Tata Group is an Indian multinational conglomerate company headquartered in Mumbai, India. It
encompasses seven business sectors: communications and information technology, engineering, materials,
services, energy, consumer products and chemicals. Tata Group was founded in 1868 by Jamsetji
Tata as a trading company. It has operations in more than 80 countries across six continents.
Tata Group has over 100 operating companies with each of them operating independently.
Out of them 32 are publicly listed. The major Tata companies are Tata Steel, Tata Motors,
Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Power, Tata Chemicals, Tata Global Beverages, Tata Teleservices,
Titan Industries, Tata Communications and Taj Hotels. The combined market capitalisation
of all the 32 listed Tata companies was INR 6.8 Trillion as of March 2014. Tata receives
more than 58% of its revenue from outside India.
Tata Group remains a family-owned business, as the descendants of the founder own a majority
stake in the company. The current chairman of the Tata group is Cyrus Pallonji Mistry,
who took over from Ratan Tata in 2012. Tata Sons is the promoter of all key Tata companies
and holds the bulk of shareholding in these companies. The chairman of Tata Sons has traditionally
been the chairman of the Tata group. About 66% of the equity of Tata Sons is held by
philanthropic trusts endowed by members of the Tata family.
The Tata Group and its companies & enterprises is perceived to be India's best-known global
brand within and outside the country as per an ASSOCHAM survey. The 2009, annual survey
by the Reputation Institute ranked Tata Group as the 11th most reputable company in the
world. The survey included 600 global companies. The Tata Group has helped establish and finance
numerous quality research, educational and cultural institutes in India. The group was
awarded the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy in 2007 in recognition of its long history
of philanthropic activities.
Head of group Jamsetji Tata
Dorabji Tata Nowroji Saklatwala
J. R. D. Tata Ratan Tata
Cyrus Mistry Subsidiaries
This section lists the Tata companies and details their business:
Acquisitions
Philanthropy The Tata Group has helped establish and finance
numerous quality research, educational and cultural institutes in India. The Tata Group
was awarded the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy in 2007 in recognition of the group's long
history of philanthropic activities. Some of the institutes established by the Tata
Group are:
The Tata Group has donated a 2.20 billion to the prestigious Harvard Business School
to build an academic and a residential building on the institute's campus in Boston, Massachusetts.
The new building will be called the Tata Hall and used for the institute's executive education
programmes. The amount is the largest from an international donor in the business school's
102-year-old existence.
One Tata project that brought together Tata Group companies was developing a compact,
in-home water-purification device. It was called Tata swach which means "clean" in Hindi
and would cost less than 1000 rupees. The idea of Tata swach was thought of from the
2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean, which left thousands of people without clean drinking
water. This device has filters that last about a year long for a family of five. It is a
low-cost product available for people who have no access to safe drinking water in their
homes. The advantage of this device is that it does not require the use of electricity.
TCS also designed and donated an innovative software package that teaches illiterate adults
how to read in 40 hours. "The children of the people who have been through our literacy
program are all in school", says Pankaj Baliga, global head of corporate social responsibility
for TCS. In 1912, Tata Group expanded their CEO's concept
of community philanthropy to be included in the workplace. They instituted an eight-hour
workday, before nearly any other company in the world. In 1917, they recommended a medical-services
policy for Tata employees. The company would be among the first worldwide to organise modern
pension systems, workers' compensation, maternity benefits, and profit-sharing plans.
Trusts created by Tata Group control 65.8% of company shares, so it can be said that
about 66% of the profits of Tata Group go to charity. The charitable trusts of Tata
Group fund a variety of projects, for example the Tata Swach and the TCS project. They founded
and still support such cherished institutions as the Indian Institute of Science, Tata Institute
of Fundamental Research, the National Centre for the Performing Arts and the Tata Memorial
Hospital. Each Tata Group company channels more than 4 percent of its operating income
to the trusts and every generation of Tata family members has left a larger portion of
its profit to them. After the Mumbai attacks, Salaries of then
heavily attacked Taj Hotel employees were paid despite the hotel being closed for reconstruction.
About 1600 employees were provided food, water, sanitation and first aid through employee
outreach centres. Ratan Tata personally visited families of all the employees that were affected.
The employee's relatives were flown to Mumbai from outside areas and were all accommodated
for 3 weeks. Tata also covered compensation for railway employees, police staff, and pedestrians.
The market vendors and shop owners were given care and assistance after the attacks. A psychiatric
institution was established with the Tata Group of Social Science to counsel those who
were affected from the attacks and needed help. Tata also granted the education of 46
children of the victims of the terrorist attacks. In 2013, the Tata group, through the Tata
Relief Committee and the Himmotthan Society, an associate organisation of the Sir Ratan
Tata Trust, has been working in close collaboration with the Uttarakhand government to provide
relief to the impacted local communities in three districts of the state. The relief activities,
which include provision of food and household material, have so far covered over 65 villages
and 3,000 families. In the first phase of relief, the group expects to reach over 100
villages. The Tata group also plans to implement long-term measures for the economic, ecological
and resource sustainability of the affected communities and areas. The plan, currently
under development, will be based on a baseline survey of impacted villages which is being
carried out by teams from the Centre for Disaster Management at the Tata Institute of Social
Sciences, Mumbai, in collaboration with local organisations and communities.
