[avishar]

It is incredible how much a demi-god status Ratan Tata has reached in India.

I can understand why. Ratan Tata is looked upon like a working man's hero in a nation that still looks at ungodly amount of wealth or capatilism with suspicion.

Sorry to say this but it was the Ratan's miscalculation which lead to this situation.

In fact, Tata Motors has started improving & made enormous strides after Ratan Tata moved out of an active role. The only good decision he made IMHO was buying Jaguar-Land Rover.

This is absolutely true. The best thing that could have happened to the Tata Group was his exit. Infact since then, the group has a whole cleansed itself up a lot, restructuring divisions and selling off unproductive assets.

Mr Tata wanted a legacy for himself and hence he drove towards making expensive acquisitions, every one of which has unravelled itself over the years. They have been found to be expensive and the returns not that great. Right from Tetley onwards.

The JLR acquisition itself has proved itself to be a problem once the Ford developed platforms started to show its age. Tata-JLR has milked Ford's R&D for a decade, infact even the new D8 platform (and OMEGA) is based on Ford's old European platform for Jaguar and Volvo and dates back to 2008. JLR enjoyed massive profits for a while thanks to the Chinese boom, but once the bottom dropped out of the Chinese market, the gravy train stopped. Suddenly JLR realised that it has not saved for rainy day but instead opened brand new plants in Slovakia.

Now they face a double problem of replacing their entire fleet and also moving to electrics which will require a level of investment that they do not have and cannot compete with the Germans.

Tata Motors under Ratan Tata had no direction. Too much effort was wasted into chasing projects like the Nano instead of listening to customers and improving the quality of cars. Infact Mahindra did a much better job transitioning from making Jeeps to products desirable by the urban buyer.

There is a reason why Mr Mistry's tenure at Tata was so stormy. He saw the mess and wanted to make changes which met with a huge amount of resistance. Particularly because Mistry stepped into the role of Tata Motors CEO and tooled around in what is considered as Mr Tata's turf. That ruffled some feathers!

Even today, there is till some fine tuning needed between Tata Group supremo N Chandrasekaran and Guenter Butschek. Some of the initiatives went nowhere, for eg TaMo. Another one was the rumoured tie-up with VW which is said to have been pushed by Guenter but by shot down by the board. Tata Motors has had a history of appointing foreigners as CEOs to 'turnaround' the company. Long back Mr Carl-Peter Forster had resigned from the firm without warning too.

Right now it would be the correct thing for Tata Motors to find a foreign partner for their Indian operations. They have a good lineup of cars and they have a lot of excess factory capacity. The Chinese will definitely be interested, but if they do not wish to bring a Chinese partner to India, maybe they should explore those talks with VW again.

[RockingHorse]

I believe Tata Motors have published their official statement about this, but we are still discussing this topic under an obsolete heading if I can call it so. I am a newbie but for other similar threads I found the thread closed once company had their official statement which would be a logical end of the thread. Anyways... Since this relates to Tata Motors, We are dissecting Ratan Tata's management career under this thread now.

Tata Motors under Ratan Tata had no direction. Too much effort was wasted into chasing projects like the Nano instead of listening to customers and improving the quality of cars. Infact Mahindra did a much better job transitioning from making Jeeps to products desirable by the urban buyer.

I found the statement about directionless Tata Motors under Ratan Tata, a bit cheeky. Do we mean that Nano project and working towards service and QC issues is mutually exclusive? I would beg to differ. And certainly not that Tata Motors are complete laggards in Service as well as QC issues. Nano as a business case has been discussed amply both in indian business world and on this forum too. Saying words like 'projects like Nano' which (if) mean any negativity about this venture, would be an injustice. Many failures teach more than success and though financially not viable, businesses actually gain in terms of intangible lessons. Lastly, I would really like to know Mahindra vehicles which are considered desirable by the urban buyers. Seriously can't think of anything else than an ageing model like XUV5OO. Do you find KUV whatever.. desirable?

[VaidhiR]

Originally Posted by GTO

- Tata built the cheap quality Indica & Indigo which destroyed the company's reputation for quality. Even today, many people are apprehensive about the brand's cars due to the image created in the 2000s (despite Tata cars having improved so much).

