Tata, a man of values and vision

VALUES INTACT: Ratan Tata says he has tried to instil his values and integrity in his Group.

      

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Rajdeep Sardesai:: Mr Ratan Tata, first of all many, many congratulations on becoming the CNN-IBN Businessman of the Year. You are becoming quite a star.

Ratan Tata:: Thank you. I think that’s a statement I would feel very awkward in even acknowledging, but I just want to say that I am deeply touched and deeply honoured to have been awarded this honour. It’s something that I will carry with humility because I believe all I have been doing in my small way is my own job. And I think I have a sense of great sensitivity to the fact that this is being recognised by you. So, thank you for giving me this recognition and for all the people who have made this happen.

Rajdeep Sardesai:: But Mr Tata you keep getting awards and recognitions. Just look at the newspapers, you are there in eight columns across. Has that changed Ratan Tata in any way, the adulations that's coming your way?

Ratan Tata:: I hope not, because I think these things happen almost seasonally and they are based on events. You get knocked for something you do, you get applauded for something else you do or don’t do. On the whole, I think the best way to view this is to just let it pass.

Rajdeep Sardesai:: But it’s interesting. The award has been given to you for 2006. And we are now meeting against the backdrop of all that’s happened in 2007. In fact, there was the Corus deal that has put you on another level. When we ask the jury the reasons for making you the Businessman of the Year, they mentioned two facts: One was integrity and the other was putting the company on a global scale. How important are these two concepts to you - integrity and the global scale?

Ratan Tata:: Integrity is very important to me. I have tried to continue the foundations of the Group in terms of operating with integrity and with a value system. And I would hope that will be followed after me and that this is one of the strengths that we have and differentiators that we have and we should, in fact, nurture it and cherish it and fight for it ferociously.

Rajdeep Sardesai:: Is that what Brand Tata stands for? When all across India and now increasingly across the world when the word Tata is mentioned is that the one attribute that you would like to associate with this brand?

Ratan Tata:: Certainly, it would be. At the same time, I would not want that to also be linked to ultra-conservativeness, lack of aggression in the market place and lack of vision. All of which I think in some ways we were branded with also in the past. I think we have to be a Group for today but operating with our eyes on tomorrow, but operating with a sense of integrity and values.

Rajdeep Sardesai:: Is that what this globalisation is about? Is that what acquiring new companies overseas? You used two words - aggression and vision, was the acquisition of Corus, for example, at one level about aggression? You have got to stretch new boundaries: is that what being a global leader you believe is about today?

Ratan Tata:: Part of it. Corus was big, because it had a strategic value to us in Europe. It had scale and, more importantly, it had a human chemistry in its management, which was compatible.

Rajdeep Sardesai:: But, therefore, when there is criticism, as there was to some extent even in the Corus deal: you overbid, you spent more than you should have; how would you react? I have often found that a number of your ventures have faced criticism. Even the Tata Indica, when you first started it, there was a lot of criticism. How do you take the criticism: that you perhaps overbid for Corus?

Ratan Tata:: See, I don’t consider that I have overbid for Corus. We have paid more than what we had initially wanted to pay; that we offered in October. And that would have been the price at which we took Corus. Then we had a competitor who came in and between him and the hedge funds, the price of Corus went up. It never reached a level where we would have thought it would be a jeopardy to our shareholders to take it. And if we had reached such limit, we would not have taken.

Rajdeep Sardesai:: It would have never been about an ego that "I have to win this"?

Ratan Tata:: No, absolutely not. Just the fact that we went into the auction meant that it was not a question of ego, because it could have easily been a situation where we would have lost and we would have walked away.

Rajdeep Sardesai:: I am asking this because in 2004 you made an interesting statement that I read: “I am not averse to risk, but I am not a gambler.”