide any support to the small tea-stall vendors, beggars, railway employees and injured policemen. Ratan Tata did. That is height of humanity shown by him, despite the urge to excel in business. Amazing stuff.
- gadders 14y ago
  What he did after the Mumbai terrorist attacks was amazing, and not widely known outside of India (I only found out after an Indian colleague liked a comment about it on facebook). You can see the full list here: http://rummuser.com/?p=3182 http://rummuser.com/?p=3182 but a few examples: The settlement for every deceased member ranged from Rs. 36 to 85 lacs [One lakh rupees translates to approx 2200 US $ ] in addition to the following benefits: a. Full last salary for life for the family and dependents; b. Complete responsibility of education of children and dependents anywhere in the world. c. Full Medical facility for the whole family and dependents for rest of their lives. Employee outreach centers were opened where all help, food, water, sanitation, first aid and counseling was provided. 1600 employees were covered by this facility. Every employee was assigned to one mentor and it was that person’s responsibility to act as a “single window” clearance for any help that the person required. Relief and assistance was extended to all those who died at the railway station surroundings, just behind the Taj, including the “Pav- Bha jiâ” vendor and the paan shop owners.
raverbashing 14y ago
His companies have advanced software development as much as CMMI In short, absolutely nothing
- archangel_one 14y ago
  Sure, Tata was originally a steel company and while it's a huge conglomerate now that does a bunch of other things, they're not known for pushing the edges of software development. There's no reason they have to be, unless you're referring to the somewhat ridiculous "salt-to-software" term the author has sprinkled on the article.
- slackerninja 14y ago
  This trollish comment is uncalled for. Tata is a huge conglomerate; and they indeed have quite a few interesting things going on in various domains. Few examples that I can think of: www.crlindia.com and www.tataadvancedsystems.com.
- deepuj 14y ago
  TCS (Tata's IT arm) has a revenue of $10 billion and employs 260000 people. How can that amount to nothing? TCS builds software for a large number of Fortune 500 companies. You would be surprised how much of software you use daily is built in India.
  - raverbashing 14y ago
    These are, as it was mentioned in another article, "CRUD systems" in their majority (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRUD http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRUD) In essence, several giant Java systems (+ Oracle usually). But he surely can sell expensive systems to multibillion dollar companies and charge a lot of money, that's an important quality of his. Did they contribute anything to free software? Did they contribute to the advancement of software development in any way (articles, libraries, books, etc?) Does Tata has the same level of employee attraction/retention as Google/Fb/Amazon or others?
    - kamaal 14y ago
      India doesn't have institutions or the kind of exposure people at MIT or Stanford or Berkeley or Princeton have. There is almost no support from the government and people are either mostly lower middle class or poor. So its a little unfair to expect people like Richard Stallman or Larry Wall to have born in India. It is possible in the US only because because bulk of work in building universities, infrastructure and exposure is already done by your government. However when given the proper support Indians have always proved to be very hardworking people who go great heights. Where does this leave us? Companies like these did a lot of work to put Indian developers on the global scene by first fighting a socialist kind of economy, building multi billion dollar businesses, training people and doing a lot of confidence building work for Indians. May be the next generation you will see some genuine competition from India.
garagemc2 14y ago
I wish the best of luck to this man.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
rikacomet 14y ago
Tata was first of all a trading company only in 1898, now it is a diversified business conglomerate, accusation of Corus Steel, Jaguar and Land Rover, and recently a hostile big for a international hotel group are just how far reaching the Tata has been. The baton has been passed on to a new person now, lets see how it goes. Mr.Mistry is like Mr.Cook of Apple, while Mr.RN Tata was like Mr.Steve Jobs of Apple. Well thats the laymans perception of the new head.
- FraaJad 14y ago
  you mean acquisition, not accusation.
  - rikacomet 14y ago
    haha, my bad :P thanks
    - jacquesm 14y ago
      And 'bid', not 'big'.
- factorialboy 14y ago
  I respect Ratan Tata but the Steve Jobs analogy does not fit. Very different situation and careers.
madmax108 14y ago
For those who do not know about him, Ratan Tata is a role model for many entrepreneurs in his homecountry (India). He is renowned for his practicality and down-to-earth attitude, despite being the head of a multi billion $ conglomerate. Infact he spent his last day on the shop floor of Tata Motors rather than at some lavish retirement party (as most CEOs today do)[1] Massive respect for the man who's led the conglomerate for decades and brought it to the forefront in multiple sectors, and all this while keeping values and morality at the core of his business logic. Wish him all the very best for all of his future endeavours! [1] https://twitter.com/RNTata2000/status/284648010657456128 https://twitter.com/RNTata2000/status/284648010657456128
kamaal 14y ago
