Commentary: Ratan Tata’s vision should still be India’s

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WHAT INDIA COULD Be

However, India trusted his decision, even in matters of politics: When Tata Motors picked Modi-run Gujarat as the place for a new automobile manufacturer in 2008, it was seen as a sign that the private sector trusted then-controversial Modi above all other main officials. The region followed Tata’s prospect a few years later.

Why not also up his business instincts? India’s interests may be world, not regional. Its businesses may concentrate on the home business rather than just producing goods there.

Whatever his failings, Ratan Tata often benchmarked himself and his team’s goods against the nation’s best. The rest of India does, also.

I was born and raised in Jamshedpur, the charming village that the Tatas built around their enormous metal plant. Ratan Tata was now a larger-than-life find then. Jamshedpur, with its world-class services, its neatness and its efficiency, seemed a portent of what India may be.

The country may not have lived up to that promise yet, but, like Ratan Tata, it should n’t stop believing.

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Robotaxis on the roads: China’s Baidu eyes overseas rollout as autonomous driving race heats up

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As it looks to break into the growing autonomous driving market, Chinese tech giant Baidu is rumored to be planning to launch its robotaxi services outside of China. This is a trend that other Chinese players and European companies are working toward.

According to reports from Nikkei Asia and the Wall Street Journal that cited people with knowledge of the situation, the Beijing-based organization hopes to check and use its Apollo Go robotaxis in locations like Hong Kong, Singapore, and the Middle East.

According to the studies, Baidu has been in conversations with businesses and authorities there.

Apollo Get intends to launch a new edition of its autonomous-driving system, Apollo 10.0, &nbsp, that’s “designed for a world audience”, the Wall Street Journal quoted a delegate as saying.

Robotaxi solutions are already being offered by Baidu in a number of Chinese cities. It provided nearer to 900, 000 trips in the second quarter of the year, up 26 per cent year-on-year, according to its latest earnings call. As of late July, more than 7 million robot axi excursions were being run overall.

Another Chinese operators are also looking to take a bite out of the autonomous driving pizza.

Pony. ai and Singapore-based travel operator Comfort DelGro signed a deal in July to observe large-scale business robotaxi activities.

“( The collaboration ) will extend the benefits of autonomous driving to a wider audience and to more regions, creating value to more people and societies”, said Pony. ai co-founder and CEO James Peng.

Pony. ai has also initiated intelligent driving alliances in South Korea, Luxembourg, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. &nbsp,

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Employers should reward employees with ‘fair and sustainable’ wage increases: National Wages Council

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SINGAPORE: Employers should reward employees with fair and sustainable wage increases, said the National Wages Council ( NWC ) on Thursday ( Oct 10 ). &nbsp,

This account is taken into account, it added, along with the long-term supported productivity growth, the improved economic outlook, and the anticipated moderate inflation in 2024. &nbsp,

In its salary instructions for December 2024 to November 2025, the committee recommended that employers who have performed well give their employees changing pay increases and pay increases. &nbsp,

Those who have not done properly may practice pay caution, with management leading by example, it added. &nbsp,

When asked why NWC did not call for a one-off payment like it did in 2023, president of the National Trade Union Congress (NTUC), K Thanaletchimi&nbsp, noted that” there is an purpose” in the rules for companies who have done well to provide a changing component, which includes prizes or other types of one-off bills. &nbsp,

When businesses do nicely, they are expected to encourage their employees for their performance, NWC’s president Peter Seah added. &nbsp,

In change, this also helps companies to maintain staff, he said. &nbsp,

INCREASES FOR LOWER-WAGE WORKERS&nbsp,

The NWC also recommended a 5.5 per cent to 7.5 per cent increase in gross monthly wages for lower-wage workers, or a pay bump of at least S$ 100 ( US$ 76.42 ) to S$ 120, whichever is higher.

Employers who have performed well and have favorable business prospects if offer raises in the upper middle of the range, while those who have performed well but have questionable prospects should increase salaries.

Pay increases may be made at the lowest end of the range for businesses that have performed poorly. ” If company prospects subsequently increase, employers may consider more income increases”, said NWC. &nbsp,

Lower-wage workers are those who make up to S$ 2, 500 in total monthly wages. That is roughly the income level of full-time residents at the 20th percentile.

According to the council, employers should fully implement the accommodating wage system, which includes an annual and quarterly adjustable component. &nbsp,

Employers can make quick changes during downturns to keep work and during upturns to keep skill, according to the flexible income system, which it added. &nbsp,

The Ministry of Manpower ( MOM) stated in a separate press release on Thursday that the government accepts NWC’s guidelines for the upcoming year.

