|
|
 Email |  Discuss | Get latest news on your desktop
Ratan Tata's words of inspiration
August 26, 2008
On retirement: I do not want to go out on a wheelchair. You achieved something, it is successful, it's a nice time to leave because you may not have the luxury of being able to do that (later). And you don't want ever to have a situation when somebody sort of whispers, when is he going to leave?. . . You don't want to fade away by hanging in there too long. You would love to go on the back of something that is exciting or a great achievement.
On icons:The kind of company one would want to emulate is one where products and technology are at the leading edge, dealings with customers are very fair, services are of a high order, and business ethics are transparent and straightforward. A less tangible issue involves the work environment, which should not be one where you are stressed and driven to the point of being drugged.
On introspection:All companies need to keep looking at their business definition and, possibly from time to time, to see if that definition needs to be redefined. If you take the example of Tata Steel, they could say that they are a steel company and find themselves in a shrinking market where steel is under threat of being replaced by some other material. The question is: what do we call ourselves? One view was that steel is a material, so can we be a materials company? We don't have to be in all materials, but can we be in composites, can we be in plastics, laminates, etc? The automotive business needs to think similarly, and so does the chemicals business. We have to keep looking at ourselves and asking: what is our business?
On customer retention:Very often it is said about several companies that they take a lot of pains to make a sale. However, once they get the order, customers cannot even get anyone to answer their calls. I would like the customer to say that the next product he buys will also be a Tata product because of everything that he experienced. That is really what customer retention is about.
Image: In this file picture taken on October 20, 2006, B Muthuraman, (left) managing director of Tata Steel; Ratan N Tata, (2nd from left) chairman of Tata Sons; James Leng, (2nd from right) chairman of Corus; and Philippe Varin, (right) chief executive of Corus. | Photograph: Vismedia/AFP/Getty Images
Also read: Space travel? Hop on to this airship!
|
|
|
Advertisement
