Ratan Tata Retires Today
HE ran India's largest private sector conglomerate for 21 years. In 1991, when he took over the leadership of TATAs, India's economy was changing dramatically. TATAs account for 7% of India's stock market; they pay 3% of India's corporate tax and 5% of the Nation's excise duty. If you stay in a house, make a phone call, drive a car, add salt to your food, have a watch, take insurance, buy an air-conditioner, watch TV, do research or stay in a hotel - most likely you will be associated with a TATA company. Strangely,TATAs that gave India its first airlines is not in the airlines business now - maybe afraid of the quality they would maintain or because they could not extract any bribes from TATAs, they have been kept out of the airline industry.
Ratan Tata guided this 144 year old Indian business giant for a little over two decades. Ratan Tata hands over the most respected group in India to Cyrus Mistry, who is from outside the Tata family.
The Economist said, "Mr Tata's career carries two powerful lessons for an introverted and corruption-obsessed India. First, that India has far more to gain than lose from the outside world. And second, that a company can be a force for progress.
Mr Tata may come to be seen as both the last of one breed of feudal corporate leaders-and the first of another more open bunch. Anybody who cares about India's future, especially its billion consumers, should hope that the transition picks up speed again".