Once humiliated for entering passenger car segment, how Ratan Tata turned Tata Motors into a global auto giant
They say that success is the best revenge, and Ratan Tata proved it by making Tata Motors one of the world's largest automotive companies. Today, Tata Motors is present in about 175 countries with research and development centres in the UK, Italy, India, and South Korea. Other than the Tata brand, Tata Motors also owns British luxury carmakers Jaguar and Land Rover, and Daewoo.??
Journey of Tata Motors
But it was not an easy journey for Tata Motors into the passenger car segment, and it had almost ended even before it started. Tata Motors, which was founded in 1945 as a locomotive manufacturer, later ventured into making trucks.?In 1991, Tata Motors also entered the passenger vehicle segment with the launch of its first SUV, the Tata Sierra.?
How Tata Motors almost sold its cars division
Seven years later, in 1998, Tata Motors launched its first passenger car, the Tata Indica. But Tata Motors could not continue their commercial vehicle and SUV success with their first car, and less than a year later, in 1999, was ready to sell off the division.??
Tata humiliated by Ford?
In 1999, Ratan Tata travelled to the US to meet Bill Ford, the then-chairman of Ford Motors, to sell Tata Motors' car division. But the meeting did not go down well, and Ford executives humiliated Tata and wondered why the Indian automaker was in the passenger car segment in the first place. They even implied that Ford was doing Tata a favour by buying its cars division.??
How Ratan Tata turned Tata motors around
This led to Ratan Tata calling off the proposal to sell its cars division to Ford, and upon his return to India, the Tata Group Chairman was determined to turn around its fortunes.??
When Ratan Tata did Ford a favour
And he did exactly that, as Tata Motors slowly but steadily made progress in making better cars. And as for Ford, Ratan Tata got his chance to get even with the US auto giant in 2008. Ford, which was struggling financially, was granted a $2.3 billion lifeline by Tata Motors, which acquired Jaguar Land Rover from it.
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