Can we follow TATAS and say TATA to bad times?

Have you seen :
Forbes Billionaires List!!! For 2006 and 2007….Indians in the top 100!!
And Forbes Brand List!!!! Where are the Indians gone??

After Independence our Industrialists were given a monopolistic market to operate upon, which created fraudulent rupee billionaires!! In the second phase post liberalization, loss making PSUs (Public Sector Units) have been sold in totality at a fraction of the price they should have commanded in the market, for the bribes from the industrialist, causing a few dollar billionaires. Then comes the last phase: Having virtually run out of ways to get more bribes in a privatized world, numerous global billionaires have been created out of existing industrialists through SEZ act, and similar activity. For example to hide one move behind the other, government have signed Smart City Project in Kakkanad, Kerala, increasing the price of the land in and around, after which there is no much further development at that site but, there is selling of HMT to private industrialists!!

Land: basically is needed for three things: Shelter/Residence, food/agriculture and business. Since agriculture is very uncertain, and the output per hectare is self-sufficient only for handful of people, to help a wider section, indeed industries need to be actually developed. Right now the increase in prices in only imaginary, anticipating industrial growth. But if the industrial development is at the cost of agriculture.

Handful of companies are becoming abnormally wealthy by amassing land and natural resources, at throwaway prices. There are thousands of poor farmers and families, who are getting displaced not only from their homes but from their sole source of livelihood. With these acquisitions, rise in the prices around, is so unbalanced to the compensation paid to them that they cannot afford to buy a pin drop of place for what they get.

You find Reliance outlets everywhere; there is no petrol, in the petrol pumps. They have the land.

Economies like China, Japan, Germany, France, create brands, have technological know hows, investing in massive R&D, losing out in competition, fighting back again and finally creating wealth. We too have our wealth creators like Kiran Majumdar, Azim Premji, Narayan Murthi, Kumaramangalma Birtal, and indeed Ratan TATA!!!!

TATAS: here is one group which now produces from the most exotic high-end cars, to the ones for the lower section of the middle class, from heavy commercial vehicles to mini truck, from coffee, tea to salt to steel, insurance and mutual funds, from high end software services to telecommunications and sky, from retailing of apparels (Westside and Trent) to jewellery (Tanishq), from the most exotic hotels (Ritz Carlton, Peirre and Taj) to budget hotels like Ginger, from broadband to providing of financial services like insurance and mutual fund, from production of electricity to production of lubricants, from online interactive education to production of composite materials and construction equipments, from Direct To Home (DTH) service to industrial automation and air conditioning, from the most exotic watches to the publishing of books, from oil exploration to strategic consultancy and from solar power to agro-chemicals. The Tatas have been doing much in the last few years with respect to acquisition. Today, post acquisition of Jaguar & land Rover, Corus and a few others in the recent past, the Tatas is a $60 billion plus entity. Nor look back from the step kept forward by Jamshadji Tata. Indeed a journey of thousand miles begin with a single step.

 

Diversification like that of TATAS is the need of the hour.. If each of the TATA companies uses the products of the other, then TATAS already have a huge market to cater to.

And I guess this is the case, unlike Reliance, where there is already a rift, don’t know if this is the reason, why the two brothers are in the Forbes Billionaires list!! The rift for core competency is clearly evident. And they don’t use each others goods…you find, airtel connection in Reliance outlet…is it smartness or drama or fight!!

What is important to realize is that in case of problems on the external front, one can easily sustain during the lean period if each of the element of that captive economy is viable and contributing like that of TATAS.

Billionaires!!! Inflating land cost…and nothing to eat……was the trend so far..lets see how helpful though really not productive, is the waiver of loans of the farmers, in the present budget, is really going to work and help.

That the Indian economy is yet to be opened properly is vindicated by the fact that a stronger rupee is increasingly becoming a major cause of concern for the government and the exporters, at a time, when India ideally should be celebrating the strengthening rupee as a sign of a growing and potent economy.

Can we follow TATAS and say TATA to bad times?? True the time right now in India is not very bad, but it is salary rise for the rich, price rise for the poor!!! Present growth is beneficial only for those whose salaries have grown more in proportion to the price rise!! Donation seats and education for the rich, and illiteracy or bare minimum education for the poor. It further leaves the middle class where they where. That unfortunately is the story of India……or say anywhere in the world today?

Tough time never last, but tough people do. United we stand and divided we fall. We can fool some people for sometime, but not all the people at all the time. In the I alone world, let us have the we culture…Be self sufficient!!

To make the BRIC (Goldman Sachs's most famous Global Economic Paper(Brazil, Russia, India, China) ), the bricks of the BRIC will have to be first of all put in the right place, or else the 'I' would just collapse like a pack of cards.

3rd March - Birth Anniversary of Jamshedji Tata