For those who don't know why this is important or a big thing. 1. He/His family is a very big role model for every aspiring entrepreneur in India. 2. They have a history of over a 150 years of building not just hundreds of billion dollar business but also contributing a lot back to the society. 3. They have built numerous hospitals across India, which often come across as life savers for many middle class/poor people. Especially cancer cure hospitals. 4. They also built one of the premiere science institutes in India. In Bangalore. 5. They more or less built and entire city called Jamshedpur, in the process of setting up their business providing lively hood several thousands of people. 6. They were phenomenal in pioneering the national airline of India. 7. They set up many high ethical standards regarding treating workers well. Infact getting 8 hour work day, health care etc were all their standards now common in government offices in India. And I can just go on. Once in generation leaders have been produced by their family. Which are not just changing the face of India but that of the world now. For those who want to know what contributions they have towards software. They were one of the earliest software services companies in India named Tata consultancy services. To know why that is so important. Together with Infosys and Wipro they defined and shaped the entire software scene in India. Today youngsters troll on these large Mega corps. But those three companies did much of bulk of Indian software work throughout 80's and 90's. They built bulk of the infrastructure. They built training facilities, trained people and built a lot of confidence that Indians have it in them to compete at the global stage. They even shaped the government policy to a large extent. Without all that, much of what is possible in Indian IT and pursued with confidence not just in services, but also products couldn't have even been remotely possible. You could almost say Narayana Murthy, Ratan Tata and Azim Premji could take the all the accolades for building such a bold platform for Indian software engineers to deliver at a global level now.
- iwwr 14y ago
  What would you say about the criticism that people like Tata, Mittal or Ambani can get ahead by virtue of being powerful enough to evade the crippling permit and protectionism imposed by the Indian state. Such people have an interest not to open up India to competition too quickly as to jeopardize their businesses. In other words, they are part of the power structure that's preventing or retarding reforms. Eventually, they will want to open up the local markets and reform the bureaucracy, but at a slow enough pace as not to interfere with their quasi-monopoly position. Slow growth or stagnation is producing a net "rent" for the powerful few, while prolonging misery for the rest.
jacquesm 14y ago
If there is one guy on the planet that has absolutely deserved to rest on his laurels for a bit it is Ratan Tata. I've been reading quite a bit about him in the last few weeks and compared to most western CEOs that I'm familiar with this guy is much more ethical and a fascinating person. He reminds me of Ray Anderson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Anderson_%28entrepreneur%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Anderson_%28entrepreneur%29). They say that nice guys finish last, in a world where a saying like that gets a lot of traction it is great to see a man like Ratan Tata prove that not only can nice guys finish first, they can do so coming from a substantial disadvantage. Imagine, Tata bought out Corus steel (which in turn had bought out Hoogovens Steel), one the worlds largest steel factories. Buying out a first world competitor is a pretty good move from a 3rd world country. If you feel like reading some interesting stuff you could do worse than typing 'Ratan Tata' into google and digging in, definitely recommended.
- rgovind 14y ago
  @jacquesm, When you say read a lot, I hope you are referring to non-indian sources...If so, can you point me to some
  - jacquesm 14y ago
    Google will do all the pointing you need and then some, there is a lot of material about him on the web. And a lot of the Indian sources are in fact in English. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratan_Tata http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratan_Tata Lots of good links there too. https://www.google.com/search?q=ratan+tata+biography https://www.google.com/search?q=ratan+tata+biography https://www.google.com/search?q=ratan+tata https://www.google.com/search?q=ratan+tata https://www.google.com/search?q=tata+steel https://www.google.com/search?q=tata+steel The most interesting parts to me are how he managed to leverage his starting position (definitely not at 0) to the point where he made a play for international expansion.
    - rgovind 14y ago
      @jacquesm, I appreciate your links below. But I don't see much critical analysis in those links. For example, in the wikipedia article, there are no details about what he did from 1962 to 1991. What projects did he handle during this time, any crisis, etc. Did he fail anywhere or was it midas touch everywhere? A CEO of $100B empire has no controversies? Btw, the article conveniently skips 2G scam that happened in India and how his company got a good price on the spectrum. I am not saying he did wrong stuff...but its not entirely overboard. However, I agree with you, that he definitely leveraged is starting position and made for international expansion. Btw, if you have $1B starting money, whether you are in first world or third world doesn't matter...you can buy companies anywhere.
rgovind 14y ago
Can someone explain, how in a country like India where corruption is widespread, The Tatas built a $100B company without paying any bribes? Am I missing something? I believe Govt officials in India are rapacious.
- gsk 14y ago
  Yes, I'd suggest http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Last-Blue-Mountain-Authorised/dp/0670844306 http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Last-Blue-Mountain-Authorised/d... where the founder himself explains how
- easternmonk 14y ago
  Powerful people are generally insulated from corruption unlike you and me. They simple help each other out.
ratantata 14y ago
there is always an asshole indian posting irrelevant stuff to HN.. how is this relevant here ..
mandeepj 14y ago
Ratan Tata: Top 10 achievements under his leadership http://profit.ndtv.com/news/cheat-sheet/article-ratan-tata-top-10-achievements-under-his-leadership-315310 http://profit.ndtv.com/news/cheat-sheet/article-ratan-tata-t...
mandeepj 14y ago
Now, we are talking about one legend here so it deserves the mentioning of another great legend also as most of people here may not know about him - Dhirubhai Ambani. The founder of another one of biggest conglomerates in India - Reliance Industries. He achieved the same success, business penetration in 30 years that took tatas about 150 years. He recorded the fastest success ever known in the business circles of India. Read more about him here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhirubhai_Ambani http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhirubhai_Ambani
- factorialboy 14y ago
  The Ambani's are / were extremely corrupt. Hardly an inspiration to anyone.
  - arjn 14y ago
    thank you for saying that.
arjn 14y ago
Apart from being a great business leader, Ratan is a good, decent person. I've been told by someone very close to me who was a corporate pilot for him and flew him around for several years.

