SharpOmelet

Summary: Book “the Story of TATA”

The TATAs are known for starting businesses on the principles of philanthropy( being a Parsi following Zoroastrian faith)

This book covers how Cyrus Mistry(having his forefathers organisation SP Group holding 19.2% shares in TATA) was apppointed as the Chairman and was the shortest Chairman to be in the board, being fired by TATA just after 4 years(Nov 2011 - Sept 2016). He was fired of having personal interests to route business from TATA’s to his forefathers company SP Group of which Mistry was a 50% shareholder - thus not visioning for company’s best interests but his.

Natarajan Chandrasekaran(CEO of TCS - TATA’s organisation within IT umbrella) was a probable candidate but was shrugged off by the board considering he looked after TCS - the highest revenue generating business in TATA’s cap.

Chandra(Natarajan Chandrasekaran) was now appointed as Chairman.

The TATA could not continue as a family empire because kids could not be born to leading faces of TATA, unfortunately. But being Parsis and following certain Parsi rules, kids were adopted from extended families. Ratan Tata is son-of-the-first-wife of Naval Tata(adopted by Navajbai Sett). Ratan Tata’s parents got divorced when he was 3YO, and he has been raised by his step grandmother thus.

JRD Tata was not a direct heir to TATA group either.

TATAs business line: 1822 - Trading Firm by Nusserwanji 1859 - Jamsetji graduated and masted commodities. Opened Cotton and Opium trade with China 1869 - Jamsetji along with father Nusserwanji bought and converted Oil Mill at Chinchpokli to Cotton Mill 1871 - sold this Cotton Mill 1874 - founded Empress Cotton Mills in Nagpur

Jamsetji set 4 long term corporate goals which included acts of PHILANTHROPY:

Iron and steel plant
hydroelectric power to india - 1915; completed by ratanji tata
world class institute of science - 1896 to 1909, Institute of Science and Technology, blr
World class hotel - taj palace, mumbai, 1903.

13mo ago

TallTales69

Unemployed13mo

Books like these are a rose tinted view of a business empire and wealth built on the foundation of smuggling and the narcotics trade. Usually referred to as "Commodities trading".

All Parsi wealth has come from illegal trade of Opium in the first half of the 19th century. Tatas, Godrej, Wadias, the whole lot.

It was all good till a Baghdadi Jew immigrant to India - David Sassoon - single handedly smashed the dominance of the 24 Parsi families in smuggling Opium around 1860.

Thats when the Parsis were forced into thinking of building more legitimate businesses. They had no choice - they were well and outplayed. The perfectly timed American Civil War helped them to get into the cotton / yarn trade to Britain in lieu of American cotton that was no longer available.

They never looked back and built a set of other businesses there on. Not to take away from the scale of businesses they've built there on, but an accurate historical perspective of Jamshetji the smuggler is necessary.

SharpOmelet

Stealth13mo

Your glass view is too pessimistic looking for bad in so many good things that you missed the whole point. The whole point is the family didn’t have succeeding sons yet kept improvising and raising the business.

About trading OPIUM - Not just opium, there were trading cotton, tea, silk goods, brass, copper, cinnamon, Chinese gold.

There were no rules on opium back then, it is allowed for cultivation in india even today.

The purpose of the book summary is not to paint a rose tainted view, but you kinda missed the whole point.

TallTales69

Unemployed13mo

@SharpOmelet

Not having sons / daughters and propagating business empires is how capitalism works at its best. Business models and constructs should stand the test of time and not be dependent on ones ability to procreate.

There is a reason all Tata stories always start in 1868. What comes before that is super murky.

You should understand how they were "trading". Opium was expressly prohibited by law by the Chinese from 1729, and yet the Parsis were "trading". It was legal in India, where it was being produced.

While we idolise the Tata Group for all they have achieved, one must temper that with an understanding of how they evolved.

jake_peralta_B99

Freelancer13mo

Thanks for sharing. Loved it. It always is real Privilege to hear about Tata. So much good name in this world they have garnered.

Everywhere I go I have heard people say, you can't survive a business by being good. It makes me feel good that Tata always tries to prove them wrong. The trust they have built with the people is gonna stay for a long time. I hope this gives hope to people and companies alike on what it means to stay in the hearts of people

AdamSmithh

EY13mo

Tatas are the greatest asset India has ever own even before independence and after gaining freedom as well. No company has introduced so many firsts for employees and CSR in India. I have always wished to work for Tata’s one day.

SharpOmelet

Stealth13mo

TATA revenue is 1 lakh 50 thousand crores. CSR takes 2% cut from organisations
Apart from this, TATAs started social cause programs themselves with CSR - going back to principles of philanthropy.

Also, if you read the whole Taj Bomb incidents incident - all the TATA employees evacuated the guests instead of everything going haywire and everyone running.
Post the incident, it was checked whether TATA orgs give a training to employees for an attack. No such training were given to employees.

But it was their instilled one-ness of help and responsibility among employees - going back to philanthropy again. Despite being a company not run by direct successors in family.

SharpOmelet

Stealth13mo

20 billion

ResearchAnalystD

Student13mo

Nirmalya Kumar - they guy who worked with Cyrus Mistry gave their perspective as well. In his namesake blog, he alleges a rather different version where he says how Cyrus Mistry tried to undo the bad actions (such as Corus Steel) but got backlash as this reflected badly on Mr. Tata.
Worth a read as well

SharpOmelet

Stealth13mo

Book also covered his side of the story. He got released ‘bad practices being followed at tata’ as an article in economic times the next day of getting fired. The details this had seemed like information accumulated in patience to be used at the right time. He bad mouthed tata everywhere. And mistry indeed didn’t have anything good planned for tata. He had breached the major condition - tata asked him to move out of his shareholding from his own forefather’s org SP group(which he holded 50%) - ratan tata reminded him of the same 2 times in a handwritten letter in 2013 and 2014 - SP group and TATA were competitors for the construction business. Imagine if a stakeholder has 50% of shareholding of CompanyA vs <10% shareholding of CompanyB where would he prefer to route the projects he gets basis the reputation and network?

They dragged TATA to courts and all lawsuites have been dropped by the judge as of 2021. If cyrus had known about the bad practices why didn’t he report it or tried improving those practices during this 4-year chairman tenure?