Our thinking

A heartfelt goodbye to Mr. Tata

18 October, 2024

It’s not often we come across visionary leaders who not only transform business but also could be said to have shaped the future of a nation. But Ratan Tata, the Indian industrialist and philanthropist is a contender. His recent death has inspired us to write our first Friday Five obituary.

As the chairman of Tata Group, the “salt-to-software” conglomerate, Tata oversaw more than 100 companies, employing over 660,000 people with annual revenues exceeding £75 billion.

Tata was known for leading with principles and prioritising the well-being of employees and communities. One example is the acquisition of Corus Steel, during which he focused on maintaining jobs and preserving Corus’s legacy rather than cutting costs aggressively, as is common practice in takeovers. Although the deal faced difficulties due to fluctuating steel prices, it remains a landmark decision that demonstrates Tata’s bold leadership.

Of course there were missteps along the way, on both business strategy and practices. But Tata displayed a reflective response to them, exemplified by his response to a strike that crippled operations at a factory in Pune in 1989: “Perhaps we took our workers for granted. We assumed that we were doing all that we could do for them, when probably we were not.”

And the thread which runs through his career is a philosophy which runs close to our own heart at Good Business, Tata believed that profit was important, not as an end in itself, but as a way to sustain positive change. As Peter Casey, author of The Story of Tata, aptly puts it, the company “yokes capitalism to philanthropy, by doing business in ways that make the lives of others better.”

By Sirisha Venkatesh