89 points by azifali 14y ago

I would salute and remember Ratan Tata even for the last two years of his work. He has achieved some of the most unthinkable awesome things as an entrepreneur off India: 1. Delivered Tata Nano, an awesome product built ground up that just works. 2. The way they managed their injured employees, and even those not working for them, after the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Indian Government did not provide any support to the small tea-stall vendors, beggars, railway employees and injured policemen. Ratan Tata did. That is height of humanity shown by him, despite the urge to excel in business. Amazing stuff.

gadders 14y ago
What he did after the Mumbai terrorist attacks was amazing, and not widely known outside of India (I only found out after an Indian colleague liked a comment about it on facebook). You can see the full list here: http://rummuser.com/?p=3182 http://rummuser.com/?p=3182 but a few examples: The settlement for every deceased member ranged from Rs. 36 to 85 lacs [One lakh rupees translates to approx 2200 US $ ] in addition to the following benefits: a. Full last salary for life for the family and dependents; b. Complete responsibility of education of children and dependents anywhere in the world. c. Full Medical facility for the whole family and dependents for rest of their lives. Employee outreach centers were opened where all help, food, water, sanitation, first aid and counseling was provided. 1600 employees were covered by this facility. Every employee was assigned to one mentor and it was that person’s responsibility to act as a “single window” clearance for any help that the person required. Relief and assistance was extended to all those who died at the railway station surroundings, just behind the Taj, including the “Pav- Bha jiâ” vendor and the paan shop owners.

raverbashing 14y ago

His companies have advanced software development as much as CMMI In short, absolutely nothing