Tata as a manufacturer were producing trucks. They ventured into the car UV market with the Sumo, Estate and Sierra. Whilst quality was a big issue even in the early 90s, the Indica was their first-ever (and India's first-ever) indigenously developed car. The quality bugs that they had, whilst not unexpected, could hardly be construed as destroying their reputation. The V2, which removed almost all the noticeable quality bugs, at one point of time had a waiting period of 9 months. An Indica was leaving the Tata factory every 109 seconds (I remember reading this on Autocar).

I guess what I am trying to say is, the quality was seen as a major issue only after Hyundai came in with their first-gen. Accent (Or whatever it was called) and then Santro which blew the competition away. Even without Santro in the picture, Indica had to compete with Matiz, Uno and Zen. So you get the picture of Indica's competition pre-Santro days and where their motivation to improve quality would probably be.

Originally Posted by GTO

- He made the statement of "1 lakh car" which was partially responsible for the Nano's death. It killed the car's image & desirability. That statement should never have been made.

IIRC, he said it would cost $2500 as a new car. At the then exchange rate, that would have costed 1 lakh. He took it up as a challenge and delivered a fully enclosed 4 seater 4 door car with a proper ICE for 1lakh.

His marketing team advised him to steer the image away from the "cheap" which he did to some extent and Ratan Tata shot down this idea multiple times. He changed the rhetoric from "cheap" to "affordable" which wasn't too far away IMO. The image was set and Tata did not countersteer as much as necessary. Sort of like the Titanic and the impending crash with an iceberg.

While TML was still busy in extending its existing portfolio in the small car segment another major initiative, the development of an ultra low cost car, was conceived in 2003. The initial push for the Nano project has been described as a spontaneous commitment by Ratan Tata at the Geneva Auto show in 2003 in which he mentioned the idea of a Rs 1 lakh car (100000 INR=$2500 at the time) to a journalist (see for a background on this and the following also the interview with RT: Economic Times 2008). The car should not primarily be targeted at the current small car market, but rather at the large and growing number of Indian two-wheeler users who would be interested to upgrade to a real but still affordable car. The cheapest car at the time of the conception of the project was the Maruti 800 with a base price of around $ 5,000.

Page 11 of Research paper at Berlin School of Economics and Law here

Interview with RT on ET here
Youtube interview with RT on NDTV in 2012

here

Originally Posted by GTO

I respect him on a personal level and what he did for the Tata Group overall, but he really & royally botched up Tata Motors.

I completely agree with this. He did mess up the passenger car conceptualisation and portfolio. With the Indica, he had time to correct it. If the V2 had not come out in the right time, it would've been the nail in the coffin for Tata's fortunes and Ratan Tata's end at Tata. With Nano, the coffin was set with his rhetoric on affordability and cheap car image. If anything, he should've moved away from it and probably the one area which was a point of no return.

I respect him immensely for what he at Tata and the entire Indian Automotive landscape. But respect, to me, means congratulating him for his success and criticising him for his failure. And this is where I come from when I say I respect him immensely.

Having said that, I would love to have a one on one with him to discuss life and philosophy. He seems to be quite grounded in that regard.

Also, WRT the Nano, I still feel it could be India's (And Tata's) answer to the Kei-Platform. It is a platform with tremendous potential. Just not exploited.

[wheelguy]

Originally Posted by RockingHorse

I believe Tata Motors have published their official statement about this, but we are still discussing this topic under an obsolete heading if I can call it so. I am a newbie but for other similar threads I found the thread closed once company had their official statement which would be a logical end of the thread. Anyways... Since this relates to Tata Motors, We are dissecting Ratan Tata's management career under this thread now.

Welcome RockingHorse to the forum. Yes this thread needs to be closed as the company released a statement regarding the same. Request moderators to close the thread if it is appropriate to do so.

[GTO]

Originally Posted by wheelguy

Welcome RockingHorse to the forum. Yes this thread needs to be closed as the company released a statement regarding the same. Request moderators to close the thread if it is appropriate to do so.

I would say that just because Tata released a statement, it doesn't mean it's not going to happen. I also read their statement again and it doesn't completely rule out a partner.

Thread stays open. No more off-topic discussions please. Thank you .

[turbo]

Originally Posted by GTO

I would say that just because Tata released a statement, it doesn't mean it's not going to happen. I also read their statement again and it doesn't completely rule out a partner.

