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Ratan Tata's words of inspiration
August 26, 2008
On CEOs: When I came on to the scene, I was very young in comparison to other CEOs in the group, a number of whom were in their 70s and a couple even in their 80s. I saw ageing CEOs who didn't leave their offices, seldom interacted with people, never visited the plants and certainly didn't visit the market place. I felt that it was a very great weakness that we had. So, despite some turbulence, we reintroduced our retirement age and put that into force.
On competition: Foreign investment adds a sense of competition; we should see this as a wake-up call to modernise and upgrade. Companies that don't will undoubtedly die.
On competition: This fear of competition is something that one needs to break, because it is the single largest element that stands between the true potential of what India can give to the world and where it is today.
It's a mistaken feeling that competition will kill Indian industry. In fact it will make Indian industry much more successful and much more innovative in terms of how it deals with its problems.
On competition: It's only when you are in a competitive field that you realise competition is the greatest and most exhilarating force you can face as you move forward. If you succeed, there is nothing that pleases you more when you go home at night than to know that you have succeeded against your competitor in a fair and just manner, rather than through devious and underhand means.
On protectionism: We need to move away from the era of protectionism to an era of competitiveness -- and by that I mean global competitiveness, not just competitiveness within the country.
On responsibility: Industry needs to be concerned with stopping the flow of citizens to the urban areas and creating livelihoods in the rural areas for them. They need to understand that they have a responsibility that goes beyond just making their products and producing a good bottom line. They have a responsibility that covers the 60-odd per cent of the population that is not industrialised and that is in the rural community.
On corporate duty: In a country like India, in which the government perhaps has done less in the area of creating infrastructure and is now in the process of catching up, I think industry has to take a key role in moving in this direction as we progress.
Image: Ratan Tata with the deputy chairman of Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia. | Photograph: Manpreet Romana/AFP/Getty Images
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