Tata Group's Revenue Leap: From $4 Billion to $100 Billion Under Ratan Tata
The Tata Group had already crossed $4 billion in annual revenues when Ratan Tata joined in 1991. By the last year of tenure, or 2012 when he retired, this figure crossed the $100 billion mark and also made Tata Group the first Indian conglomerate to cross the target.
As of March 1991, Ratan Tata was vice chairman of Tata Industries. He had joined Tata Industries as an assistant in 1962 and progressed to become chairman as of March 1991. The group at that time was a cluster of semi-autonomous divisions under JRD Tata's decentralised leadership. Tata centralised management at Bombay House, the headquarters of the group, and took the company through India's economic liberalisation in the early 1990s.
Under his leadership, Tata restructured the group by selling off underperforming sectors such as cement, textiles, and pharmaceuticals. He strengthened these groups with software and steel and ventured into new ones like telecom, passenger cars, insurance, finance, retail, and aviation.
In addition to home-grown initiatives, the company started making crucial overseas collaborations with companies like Cummins, AIA, and Starbucks. Another important milestone of this period was through large acquisitions like Jaguar Land Rover, Tetley, and Corus. By the time Tata left the reins of the group, over 60 percent of the revenues of the group were being generated in more than 100 countries across the globe.
He changed the group's corporate governance by making the holding company, Tata Sons, take major stakes in the main units. Thus hostile takeover was well excluded. He gave three-dimensional, blue-colored logo to the brand that made the value of the brand increase from $300 million in 1998 to $11 billion in 2012.
