Ratan Naval Tata Ratan Naval Tata December 28, 1937 (age 72) Born Bombay, Bombay Presidency, British India Residence Colaba, Mumbai, India Nationality Indian Ethnicity Parsi Citizenship India Alma Cornell University mater Harvard University Occupation Chairman of Tata Group Home town Mumbai, Maharashtra, India Ratan Naval Tata (born December 28, 1937, in Bombay, Bombay Presidency, British India) is the present Chairman of Tata Sons and therefore, Tata Group, India's largest conglomerate founded by Jamsedji Tata and consolidated and expanded by later generations of his family. He is also the chairman of major Tata companies such as Tata Steel, Tata Motors, Tata Power, Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Tea, Tata Chemicals, The Indian Hotels Company and Tata Teleservices. Early life Ratan Tata was born into the famous Tata family, a prominent family belonging to the Parsi community. Ratan is the grandson of Tata group founder Jamsedji Tata. His childhood was troubled, with his parents separating in the mid -1940s when he was merely seven and his younger brother Jimmy was five years old. Their mother moved out and both Ratan and his brother were raised by their grandmother Lady Navajbai. Early career Ratan Tata completed his B.Sc. degree in architecture with structural engineering from Cornell University in 1962, and the Advanced Management Program from Harvard Business School in 1975. He is a part of the Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity. He joined the Tata Group in December 1962, after turning down a job with IBM on the adv ice of JRD Tata. He was first sent to Jamshedpur to work at Tata Steel. He worked on the factory floor along with other blue-collar employees, shoveling limestone and handling the blast furnaces. Ratan Tata, a shy man, rarely features in the society glossies, has lived for years in a book -crammed, dog- filled bachelor flat in Mumbai's Colaba district and is considered to be a gentleman extraordinaire. Personal life Mr. Ratan Tata has a metallic blue Maserati and Ferrari California. He sometimes likes to fly his private Falcon Jet himself. He has never been married. He likes to wear Hermès ties and matching handkerchiefs. His share in the whole group is 1%, or a little le ss, valuing his personal holding at approximately US$ 1 Billion, if encashed. Ratan Tatas͛ revolution The 624cc four-seater Tata Nano promises to herald a revolution that will change the way India moves .Priced at $2,500 or Rs 1 lakh at the dealer end, the car is the cheapest four- wheeler in the world. This proposition that prompted Tata to think about a people͛s car: Typically, the trigger was a social concern. On a wet August night in 2003 Mumbai, when Tata was driving back home from his office Bombay House in Flora Fountain, he saw a young couple travelling with their two children on a two-wheeler and was struck by the enormous risks of riding on a wet road. The thought of a small car germinated in his mind and a week later, on a visit to the Tata Motors plant in Pune, he shared his thoughts with MD Ravi Kant. Instinctively, his first query was whether the two-wheeled scooter could be made safe. But somewhere down the line, the ideas ran into a conflict with Tata͛s brief. It was simple: it would seat four, have a low operating cost and meet all safety and emission standards. The team dumped the nascent design and focused on the process of building what would be a car differently. It is not just the risk of com petitors breaking the queue, there is also the changing cost structure .As he told a vendor at a meeting at the company͛s technical centre, ͞If this car clicks, it will be as much your success as ours.͟ The vendors took up the challenge and reengineered their own products and thereby brought down costs by 15 per cent Ͷand in some cases, even more. Indeed the NanoͶwhich means small in Parsi-GujaratiͶturns out to be a font of innovation. TATA JLR ACQUISITION In June 2008, India-based Tata Motors Ltd. announced that it had completed the acquisition of the two iconic British brands - Jaguar and Land Rover (JLR) from the US-based Ford Motors for US$ 2.3 billion. Tata Motors stood to gain on several fronts from the deal. One, the acquisition would help the company acquire a global footprint and enter the high- end premier segment of the global automobile market. After the acquisition, Tata Motors would own the world's cheapest car - the US$ 2,500 Nano, and luxury marquees like the Jaguar and Land Rover. Though there was initial skepticism over an Indian company owning the luxury brands, ownership was not considered a major issue at all. JLR's acquisition appeared negative for Tata Motors, as it had increased the earnings volatility, given the difficult