Controversies and criticisms The Tata group has also attracted several
controversies and criticisms, including the following below.
Munnar, Kerala The Kerala Government had filed an affidavit
in the high court saying that Tata Tea had 'grabbed' forest land of 3,000 acres at Munnar.
The Tatas, on the other hand, say they possess 58,741.82 acres of land, which they are allowed
to retain under the Kannan Devan Hill Act, 1971, and there is a shortage of 278.23 hectares
in that. The then Chief Minister of Kerala V.S. Achuthanandan, who vowed to evict all
government land in Munnar, formed a special squad for the Munnar land takeover mission
and started acquiring back of the encroached government properties. However, later he had
to abort the mission as there were many influential land grabbers and faced opposition from his
own party. Kalinganagar, Orissa
On 2 January 2006, policemen at Kalinganagar, Orissa, opened fire at a crowd of tribal villagers.
The villagers were protesting the construction of a compound wall on land historically owned
by them, for a Tata steel plant. Some of the corpses were returned to the families in a
mutilated condition. When pushed for comment, TATA officials said the incident was unfortunate
but that it would continue with its plans to set up the plant.
Supplies to Burma's military regime Tata Motors reported deals to supply hardware
and automobiles to Burma's oppressive and anti-democratic military junta has come in
for criticism from human rights and democracy activists. In December 2006, Gen. Thura Shwe
Mann, Myanmar's chief of general staff visited the Tata Motors plant in Pune. In 2009, TATA
Motors announced that it would press ahead with plans to manufacture trucks in Myanmar.
Land acquisition in Singur The Singur controversy in West Bengal led
to further questions over Tata's social record, with protests by locals and political parties(though
the involvement of Mamata Banerjee's party is widely criticized as an act for political
gains) over the forced acquisition, eviction and inadequate compensation to those farmers
displaced for the Tata Nano plant. As the protests grew, and despite having the support
of the Communist Party of India state government, Tata eventually pulled the project out of
West Bengal, citing safety concerns. The Singur controversy was one of the few occasions when
Ratan Tata was forced to publicly address criticisms and concerns on any environmental
or social issue. Ratan Tata subsequently embraced Narendra Modi, the Chief Minister of Gujarat,
who quickly made land available for the Nano project.
Dhamra Port On the environmental front, the Port of Dhamara
controversy has received significant coverage, both within India and in Tata's emerging global
markets. The Dhamra port, a venture between Tata Steel
and Larsen & Toubro, has come in for criticism for its proximity to the Gahirmatha Sanctuary
and Bhitarkanika National Park, from Indian and international organisations, including
Greenpeace. Gahirmatha Beach is one of the world's largest mass nesting sites for the
Olive Ridley Turtle and Bhitarkanika is a designated Ramsar site and India's second
largest mangrove forest. TATA officials have denied that the port poses an ecological threat,
and stated that mitigation measures are being employed with the advice of the IUCN. On the
other hand, conservation organisations, including Greenpeace, have pointed out that no proper
Environment Impact Analysis has been done for the project, which has undergone changes
in size and specifications since it was first proposed and that the port could interfere
with mass nesting at the Gahirmtha beaches and the ecology of the Bitharkanika mangrove
forest. Protests by Greenpeace to Dhamra Port construction
is also alleged to be less on factual data and more on hype and DPCL's response to Greenpeace
questions harbours on these facts. Soda extraction plant in Tanzania
Tata group, along with a Tanzanian company, joined forces to build a soda ash extraction
plant in Tanzania. The Tanzanian government is all for the project. On the other hand,
environmental activists are opposing the plant because it would be near Lake Natron, and
it could possibly affect the lake's ecosystem and its neighbouring dwellers.
Tata was planning to change the site of the plant so it would be built 32 km from the
lake, but the opposition still thinks it would negatively disturb the environment. It could
also jeopardise the Lesser Flamingo birds there, which are already endangered. Lake
Natron is where two-thirds of Lesser Flamingos reproduce. Producing soda ash involves drawing
out salt water from the lake, and then disposing the water back to the lake. This process could
interrupt the chemical make up of the lake. Twenty-two African nations are against the
creation of the project and have signed a petition to stop its construction.
Recognition The international brand consultancy Brand
Finance has ranked the over $100-billion conglomerate, Tata Group, as 39th most valuable brand in
the world. The most recent Global 500 report by Brand Finance shows that despite the controversies,
Tata Group's brand value has soared to $15.08 billion for the current year compared to $11.2 billion
last year in 2010. In 2011 and 2012, Tata was ranked as India's
second most trusted brand by The Brand Trust Report,. In 2013, The Brand Trust Report,
ranked Tata as India's fifth most trusted brand.
In a 2011 investor poll conducted by equity research firm Equitymaster, TATA Group was
voted as the most trustworthy among the Indian corporate houses. Over 61% of the respondents
"showed their confidence in the Tata Group". The Tata Group retained its "Most Trustworthy"
status in the 2012 edition of the poll. In 2000, its Dewas division was awarded the
"Best of all" Rajiv Gandhi National Quality Award.
See also
Pallonji Mistry Noel Tata
Sir Dorabji Tata and Allied Trusts Tata Sons
Tata Communications Tata Consultancy Services
References
External links Official website