As he said – “ I don’t believe in taking the right decisions. I take decisions and then make them right,” Mr. Ratan Naval Tata is an Industrialist and philanthropist. He is the former chairman of Tata Sons.
Early Life
Born on 28 December, 1937, Mr.Tata was born in Mumbai in a Parsi Family. His father’s name was Naval Tata and mother’s name was Sonu Tata. He did his schooling from Cathedral and John Connon School, Mumbai and Bishop Cotton School, Shimla. He was just 10 years old when his parents separated. Thereafter, he was brought up by his grandmother. He aimed to become an architect and therefore, took admission in Cornell University, USA.
He has always been a very shy person and never believed in the show off and fame in this world. He always wanted to achieve success in his life by doing hard work on his own and not by using his surname. Therefore, until he completed his education in America, he used to do the dishes in restaurants and many other small chores to earn money for his living. Finally, in 1959, he got the Bachelors in Architecture degree. In 1975, he went to Harvard University to get a Management degree.
Business Career and Failures
He started his career in 1961 in Tata Steels by working at the shop floor. He kept working in various companies of Tata Group till 1970. In this he was promoted to the management level. He was handed over the loss making Tata Nelco Company which was a Television manufacturing Company. Ratan Tata worked heart and soul on this company and within 3 years he increased the sales from 2% to 20% in the market.
But in 1975, Emergency was imposed in India due to internal disturbances. This led to a lot of economic loss and ultimately, Nelco had to be closed. This was the very 1st failure of Ratan Tata. But he definitely did not sit back and came up with full force to work on his next project.
In 1977, Ratan Tata was handed over the Tata Express Mill Company which was just on the verge of shutting down. To set that company working again, he proposed the Tata Group to invest 50 lakhs in it, but the management denied and therefore, Tata Express Mill also got shut down. This was the second biggest failure in Ratan Tata’s life.
In 1981, Ratan Tata was made the Director of Tata Group and in 1991, he was designated as the Chairman of Tata Group. Thereafter, Tata Group kept on achieving great heights. In 1998, Mr. Tata launches the Tata Indica Car which was fully manufactured in India. But, this car was not welcomed by the market well and the sales kept dropping. It turned into Ratan Tata’s 3rd failure. After this failure, he was adviced by his close ones to sell off this car company. He went with a proposal to Ford Motors where he was insulted by Mr. Bill Ford. Ratan Tata left the deal at that moment and came back with the fire in his heart.
Attaining great heights
After this, he invested all his amount in Tata Motors and relaunched the better version of Tata Motors which drove in a lot of profit to the company. On the other hand, Ford Motors was facing heavy losses and went with a proposal to Mr. Tata to purchase the Jaguar and Land Rover from them. Ratan Tata accepted the proposal and purchased it from them due to which Mr. Bill Ford was very thankful to Mr. Ratan Tata.
He kept on taking over a lot of foreign companies like Tetley,Corus Group and Daewoo company.
In 2008, he came up with Tata Nano car which costed just rupees 1 lakh and therefore it received a lot of good response initially. He also invested into various online platforms like Xiaomi, Firstcry, Ola cabs, etc.
During his regime, Tata Group kept achieving great heights and earned huge profit. He is a great philanthropist. Every year Tata Group donates 66 % of its profits for the welfare of society.
Awards
In 2000, he was honored with the Padma Bhushan and then in 2008, he received the Padma Vibhushan Award for his exemplary work all through his life.
Vision
His vision has always been to serve society by making his company internationally admired one. He tried fulfilling his vision of serving the society by launching Tata Nano Car. Even though it did not turn out the way he wanted it to happen, Mr. Tata still never lost hope and kept moving forward.
Long story short, Mr. Ratan Tata is a blessing of God on this Earth. He has proved this by many acts. He is an inspiration to each and every human being to never stop or get disappointed from failures. He is a representation of a true gentleman who has been acing all the spheres of his life and will be doing that further too.