The government and its bilateral partners are pressing employers to offer good and sustainable wage increases or variable payments, according to MOM. &nbsp,

The government observed various trends- outward-oriented sectors such as information and communications, as well as developing show powerful productivity growth, said&nbsp, continuous secretary Ng Chee Khern. &nbsp,

He said that internally focused industries like food and beverage services and administrative and support solutions are “lagging” and that these industries may continue to advance in their transition. &nbsp,

According to Mr. Ng, the majority of companies that followed the standard guidelines last year gave good pay increases and provided annual variable compensation. &nbsp,

Among those who did also but had questionable business leads, 73.8 per cent provided annual varying payment last year, he added.

The Singapore National Employers Federation ( SNEF ) strongly endorses NWC’s guidelines, said its president Tan Hee Teck.

” Income growth may be accompanied by efficiency increases. It is crucial that salary adjustments take into account these variations because we have disparities in productivity across all sectors,” he continued. &nbsp,

” If not aligned, wage growth can lead to rising costs that can cripple businesses and jeopardise jobs” .&nbsp,

Because of key cpi being “certainly on the higher side,” said Ms. Thanaletchimi, workers are having more issues with the higher cost of living. &nbsp,

We” sincerely hope that the NWC suggestions take into account the situation of the workers and make sure that the employers are more generous with their raises or bonuses,” she continued. &nbsp,

NTUC is likewise heartened by the addition of large middle-income employees in the NWC instructions, said Ms Thanaletchmi. &nbsp,

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Starbucks, Tetley, Jaguar Land Rover: Remembering Ratan Tata’s global ambitions

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Getty Images Ratan Tata, chairman emeritus of Tata Sons, speaks during a session advising Singapore startups in Singapore, on Tuesday, March 29, 2016. Tata stepped down as the chairman of the $100 billion Tata Group in 2012.Getty Images

Ratan Tata, the billionaire and former chairman of Tata Group, who passed away at the age of 86, played a significant role in the modernization and globalization of one of India’s oldest company buildings.

His ability to take strong, daring business risks served as the foundation of the salt-to-steel conglomerate, which his forefathers founded 155 years previously, despite India’s liberalization of its economy in the 1990s.

At the turn of the millennium, Tata executed the biggest cross-border merger in American business record- getting Tetley Tea, the country’s second largest maker of teabags. The little Tata party firm that had purchased the classic British brand was three times the size of it.

His party swallowed up big American business giants like the shipbuilder Corus and the luxury car manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover as his ambitions grew just bigger in the years that followed.

Although the acquisitions were n’t always successful, Corus was purchased just before the 2007 global financial crisis, which hampered Tata Steel’s performance for years.

They also had a great symbolic impact, says Mircea Raianu, writer and creator of Tata: The Global Corporation That Built Indian Capitalism. He goes on to say that they “represented the kingdom striking up” when a company from a former colony seized the motherland’s prized possessions, reversing the sneering approach American businessmen had toward the Tata Group a decade before.

Getty Images The blast furnaces, that are scheduled to be closed, at the Port Talbot Steelworks, operated by Tata Steel Ltd., beyond the River Afan in Port Talbot, UK, on Tuesday, June 25, 2024. Getty Images

International interests

The Tata Group’s view had been “outward-oriented” from the very end, according to Andrea Goldstein, an analyst who published a study in 2008 on the internationalisation of American companies, with a special emphasis on Tata.

As early as in the 1950s, Tata companies operated with foreign partners.

But Ratan Tata was keen to “internationalise in giant strides, not in token, incremental steps”, Ms Goldstein pointed out.

According to Mr. Raianu, his unconventional education in architecture and a ringside view of his family group companies may have contributed to how he considered expanding. But it was the” structural transformation of the group” he steered, that allowed him to execute his vision for a global footprint.

Tata had to fight an extraordinary corporate feud when he assumed the position of chairman of Tata Sons in 1991, which happened to coincide with India’s decision to open up its economy.

By opening the door to a number of” satraps” ( a Persian term for an imperial governor ) at Tata Steel, Tata Motors, and the Taj Group of Hotels, which operated with little corporate oversight from the holding company, he began centralizing increasingly decentralized, domestic-focused operations.

By doing this, he prevented the Tata Group, which had been shielded from foreign competition, from fading into irrelevance as India opened up, as well as enabling him to surround himself with people who could assist him in carrying out his global vision.

He appointed foreigners, non-resident Indians, and executives with connections and networks throughout the management team at both Tata Sons, the holding company, and individual groups within it.

