How Karma works – Inspiration from RATAN TATA

Ratan Tata is a big inspiration for me to think about Entrepreneurship. In near future I will start a small scale business and his success will be a reason for it.

Ratan Tata, who was the chairman of the Indian conglomerate Tata Group in 1999, faced ‘humiliation’ when he with his team went to sell the group’s fledgling car business to Ford in 1999.

Tata group launched its passenger car Tata Indica in year 1998. The group was led by Ratan tata and it was his decision to enter in the passenger car business. Tata Indica was a failure in its first year and the experiment seemed to be failing. It was advised that he should sell his passenger car business. To cover the the loss, he with his team went to sell the group’s fledgling car business to Ford in 1999. In the meeting, chairman of Ford (Bill Ford) said to Ratan tata, “why did you enter in the passenger car business when you were not knowing of it. It will be favor if we buy this business from you”.

Ratan tata felt humiliated and returned back home without selling his business. Again, when Tata talked of launching a people’s car, his critics pooh-poohed the idea even more loudly. And again, Tata has proved them wrong. Tata Motors’ first foray into passenger cars, the small car was developed at a cost of Rs 1,700 crore. Today, the Indica has 14.9 per cent share of the car market and is second only to leader Maruti Suzuki.

Ideas come when you see a problem. Find problems to solve and then put time, energy and efforts to create ventures out of these thoughts or ideas. When someone is insulted, anger is the only outcome. However, great people can use this anger to plan business policies and goals.

In 2008, when Ford was on its way of bankruptcy, Tata Group offered Ford to buy their luxury car brand Jaguar-Land Rover. Bill Ford, along with his team, reached the headquarter of Tata Group in Mumbai. The deal was finalized for $ 2.3 billion, which amounted to 9300 crore Indian Rupees at that time. In the meeting, Bill Ford said to Ratan Tata, “You are doing a big favor for us by buying Jaguar- Land Rover”.

That’s how Karma works.!!

At that time JLR’s retro designs was getting outdated, and competing with new efficient diesel engines was just making the British carmaker redundant. But Tata motors focused on improving liquidity and cost control to get Jaguar on track.

Why he is an inspiration of vision?

When Ratan Tata joined the group, it was barely doing any business outside India. Even though many opposed him, he maintained that the company had to go global. Today half of Tata’s revenues come from overseas. Under his leadership Tata acquired brands like Tetley, Jaguar Land Rover, and Taj Boston.

One of my favorite quote from Ratan Tata………….

‘Take the stones people throw at you and use them to build a monument.’

I recommend reading his biography to get tips on how to be better entrepreneurs.!!!