archangel_one 14y ago
Sure, Tata was originally a steel company and while it's a huge conglomerate now that does a bunch of other things, they're not known for pushing the edges of software development. There's no reason they have to be, unless you're referring to the somewhat ridiculous "salt-to-software" term the author has sprinkled on the article.
slackerninja 14y ago
This trollish comment is uncalled for. Tata is a huge conglomerate; and they indeed have quite a few interesting things going on in various domains. Few examples that I can think of: www.crlindia.com and www.tataadvancedsystems.com.
deepuj 14y ago
TCS (Tata's IT arm) has a revenue of $10 billion and employs 260000 people. How can that amount to nothing? TCS builds software for a large number of Fortune 500 companies. You would be surprised how much of software you use daily is built in India.
- raverbashing 14y ago
  These are, as it was mentioned in another article, "CRUD systems" in their majority (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRUD http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRUD) In essence, several giant Java systems (+ Oracle usually). But he surely can sell expensive systems to multibillion dollar companies and charge a lot of money, that's an important quality of his. Did they contribute anything to free software? Did they contribute to the advancement of software development in any way (articles, libraries, books, etc?) Does Tata has the same level of employee attraction/retention as Google/Fb/Amazon or others?
  - kamaal 14y ago
    India doesn't have institutions or the kind of exposure people at MIT or Stanford or Berkeley or Princeton have. There is almost no support from the government and people are either mostly lower middle class or poor. So its a little unfair to expect people like Richard Stallman or Larry Wall to have born in India. It is possible in the US only because because bulk of work in building universities, infrastructure and exposure is already done by your government. However when given the proper support Indians have always proved to be very hardworking people who go great heights. Where does this leave us? Companies like these did a lot of work to put Indian developers on the global scene by first fighting a socialist kind of economy, building multi billion dollar businesses, training people and doing a lot of confidence building work for Indians. May be the next generation you will see some genuine competition from India.

garagemc2 14y ago

I wish the best of luck to this man.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

rikacomet 14y ago

Tata was first of all a trading company only in 1898, now it is a diversified business conglomerate, accusation of Corus Steel, Jaguar and Land Rover, and recently a hostile big for a international hotel group are just how far reaching the Tata has been. The baton has been passed on to a new person now, lets see how it goes. Mr.Mistry is like Mr.Cook of Apple, while Mr.RN Tata was like Mr.Steve Jobs of Apple. Well thats the laymans perception of the new head.

FraaJad 14y ago
you mean acquisition, not accusation.
- rikacomet 14y ago
  haha, my bad :P thanks
  - jacquesm 14y ago
    And 'bid', not 'big'.
factorialboy 14y ago
I respect Ratan Tata but the Steve Jobs analogy does not fit. Very different situation and careers.

madmax108 14y ago

For those who do not know about him, Ratan Tata is a role model for many entrepreneurs in his homecountry (India). He is renowned for his practicality and down-to-earth attitude, despite being the head of a multi billion $ conglomerate. Infact he spent his last day on the shop floor of Tata Motors rather than at some lavish retirement party (as most CEOs today do)[1] Massive respect for the man who's led the conglomerate for decades and brought it to the forefront in multiple sectors, and all this while keeping values and morality at the core of his business logic. Wish him all the very best for all of his future endeavours! [1] https://twitter.com/RNTata2000/status/284648010657456128 https://twitter.com/RNTata2000/status/284648010657456128

kamaal 14y ago

For those who don't know why this is important or a big thing. 1. He/His family is a very big role model for every aspiring entrepreneur in India. 2. They have a history of over a 150 years of building not just hundreds of billion dollar business but also contributing a lot back to the society. 3. They have built numerous hospitals across India, which often come across as life savers for many middle class/poor people. Especially cancer cure hospitals. 4. They also built one of the premiere science institutes in India. In Bangalore. 5. They more or less built and entire city called Jamshedpur, in the process of setting up their business providing lively hood several thousands of people. 6. They were phenomenal in pioneering the national airline of India. 7. They set up many high ethical standards regarding treating workers well. Infact getting 8 hour work day, health care etc were all their standards now common in government offices in India. And I can just go on. Once in generation leaders have been produced by their family. Which are not just changing the face of India but that of the world now. For those who want to know what contributions they have towards software. They were one of the earliest software services companies in India named Tata consultancy services. To know why that is so important. Together with Infosys and Wipro they defined and shaped the entire software scene in India. Today youngsters troll on these large Mega corps. But those three companies did much of bulk of Indian software work throughout 80's and 90's. They built bulk of the infrastructure. They built training facilities, trained people and built a lot of confidence that Indians have it in them to compete at the global stage. They even shaped the government policy to a large extent. Without all that, much of what is possible in Indian IT and pursued with confidence not just in services, but also products couldn't have even been remotely possible. You could almost say Narayana Murthy, Ratan Tata and Azim Premji could take the all the accolades for building such a bold platform for Indian software engineers to deliver at a global level now.