He established the Group Corporate Center ( GCC ) to provide group companies with strategic direction. It provided” M&amp, A]mergers and acquisitions ] advisory support, helped the group companies to mobilise capital and assessed whether the target company would fit into the Tata’s values”, researchers at the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore wrote in a 2016 paper.

The GCC also provided funding for Tata Motors ‘ well-known acquisitions, including Jaguar Land Rover, which had a significant impact on how the world saw a business that was essentially a tractor manufacturer.

The JLR takeover was widely regarded as “revengeance” on Ford, which mocked Tata Motors in the early 1990s and then received a beating on the deal by Tata Motors. Together, these acquisitions suggested that Indian corporations were “arrived” on the global stage as economic growth rates increased and liberalization reforms were taking off, according to Mr. Raianu.

The$ 12 billion group currently has operations in 100 different nations, with non-Indians making a sizable portion of its total revenues.

Getty Images Tata Sons Chairman - Ratan Tata poses alongside the Tata Nano at its launch in Mumbai on Monday.Getty Images

The misses

While the Tata Group made significant strides overseas in the early 2000s, domestically the failure of the Tata Nano – launched and marketed as the world’s cheapest car – was a setback for Tata.

This was his most ambitious project, but he had clearly misread India’s consumer market this time.

Brand experts claim that an aspirational India did n’t want to associate with the affordable car tag. And Tata himself eventually admitted that the “poor man’s car” tag was a” stigma” that needed to be undone.

He thought that his company might be able to revive its product, but the Tata Nano was eventually discontinued after sales dropped year over year.

The Tata Group’s succession became a contentious topic as well.

Mr Tata remained far too involved in running the conglomerate after his retirement in 2012, through the “backdoor” of the Tata Trust which owns two-thirds of the stock holding of Tata Sons, the holding company, say experts.

Ratan Tata’s involvement in the succession dispute with [Cyrus ] Mistry undoubtedly tarnished the reputation of the group, according to Mr. Rainu, without blaming him for it.

Following a boardroom coup that sparked a long-running legal battle that the Tatas eventually won, Mistry, who died in a car crash in 2022, was ousted as chairman of Tata in 2016.

Getty Images Ratan Tata, Chairman Tata Group, at Jaguar Pavilion during 11th Auto Expo held at Pragati Maidan on January 5, 2012 in New Delhi, India. Tata Motors-owned Jaguar showcased two new models, C-X16 and C-X75 here at Auto Expo 2012.Getty Images

A lasting legacy

Tata left his vast empire in a much stronger position both domestically and internationally in spite of the numerous missteps he took in 2012, leaving it much more financially stable.

Along with making significant acquisitions, his effort to modernize the company with a sharp focus on IT has been successful over the years.

When many of his big bets went sour, one high-performing firm, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), along with JLR carried the “dead weight of other ailing companies”, Mr Raianu says.

TCS is today India’s largest IT services company and the cash cow of the Tata Group, contributing to three-quarters of its revenue.

Around 69 years after the government took control of the airline, the Tata Group also brought back India’s flagship carrier Air India in 2022. Given how expensive it is to operate an airline, Ratan Tata, a trained pilot himself, was a dream come true.

However, the Tatas appear to be more in a position to place significant bets on everything from semiconductor manufacturing to airlines.

Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it appears that India has clearly adopted a “national champions” policy, which requires a few large conglomerates to be built up and promoted in order to achieve rapid economic growth that spans priority sectors.

The odds are clearly stacked in favor of the Tata Group from this, along with younger industrial groups like Adani.

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EV tariffs end an era of EU-China engagement – Asia Times

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The European Commission ’s plan to impose countervailing duties on electric vehicles ( EVs ) from China barely survived a Council of the European Union vote on October 4.

Five EU states voted against the tasks, including Germany, which had abstained in a past voting. Spain was even expected to vote against the taxes after Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called for revision during a visit to Shanghai in September. But Spain eventually abstained, perhaps because Sanchez realized there was insufficient support to prevent the taxes.

China had pressurized important places to ballot against the taxes while initiating anti-subsidy and anti-dumping investigations into rum, meat and dairy. China has also threatened to curtail its foreign direct investment ( FDI) in EV manufacturing in the EU.

China ’s reaction to the EU tasks is more violent than its reaction to the United States and Canada’s 100 % taxes on Chinese Vehicles– though China has started an anti-dumping research into American rape.

China ’s reaction to the EU determine deserves attention. It’s clear that China has more leverage over the EU than other parts of the world, which contrasts with the EU’s large market size for Chinese EVs ( 55 % of Chinese EV exports go to the EU).

