BEST ENTREPRENEUR - RATAN TATA

Entrepreneur is defined as an individual who, rather than working as an employee, runs a small business and assumes all the risk and reward of a given business venture, idea, or good or service offered for sale. The entrepreneur is commonly seen as a business leader and innovator of new ideas and business processes. (Investopedia, n.d.)

Entrepreneurs play a key role in any economy. These are the people who have the skills and initiative necessary to take good new ideas to market and make the right decisions to make the idea profitable. The reward for the risks taken is the potential economic profits the entrepreneur could earn.

Here i would like to discuss about best Indian entrepreneur, Ratan Naval Tata. Ratan Tata holds the Chairman of Tata Sons, the holding company of the Tata Group since 1991 until 2012. Ratan Naval Tata is also the Chairman of the major Tata companies such as Tata Steel, Tata Motors, Tata Power, Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Tea, Tata Chemicals, Indian Hotels and Tata Teleservices. He has taken Tata Group to new heights and under his leadership Group's revenues have grown manifold.

Ratan Tata was born on December 28, 1937, in Bombay. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in architecture from Cornell University in 1962.

Ratan Tata was honored with Padma Bhushan, one of the highest civilian awards in 2000. He was also conferred an honorary doctorate in business administration by Ohio State University, an honorary doctorate in technology by the Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, and an honorary doctorate in science by the University of Warwick.

Ratan Tata is a good role model as serial innovators.  Ratan Tata received a lifetime achievement award for innovation from The Rockefeller Foundation. Tata, chairman of the Tata Group, built his family's company into a massive, global business ranging from consultancy services to well-known automotive brands stretching across 80 countries. India’s Tata Group is perhaps the most successful of its mega.  It built the nation’s first steel mill, the first power plant, and the first airline. 

In 1991, Ratan Tata decided that for his company to thrive and survive in economy he had to make innovation priority- and build it into the DNA of the TATA group so that every employee thinks and acts like an innovator.

Today those 15 companies have produced such innovative products as the $2,000 Tata Nano car, and includes firms such as Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the Mumbai-based IT services and outsourcing power, which earned almost $6 billion in revenues in 2008. (Scanlon, 2009)

Followed by Nano car, Tata Group in 2009 announced the launch of probably the world's cheapest water purifier, as part of the conglomerate's efforts to stem growing water-related diseases. Called Swach, the purifier, developed jointly by Tata group companies Tata Chemicals, TCS and Titan, will have two variants with retail prices of Rs 749 and Rs 999 respectively. (Bureau, 2009)

Ratan Tata’s new invention “Tata Megapixel”, is going to launch in 2015 which will give huge mileage of 100kmpl. After the success of nano and nano special, Ratan Tata decided to produce the car of 100kmpl for the Indian people as petrol costs are increasing day by day. With the Tata Megapixel invention, the middle class and everyone can ride their own car with great comfort and mileage. Tata megapixel is expected to be launched in 2015. His continuous invention is believed to be able to change and improve the quality of middle and lower class lifestyle in India.

Ratan Tata is a risk taker in operating successful businesses. Ratan Tata started to take risk during year of 1971 when he got his first independent assignment, which is to be director of National Radio and Electronics (Nelco). When Ratan Tata takes this position, Nelco was in dire straits and Nelco was faced problem of losses 40% and barely 2% share of the consumer electronics market. Nelco was quickly near collapse again. Second assignment, Ratan Tata asks to solve the sick of Empress Mills. He tries to do but refused the Rs 5 million investments required to make the textile until competitive. During 1986, Empress Mills become floundered and was closed. Ratan Tata faced times of failure, but he still doesn’t give up. He tracks the record of experience in Nelco and Empress Mills, then to improve and no repeated mistakes. But, because of Nelco’s losses were being blamed on him when he join the Tata Sons meeting.

In 2004, Ratan Tata made an interesting statement that is “I am not averse to risk, but I am not a gamble.” From that we know that he is a risk taker. For Ratan Tata in the Indicia, he had a fear that may work out and before that never design a car. But now India going into a new world and done it. He is a more risk-taking than being aggressive. For he is a person that given to taking measures risks that being aggressive. For example, Ratan Tata has gone into West Bengal, a state where no one people want to adventured. But, he has done it by Rs 1-lakh car project in Singur despite criticism from various groups. He brings industry to a region that had been left behind. Reputation as a business leader and risk taker Ratan Tata eventually did.  He also protects the unique Tata Culture. From patriarchal concern to an institutional enterprise, he makes the evolution to be steady. He totally is a greater risk taker entrepreneur in business world.

Under Ratan Tata, the group had grown from around $10 billion in revenues in 1991 to about $83 billion by 2011, with iconic acquisitions like Tetley, Corus and Jaguar Land Rover under its belt. When Ratan Tata took charge of the Tata Group from the legendary JRD Tata in 1991, critics did not give him much of a chance. Tata had major challenges to contend with. The holdings of the Tatas in various group companies were rather low, the economy was liberalizing rapidly and new players from overseas were knocking on the doors. JRD was getting on in years and many key group companies were being run by chief executives who were heavyweights in their own right and were used to functioning almost independently. The task before Ratan Tata, to put it mildly, was daunting.

By own motivation and with the desire want to make the Tata group as a successful organization, Ratan Tata came in with a modern mind-set and had to confront a set of tough situations. Having tackled the initial challenges in the first 10 years (1991-2001), Tata spent the second phase (2001-2011) in doing what heads of institutions would be expected to do. He concentrated on nurturing the principles and purpose of the institution, its processes and its people. He put in place the Tata Business Excellence Model (TBEM) across the group, covering seven core aspects of business operations: leadership; strategic planning; customer focus; measurement, analysis and knowledge management; workforce focus; process management and outcomes of financial and non-financial parameters; and business results. He also got in senior people from other companies for an ‘outside-in’ perspective on the businesses.

From here, we can conclude that Ratan Tata have a high self-motivation to make the company successful and growth well and also become competitive among others in the automobile industry. He not only have high self-motivation, but also have clear objectives on where to go and what to achieve. In addition, Ratan Tata also considers the company’s future achievement and makes the vision clear and encourages the employees to be more self-motivated person by asking them to take a talk or training in self-motivation techniques. Furthermore, he also guide the employees to think broadly and positively and visualize themselves in successful projects or assignments.

Ratan Tata portrays all the characteristics of a successful entrepreneur, in fact, he is the legend in the business world, not only in India but in the eye of the world. He had successfully changed million lives by providing the world cheapest car and world cheapest water purifier, only one vision, to serve the communities better. It hasn’t been smooth sailing for Ratan Tata, he triumphed over all difficulties with humility, confidence, dignity, charisma and wisdom. Ratan Tata steps down on the 28^th December 2013, after 22 years of tenure, leaving Tata Group a great legacy.