Ratan Tata, who is credited with the phenomenal growth of the Tata group in the past decade, has been named as Forbes' 'Asian Businessman of the Year'.
"His (Tata's) $14.3 billion family conglomerate is a picture of what was and is India Inc," Forbes said in its recent issue.
Crediting sixty-seven-year-old Tata with modernising perhaps one of the most respected business houses of India, the magazine said Ratan Tata has spent the past decade more than doubling the revenue of the corporate giant while dragging it into modern business, where technology combined with cheap labour can make for a potent competitor.
"Ratan is probably one of the three or four best business leaders I have ever met," Henry Schacht, former chief executive of Lucent Technologies and Cummins Engine, where he did business with Tata, who was then running Tata Motors, told Forbes.
"The genius of Ratan is he understood what needed to be done and he understood how it needed to be done in India," Schacht said.
Recalling his initial days in the group, Tata said, "I was always put after trying to fix ailing companies".
Tata, an architect by training, recalled that "the group operated in a protected environment, and for many years the companies were in businesses where the entry barriers were very high.
"The less-sensitive companies were those who didn't worry about their competition, who didn't worry about their costs and had not looked at newer technology".
Talking about his differences with the satraps in Tata group companies when he took over the reins in 1991, Tata, known for his modesty, said, "This (the tiff) was viewed as an ego trip".
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