iwwr 14y ago
What would you say about the criticism that people like Tata, Mittal or Ambani can get ahead by virtue of being powerful enough to evade the crippling permit and protectionism imposed by the Indian state. Such people have an interest not to open up India to competition too quickly as to jeopardize their businesses. In other words, they are part of the power structure that's preventing or retarding reforms. Eventually, they will want to open up the local markets and reform the bureaucracy, but at a slow enough pace as not to interfere with their quasi-monopoly position. Slow growth or stagnation is producing a net "rent" for the powerful few, while prolonging misery for the rest.

jacquesm 14y ago

If there is one guy on the planet that has absolutely deserved to rest on his laurels for a bit it is Ratan Tata. I've been reading quite a bit about him in the last few weeks and compared to most western CEOs that I'm familiar with this guy is much more ethical and a fascinating person. He reminds me of Ray Anderson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Anderson_%28entrepreneur%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Anderson_%28entrepreneur%29). They say that nice guys finish last, in a world where a saying like that gets a lot of traction it is great to see a man like Ratan Tata prove that not only can nice guys finish first, they can do so coming from a substantial disadvantage. Imagine, Tata bought out Corus steel (which in turn had bought out Hoogovens Steel), one the worlds largest steel factories. Buying out a first world competitor is a pretty good move from a 3rd world country. If you feel like reading some interesting stuff you could do worse than typing 'Ratan Tata' into google and digging in, definitely recommended.

rgovind 14y ago
@jacquesm, When you say read a lot, I hope you are referring to non-indian sources...If so, can you point me to some
- jacquesm 14y ago
  Google will do all the pointing you need and then some, there is a lot of material about him on the web. And a lot of the Indian sources are in fact in English. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratan_Tata http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratan_Tata Lots of good links there too. https://www.google.com/search?q=ratan+tata+biography https://www.google.com/search?q=ratan+tata+biography https://www.google.com/search?q=ratan+tata https://www.google.com/search?q=ratan+tata https://www.google.com/search?q=tata+steel https://www.google.com/search?q=tata+steel The most interesting parts to me are how he managed to leverage his starting position (definitely not at 0) to the point where he made a play for international expansion.
  - rgovind 14y ago
    @jacquesm, I appreciate your links below. But I don't see much critical analysis in those links. For example, in the wikipedia article, there are no details about what he did from 1962 to 1991. What projects did he handle during this time, any crisis, etc. Did he fail anywhere or was it midas touch everywhere? A CEO of $100B empire has no controversies? Btw, the article conveniently skips 2G scam that happened in India and how his company got a good price on the spectrum. I am not saying he did wrong stuff...but its not entirely overboard. However, I agree with you, that he definitely leveraged is starting position and made for international expansion. Btw, if you have $1B starting money, whether you are in first world or third world doesn't matter...you can buy companies anywhere.

rgovind 14y ago

Can someone explain, how in a country like India where corruption is widespread, The Tatas built a $100B company without paying any bribes? Am I missing something? I believe Govt officials in India are rapacious.

gsk 14y ago
Yes, I'd suggest http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Last-Blue-Mountain-Authorised/dp/0670844306 http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Last-Blue-Mountain-Authorised/d... where the founder himself explains how
easternmonk 14y ago
Powerful people are generally insulated from corruption unlike you and me. They simple help each other out.

ratantata 14y ago

there is always an asshole indian posting irrelevant stuff to HN.. how is this relevant here ..

mandeepj 14y ago

Ratan Tata: Top 10 achievements under his leadership http://profit.ndtv.com/news/cheat-sheet/article-ratan-tata-top-10-achievements-under-his-leadership-315310 http://profit.ndtv.com/news/cheat-sheet/article-ratan-tata-t...

mandeepj 14y ago

Now, we are talking about one legend here so it deserves the mentioning of another great legend also as most of people here may not know about him - Dhirubhai Ambani. The founder of another one of biggest conglomerates in India - Reliance Industries. He achieved the same success, business penetration in 30 years that took tatas about 150 years. He recorded the fastest success ever known in the business circles of India. Read more about him here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhirubhai_Ambani http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhirubhai_Ambani

factorialboy 14y ago
The Ambani's are / were extremely corrupt. Hardly an inspiration to anyone.
- arjn 14y ago
  thank you for saying that.

arjn 14y ago

Apart from being a great business leader, Ratan is a good, decent person. I've been told by someone very close to me who was a corporate pilot for him and flew him around for several years.