Thread stays open. No more off-topic discussions please. Thank you .

Precisely.

On a simple reading of their statement, they have denied a stake/shareholding sale, not the possibility of a venture.

Nothing is stopping Tata from following what Toyota and Maruti are doing, that is buy cars from a chinese manufacturer, add on the Tata logo, and sell them.

[Fuldagap]

I found the statement about directionless Tata Motors under Ratan Tata, a bit cheeky. Do we mean that Nano project and working towards service and QC issues is mutually exclusive? I would beg to differ.

Totally agree here. If directionless means getting Pininfarina design Tata cars then I'm glad atleast someone in the Indian automotive scene is 'directionless'.
Having worked at BES of Tata CVBU Pune, though briefly, I can strongly opine that what RT tried doing to an indigenous auto giant is no less than commendable. I always desired to get into the PVBU somehow but couldn't.

However, are the cars Siera, Sumo, Safari, Indica and even the Estate not seen as desirable cars? What about the Hexa and Harrier? I find each to be a beautiful car in addition to the Tiago, Altroz and especially the Harrier. As they say Rome was not built in a day. The journey from Telco to Tata Motors is no less than exemplary. Who offered LSD in a 4X4 other than Xenon when it was launched? It has only been two decades approximately that Tatas have reached from making crude cars to fine cars like the Harrier. Behemoths like Mitsubishi, Nissan, Renault, Fiat among others have not been able to push sales due to various factors, not necessarily related to leadership issues. On the other hand we have Tata Motors transforming from making vintage 1210 to Prima series and even get them racing on the Buddha circuit! Sales are low for Tata but in terms of products they are doing more than fine. Owning brands like JLR is not only a matter of legacy or pride, they cater to the much needed boost to core competency too. The results of which are not often immediate. The transformation to making cars in PVBU Pune is in itself a great feat for as big a company as Tata.

Getting the vendors do a 'project' like the Nano is a thing that only specialists could understand better. It was an extra ordinary feat that made Tata a world famous name.

Historically, very fine cars have failed in the world. Failed in the sense that the sales numbers were low. That doesn't mean the brand or the company didn't learn from it. In fact, learning is far more important than the sales numbers for strong fundamentals and values of a giant like Tata.

Not only are they making cars in India they are making cars in many countries now. Tried a thing with Daewoo, tried with Fiat, now maybe with some Chinese manufacturer, that's what companies do to improve themselves. Some decisions work some don't. Even Mahindra tried/still does with Ssangyong, South Korean, who doesn't? Toyotas, Suzukis and other established brands have a legacy that predates Tatas by a margin, given time Tata would also make a solid mark in world auto history, IMHO.

Tatas even sponsored Narain Karthikeyan. What for? If it's not about legacy then what is it about? The best car brands in the world have had times that made them totally out of market, but that didn't stop them from making great cars and make a come back. They never stopped learning and improving.

As he famously says, "I don't take right decisions. I take decisions and make them right".

[volkman10]

Tata Motors in talks for tech & funding tie-up.

Shailesh Chandra, president, PV business unit of Tata Motors:

We have started some preliminary engagement, but it is too early and will take its time. What shape the collaboration will take is too early to say. We will finalise that when we get the right partner

Link

[Pardus]

Moderators: Please move the post to relevant threads if necessary as I couldn't find a suitable one.

Has TML PV decided to stop selling models like Hexa as this is no more listed on the TML PV website. The SUV brands list only Nexon and Harrier. Are they replacing it with the Gravitas?

Also the Xenon DLE 3.0L option is either not available or has been replaced with the Yodha range.

[Garth]

Hexa was discontinued with the start of BS6 regime. Gravitas is not the replacement for Hexa, it’s a new product.

Hexa Safari edition was showcased at the auto expo as a concept, so might make a comeback. Don’t know when.

[volkman10]

Actively scouting for a partner for passenger vehicle business: Tata Motors

The auto major is looking for collaboration even as the process to carve out passenger vehicle (PV) business as a separate standalone unit gathers steam.

The collaboration would also help in reducing product lifecycles and enhance new product launch intensity

There are no specific timelines..as far as subsidiarisation process is concerned, converting the business into a separate legal entity, we would like to accelerate in a year and as far as partner is concerned it is an active work which we will continue to work on.

Link