China ’s utilize arises from two major European shortcomings. Second, the EU is unable to communicate with one voice, yet on trade, its most consolidated competence after economic policy. Next, the EU depends on China much more than the US or Canada.

The EU’s main dependency comes from imports, especially important components for online and power transitions. In contrast, some big Western businesses depend on China ’s business.

The situation has not improved despite the EU plan to “de-risk ” from China – meaning to manage the risks related to economic and technological dependence. On the contrary, International dependence on China continues to rise, while the opposite is true for the US.

EU dependence on China also arises from years of European investment ( mostly German ) in China ’s auto industry. European manufacturers then export Vehicles from China into Europe, exposing them to the EU’s competing jobs.

While it seems reasonable that any company– including those from Europe– that receive international subsidies to provide the International market may be penalized to avoid harsh competition, the German government voted on October 4 to protect these automakers over the second market.

The fact that the largest EU land is ready to create such a move may sound the alarm about how much some major European companies operating in China are influencing EU business plan.

This also makes EU de-risking from China all the more urgent if the EU wants to preserve its independence over economic policy-making.

De-risking and economic security will, no doubt, come at a cost, but so will inaction. To reduce the cost, the EU must move from relying on defensive measures, such as the countervailing duties on EVs, to aggressive action to increase competitiveness.

The cost of producing an EV in China is still lower than elsewhere, even if subsidies are not factored in because of China ’s impressive technological upgrade and massive economies of scale.

Most analysts focus on the former as the main barrier for the EU in competing with China on green tech, but this might not be the case. In fact, part of the technology embedded in much of Chinese green tech originated in the EU or the US but received no government support while still unprofitable.

The US is clearly trying to change this situation with a massive industrial policy push, including through the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act. Whether these policies will succeed is still unclear.

The EU, by contrast, is still scrambling to build a credible industrial policy plan that will make its innovation commercially viable. This is particularly important for the EU because, compared to the US, it lacks the capital markets needed to scale up innovation.

China ’s huge economies of scale will be much harder to emulate in Europe unless a true single market is developed. Beyond strengthening the single market, the EU also needs to be much faster at building – and rebuilding – partnerships with other major economies, notably in the Global South.

Partnerships are needed beyond markets and sourcing. They will also help reduce the cost of potential retaliation from China against defensive actions such as the new duties on EVs. The main tool for this is coordination of economic security measures, mainly with the G7 and other like-minded economies.

Overall, the European Commission ’s duties on Chinese EVs signal that the era when China-EU relations were mainly governed by engagement is over. China and the EU now compete on the same types of products in third markets and it is more important than ever that the rules of the game are fair.

Alicia Garcia-Herrero is chief economist for Asia Pacific at Natixis and senior research fellow at Bruegel.

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Ratan Tata: The ‘modest’ Indian tycoon who died at 86

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Getty Images Ratan TataGetty Images

Ratan Tata, who has died aged 86, was one of India’s most globally recognised organization leaders.

The famous billionaire led the Tata Group- popularly known as a” salt-to-software” company of more than 100 firms, employing some 660,000 individuals- for more than two years. Its annual revenues are in excess of$ 100bn ( £76. 5bn ).

Founded by Jamsetji Tata, a forerunner of American firm, the 155-year-old Tata Group traverses a company empire ranging from Jaguar Land Rover and Tata Steel to aerospace and salt plates.

The attitude of the business “yokes socialism to philanthropy, by doing business in ways that make the lives of others better”, according to Peter Casey, author of The Story of Tata, an approved text on the team.

Tata Sons, the holding organization of the group, has a “number of businesses that includes discreetly held and publicly traded companies, yet they are in fact all owned by a humanitarian believe”, he explains.

Ratan Tata was born in 1937 in a standard home of Parsis- a very educated and successful community that traces its heritage to Zoroastrian refugees in India. His relatives separated in the 1940s.

Getty Images JRD Tata Along with Ratan Tata and Russi Modi at the meeting in New Delhi, IndiaGetty Images

Tata went to college in the US, where he got a degree in infrastructure at Cornell University. During his seven-year-long be, he learned to drive cars and fly. He had some terrible experiences: he once lost an motor while flying a plane in university and half lost the one motor in his plane. ” So I had to glide in,” he told an interviewer. Later, he would often fly his company’s business jet.

He returned to India in 1962 when his grandmother Lady Navajbai fell ill and called for him. It was then that JRD Tata – a relative from a different branch of the family – asked him to join the Tata Group. “He [JRD Tata] was my greatest mentor… he was like a father and a brother to me – and not enough has been said about that,” Tata told an interviewer.

