Brand Ratan Tata – Always lead from the front

Ratan Tata, an iconic corporate leader, retired as Chairman of the USD 100-billion Tata Group after a 50-year run, on his 75th birthday, 28th Dec, 2012 handing over the business empire to Cyrus Mistry, the first chief appointed from outside the immediate Tata family in its 144-year history. He led the Tata Group brilliantly and successfully in expanding and globalising it." He transformed the Tata group into a streamlined conglomerate of more than 100 companies and earning a global reputation for his consolidation and expansion strategies. It looks like the brand attributes which made him the most powerful Indian CEO brand globally and also in

2007, he was listed among the 25 most powerful people in world business by ‘Fortune’

magazine. The USD 100 billion house of the Tatas perceived as the best Indian brand in the

world, says ASSOCHAM survey, 23rd Dec, 2012.

In today’s marketing world, the brand aspect of the CEO help the brand of the organization

and vice versa and in Tata case, it seems, the brand attributes of the organization and Ratan

Tata are compliment. His real legacy to the group is the development of an international

strategy and the creation of the Tata brand.

The personal brand has 3 features. Core identity defines who you are at a deeper level and

what are your core values. Some of the core values of the Ratan Tata brand are credibility,

capability, empathy, service, honesty, integrity and trust. A core value is only a true core

value if it has an active influence and if the person manages to live by it, at least most of the

time. His dream car Nano that brought him close to the hearts’ of common man.

The second feature is the Brand projections and actions that are aligned to the core values

of the brand. Ratan Tata demonstrated though his actions that nation building, giving back

to the society and and making Tata a successful global brand is close to his heart. This, in

spite of the fact, that in 2010 alone, the Tata trusts disbursed Rs. 500 crore to various

causes and institutions.

A leadership acts as an engine that takes care of early planning and picking the right people

for the future and trains them to take on bigger responsibilities for whole business enterprise.

This demonstrates how he empowered and built a leadership pipeline.

The third aspect of the personal brand is the Brand perception. Most of the leaders uses

their core values which results in success and become the brand perception in the minds of

public. While Jack Welsh did a lot for people development and building leaders in GE, at one

time his brand perception was “Neutron Jack”. Keeping these values, we could assume that

Ratan Tata most of the time operated brand.

Tata companies share five core values – integrity, understanding, excellence, unity and

responsibility. In his period, he ensures adherence to the Tata ethos and value system. Tata

Group's name is synonymous with India's industrialization.

Ratan Tata’s brand perception is aligned with his brand identity. He is considered, credible,

authentic and effective. Therefore live up to the brand Ratan Tata as he focused on 3 things

to make Tata as a successful global brand: efficiency, globalization and innovation.

Now, the biggest challenge for Mr Mistry would be to ensure that the Tata companies are

able to sail through the global slowdown as he plans to invest more than 450 billion rupees

($8.2 billion) over the next two years, and also there is need to maintain status of the best

Indian brand in the world.

 
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