economic conditions in the key markets of JLR including the US and Europe. Moreover, Tata Motors had to incur a huge capital expenditure as it planned to invest another US$ 1 billion in JLR. This was in addition to the US$ 2.3 billion it had spent on the acquisition. Tata Motors had also incurred huge capital expenditure on the development and launch of the small car Nano and on a joint venture with Fiat to manufacture some of the company's vehicles in India and Thailand. This, coupled with the downturn in the global automobile industry, was expected to impact the profitability of the company in the near future. Kishore Biyani Name Kishore Biyani Future Group CEO Education Graduation in commerce Industry Retail Products Discount Stores, Supercenters Country India Company Future Group Introduction A simple shopkeeper who started off by sold stonewash fabric to ordinary retailer and later became a retail-magnate himself. It is the Kishore Biyani and his extraordinary stunt in the business with unconventional ideas. The man who retained Indian-ness in his modern business concepts be it Pantaloons, Big Bazaar or Central. His favorite mantra-´Rewrite Rules, Retain Values Back ground Kishore Biyani belongs to a Rajasthani Marwadi Family settled in Mumbai for more than 60 years now, born in a family of traders on 9th August, 1961, Graduated in commerce from HR College, Mumbai in 1981 and initially joined his father's business. His father belonged to the old school and was a conventional businessman. A down-to-earth man, Biyani who lives with wife Sangita and two daughters, is a firm believer in the Indian value system. He is proud of being Indian and considers Indian-ness as the driving principle behind the enviable success of his company Establishment of first Business As biyani got tired of the business and chose to start a yarn-manufacturing unit, which in those days offered high margins. Of the Rs7 lakh needed, he put onlyRs2 lakh, saved from his trading deals, in his father's business, and borrowed the rest from his family Pantaloon started in 1987 as Manz Wear Pvt Ltd. Biyani took the company public in 1991, changing its name to Pantaloon Fashions (India) the following year, and then again in 1999 to Pantaloon Retail (India) Ltd. Today, the company has approximately 14,000 shareholders. Biyani's company initially made trousers, which were sold to shops that stocked multi-brand clothes. The response was decent though not overwhelming. The same year he set up a plant at the family's premises in Mumbai installing machinery worth Rs20 lakh borrowed from banks. The next step was to begin advertising. In the first year, Pantaloon Fashions' advertising budget was Rs17lakh on a turnover of Rs70 lakh leaving Biyani with a profit of Rs8 lakh. The next step was to position Pantaloon in the office and casuals segment with an all-India network. At a crucial juncture when Pantaloon Retail needed funds to expand and set up its own retail shops to stock everything under one roof, the Ahmadabad-based Arvind Mills, flagship of the Lal bhai group, asked him to market its denim brand. This helped bring in much-needed funds. In 1988-89, the launch of Pantaloon's own brand, Bare Necessities, helped establish Pantaloon in the fashion industry. Expansion of Business In 2001, Biyani evolved a pan-Indian, class-less model Big Bazaar, a hypermarket chain, leading to the democratization of shopping in India. With Food Bazaar, asupermarket chain, he blended the look, touch and feel of Indian bazaars with western hygiene and it has now evolved into the favored destination for Indian homemakers. Perhaps Biyani is in an unusually good humour because he knows that the chaos will settle down soon enough. Just like it has with his entire business. A big factor, he says, was Big Bazaar Mumbai. Future group Kishore Biyani is the Group CEO of Future Group, one of India͛s leading business houses with businesses in retail with multiple businesses spanning across the consumption space; capital and investment advisory services; consumer finance, capital, insurance; brand development, leisure and entertainment,retail media, retail real estate development and logistics. Led by its flagship enterprise, Pantaloon Retail, the group operates over 16 million square feet of retail space in 73 cities and towns and 65 rural locations across India , has over 1,000 outlets. Headquartered in Mumbai (Bombay), Pantaloon Retail employs around 30,000 people and is listed on the Indian stock exchanges. It was counted among 15 best employers in India in a survey conducted by Hewitt Associates in 2007 in association with The Economic Times. In 2008, Big Bazaar opened its 100th store, marking the fastest ever organic expansion of a hypermarket.