Ratan Tata, one of India’s top industrialists, was once allegedly humiliated by Bill Ford, the chairman of the famous car company Ford.
This is a re-telling of a marvelous account that briefly describes how Ratan Tata savoured the fruit of his sweet revenge in the year 2008 against the very company that had humiliated him almost two decades ago.
As the story goes, in the 1990s, our very own Indica was developed by Tata Motors. Indica happens to be India’s first indigenous car ever. This happened to be a major turning point in the Indian car making industry as Tata’s car segment led the way to an independent and bright future for India and inspired thousands of ambitious and talented individuals all over the country.
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However, Indica failed to garner substantial revenues and did not manage to give desired outputs. As a result the car failed to sell in the market thus leading to a dip in profit for the company.
Things were not looking good. Ratan Tata soon caught up with the problem and arrived at a decision. The decision was to sell the company’s car segment to Ford. He and his team then flew to the city of Detroit in the Michigan of the United States and met with Ford chairman Bill Ford.
The meeting took place, it was about three hours long. After the meeting Ratan Tata decided to not sell his car segment, instead he flew back and tripled his efforts that led to him revolutionizing the automobile industry of India.
What made him change his decision? Apparently, Bill Ford had ‘humiliated’ the conglomerate by saying that they ‘did not know anything’ about cars and that the car segment was a ‘huge mistake’. Bill Ford allegedly said that he was doing the Tata conglomerate a ‘big favour’ by buying their segment.
Nine years had passed by since the humiliation. In the year 2008, there was a major collapse in the US market that led many companies to their unexpected bankruptcy. One company amongst them happened to be Ford. Ford at that time wanted to sell their JLR or Jaguar Land Rover division and were actively seeking buyers. Ratan Tata saw this as a perfect opportunity and bought the JLR division for 2.3 Billion Dollars.
With his wit and hard work, Ratan Tata helped JLR make a 360 degree turnabout into one of the most successful ventures in the automobile history. JLR continues to be a Tata subsidiary to this date. Ford’s chairman Bill Ford expressed his gratitude to Ratan Tata by saying, “you are doing us a big favour by buying JLR.”
Such is the sweet taste of revenge!
Image Credits: Google Images
Feature Image designed by Saudamini Seth
Sources: The Newsmen, Moneycontrol, Indiatimes
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This post is tagged under: business, india, ratan tata, Ford, Detroit, automobile industry india, automobile market, automobile, automobile industry, jaguar land rover tata motors, Tata Motors
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