Nano Case Study

December 29, 2010 | Financial Times | | | | | | Case study: Tata | | | The story. Tata is India’s oldest and largest private sector business entity. Founded in 1868, the group now consists of more than 100 companies, with a turnover of more than $70bn. It has a wide range of interests, with companies trading in fields as diverse as steel, cars and trucks, chemicals, IT consultancy, retailing and hotels.The Tata group is highly decentralised, and member companies have great autonomy in terms of strategy and operations. The main instrument for unifying the group is the Tata corporate brand, which embodies values that are shared by all companies in the group.However, not all the companies use the corporate brand in the same way. Many, such as Tata Beverages and Tata Motors, use the name and logo explicitly. However, even in India some companies in the group, such as Trent and Taj Hotels, do not use the Tata name. Taj Hotels also has its own brand mark.This inconsistency is seen by the Tata group as less important than adherence to the group’s values. It was originally founded for the purpose of creating and spreading wealth in order to strengthen the Indian nation and economy.The challenge. Before 1991 the Tata group had few interests in the world outside India. Its brand identity was very strongly Indian, rooted in India’s culture and history. However, Ratan Tata, the group’s leader, believed this had to change. He felt that Tata’s future lay outside India, and that it should aspire to become a global company.But could a company with such a strong Indian identity succeed in establishing a global brand? And if so, what would be the disadvantages? There were – and still are – many in India who believed that the process of globalisation would change Tata and damage its values, turning it into just another big company that would be concerned only with profit. Others outside India wondered – and some still do – if western consumers in particular would