Ratan Tata was sent to a company steel plant in Jamshedpur in eastern India where he spent a couple of years on the factory floor before becoming the technical assistant to the manager. In the early 70s, he took over two ailing group firms, one making radios and TVs and the other textiles. He managed to turn around the first, and had mixed results with the textile company.

In 1991, JRD Tata, who had led the group for over half a century, appointed Ratan Tata as his successor over senior company aspirants for that position. ” If you were to find the publications of that time, the criticism was personal- JRD got clubbed with nepotism and I was branded as the wrong choice,” Ratan Tata later said.

Peter Casey writes that under Ratan Tata’s leadership, a “great but rather stodgy Indian manufacturer began emerging as a global brand with great emphasis on consumer goods”.

Getty Images Ratan Tata during the inauguration of the car in 2008Getty Images

But the journey was a mixed one.

During his tenure the group made many bold acquisitions, among them the takeover of Anglo-Dutch steelmaker Corus and UK-based car brands Jaguar and Land Rover. Some of those decisions paid off, while others – including a failed telecom venture – have cost the company a lot of money.

A high point came in 2000, when Tata bought Tetley and became the world’s second-largest tea company. The deal was the largest takeover of an international brand by an Indian company.

A few years later, a visiting journalist from a UK-based newspaper asked Tata whether he liked the irony of an Indian company buying a leading British brand. ” Tata is too shrewd and too shy to be caught gloating about his successes like some territory-grabbing East India Company nabob,” the journalist later wrote.

Tata’s foray into building a safe, affordable car turned out to be a disappointment. It was launched amid great fanfare in 2009 as a compact with the base model costing just 100,000 rupees ($ 1,222; £982 ). But after the initial success and euphoria, the brand began to lose out to other manufacturers due to issues with production and marketing.

Tata later said it was a “huge mistake to brand Nano as the world’s cheapest car. People do n’t want to be seen driving the world’s cheapest car! “

Getty images Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata boarding a Boeing fighter F/A-18 Super Hornet at the Aero India 2011 at the Yelahanka air base on the outskirts of Bangalore on Thursday.Getty images

His resilience was also tested during the Mumbai terror attacks of 26 November, 2008. Tata’s marquee Taj Mahal Palace was one of the two luxury hotels that was attacked, along with a train station, a hospital, a Jewish cultural centre, and some other targets in Mumbai.

Thirty-three of the 166 people who died in the 60-hour siege were at the Taj. This included 11 hotel employees, a third of the hotel’s total casualties. Tata pledged to look after the families of employees who were killed or injured, and paid the relatives of those killed the salaries they would have earned for the rest of their lives. He also spent more than$ 1bn to restore the damaged hotel within 21 months.

Towards the end of his career, Tata found himself embroiled in an unsavoury controversy. In October 2016 he returned to Tata Sons as interim chairman for a few months after the previous incumbent, Cyrus Mistry, was ousted, sparking a bitter management feud (Mistry died in a car crash in September 2022). The role was eventually given to Natarajan Chandrasekaran, who was formerly the chief executive of Tata Consultancy Services, India’s most valuable company with a market capitalisation of $67bn.

Peter Casey described Tata as a “modest, reserved and even shy man”. He found a” stately calm” about him and a “fierce discipline”, which included preparing a handwritten to-do list every day. He also described himself as a “bit of an optimist”.

Tata was also a modest and reflective businessman. After the police were called in to end a strike that crippled operations at one of his firm’s factories in Pune in 1989, Tata told journalists:” 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. “

In 2009, Tata spoke at a school alumni function about his dream for his country, “where every Indian has an equal opportunity to shine on merit”.

” In a country like ours,” he said, “you have to try and lead by example, not flaunt your wealth and prominence. “

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Indian tycoon Ratan Tata dies aged 86

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American billionaire Ratan Tata has died aged 86, says the Tata Group, the company he led for more than two years.

Tata was one of India’s most globally recognised organization leaders.

The Tata Group is one of India’s largest companies, with annual revenues in excess of$ 100bn.

In a speech announcing Tata’s dying, the latest chairman of Tata Sons described him as a” truly remarkable head”.

Natarajan Chandrasekaran added:” On behalf of the entire Tata home, I extend our deepest sympathies to his loved people. His legacy will continue to inspire us as we strive to uphold the principles he therefore strongly championed. “

During his tenure as president of the Tata Group, the company made some high-profile acquisitions, including the acquisition of Anglo-Dutch chipmaker Corus, UK-based vehicle brands Jaguar and Land Rover, and Tetley, the country’s second-largest drink company.

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