मेहफ़ूज़ कर लेते हैं हम

 दीवार पे आपकी आँखों को रखकर 

खुद को मेहफ़ूज़ कर लेते हैं हम।

दिन रात आपकी राह देखते देखते ही 

ख़ामोखा खुद को मायूस कर लेते हम। 

यह बात नहीं कि हमारे दिल आपके पास है 

खोये दिल को अच्छे से जासूस कर लेते हम।  

किसने कहा आप हमसे बिछड़ गए हैं  

तन्हाई के हर पल आपको महसूस कर लेते हम।

 

Natarajan Chandrasekaran

Chandra - as he is fondly called - hails from a village, Mohanur, in Karur District, that is opposite to my ancestral village Nerur, across the Cauvery, in Tamil Nadu. It is said that, as a child, he and his two brothers used to walk 3 kms every day to a nearby village school, to get their primary education. It is a different story that all three brothers have since gone to accumulate accolades for themselves, and have done their parents extremely proud.

FC Kohli of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) , alongside Narayana Murthy of Infosys, had laid the foundations for what would ultimately become the largest exports of India Inc. - the Indian IT services. TCS is the crown jewel of the Tatas, today. Chandra is a TCS product. He had spent a vast majority of his working life under the aegis of Kolhi. By the 2000s, Chandra had a meteoric rise to the top echelons of TCS. He served as CEO of TCS, overseeing its transformation into a global IT biggie, before being anointed as Ratan Tata's true heir at Tata Sons, in 2017 under rather tumultuous circumstances. Cyrus had clearly turned out to be a Mistry choice ( pun intended), and Chandra was then identified as the saviour-in-chief of a salt-to-SaaS conglomerate that was in real danger if unravelling. 

As soon as he took over, Chandra had made a change at Bombay House, the headquarters of Tata Sons, that was seen as harbinger of the future. He got the heritage HQ building on Homi Mody Street in Mumbai's Fort area totally refurbished  and gave a new makeover, something that had never been done, since it was built in 1924. It is said that JRD Tata as well as Ratan Tata were for preserving the monumental building as-is. The building had cracks in the roof, limited natural light and was vulnerable to termites. Clearly, Chandra wanted to make Bombay House vibrant, incorporating his idea of 'One Tata', while still retaining the old-world charm. It was, indeed,  a heady mix of tradition and modernism. 

Also, until then, the disparate group companies had been working in silos within the building, literally - with separate board rooms, conference halls and pantries. Movement of top executives was restricted within their companies. Chandra created common conference halls. He also got a Starbucks franchise opened on the ground floor. The barriers were bring brought down rather rapidly. The chairman's office was redesigned on the theme of 'metamorphosis', preparing  to transform a rather unwieldy 100-company group into a future-ready tech-driven behemoth. That formally signalled curtains for some satraps "ruling their respective roosts" within the group - Russi Mody, Moolgaonkar, Krishnakumar, et al, in one swift symbolic move, as it were. 

When Chandra had taken over, the Tatas were at crossroads. While a few stars in the group continued to shine ( TCS, Titan, Tata Elxsi etc.) , most of the other group companies were disparate, and had been saddled with legacy problems, some of them that would appear, in hindsight, as blunders of Ratan Tata. A few samplers:

1. Tata Steel was saddled with about $12Bn of debt, mainly through mistimed European forays. At the time of writing this, the problems in Europe continue
2. Tata motors had just delivered a still-born baby, the Nano, that was a drains on its coffers. And none of the other product lines were shining, either. The JLR acquisition decision was precarious, at best. 
3. Tata Power was saddled with over $12Bn in debt, in it's zeal to rapidly expand.
4. None of the other group companies were exactly in the pink of health. To add to it, these were disparate entities, with little accountability at the top

His four years at the helm have seen the group focus on three areas - identifying new business opportunities, modernisation of old businesses and resolution of lingering troubles.

Chandra had six key focuses as his mantras:

1. Indian consumer,
2. data and digitisation
3. growing formalisation of economy
4. sustainability
5. selective infrastructure
6. nation building opportunities which go well with the Tata brand. 

The concept led to the creation of a new company, Tata Digital, which essentially targets e-commerce through a Super App. Clearly, Chandra is clearly putting his tech background to good use. 

The results are there to see, already, and more is in the anvil.

1. Market capitalisation of Tata Group companies has more than doubled in 4years.
2. Spectacular turnaround in the flagship Tata Steel, which is now one of the lowest-cost steel producers in the world. Efforts are on to streamline and trim the Euro operations. But most importantly, the Indian operations now generate 2/3rds of their revenues, and obscene levels of profit ( up from 1/3rd just 5 years ago). Also the debt on their books has been hugely trimmed. The acquisition of the defunct Bhushan Steel assets, to augment capacity by 25% was a master-stroke, considering that the grounds-up replacement cost of a similar new capacity could easily have been 2X.
3. From a staid, also-ran, producer of passenger vehicles, Tata Motors has come a long way in the last 4 years. Debt has been hugely trimmed. Old models of cars have given way to swanky new ones that appeal to the senses of the youth and aspiring middle class, without compromising much on quality. Today, Tata Motors has announced the spin-off of passenger cars into a separate company, with over $1Bn funding coming in from an overseas investor, for a big foray into Electric Vehicles, widely perceived as the future of transportation.
4. Ditto with TataPower - proposed doubling of capacity in 4 years, and a massive debt reduction spree
5. The consumer group has been hugely revamped. Tata Consumers has usurped many disparate smaller players in the food and beverages business, into one entity. To complete the transformation, the Tatas recently bought over BigBasket, a major retail stores chain, with a significant domestic online presence, to take on the likes of Amazon and Reliance. The crown jewel here could well turn out to be Tata Digital, which promises to give a seamless experience for consumers of all Tata Products, seamlessly, on a single digital platform. 
6. Other group companies have joined the turnaround bandwagon - Indian Hotels, Taj GVK, Tata Chemicals, Tata Investment Corporation, to name a few.  
7. Chandra has embarked on a massive simplification of businesses within the 150-year old corporate house. In 2019, Chandra created 10 clusters that will house key companies of the group. Many steps under this strategy were taken. Chandra had hired more than 10 CEOs and empowered them to run the group companies with clear goals set. This was almost like the Warren-Buffet model of governance, as it were. 
8. Tata Sons undertook a serious exercise to not only reduce cross-holding among group companies but also increase their stake in some companies, to demonstration conviction and better governance.
   
   

Under his four years as Chairman, the group has seen a simpler structure, a massive debt reduction drive, a push towards digitisation, and a few strategic acquisitions on the way. Expect more, in the coming days.

Some of the challenges still linger.

1. Expand and yet reduce debt.
2. Bring synergies into the business and scale up, especially in the retail segment, to take on the big boys, and go beyond.
3. The loss-making Corus takeover over either needs to be reshaped or shaken off. It is putting Tata Steel's otherwise pristine balance under pressure. Attempts to hive off/ restructure have failed, so far.
4. The domestic passenger car market is still dominated by Maruti, and TaMo needs to get more aggressive than ever before. and time is running out on the first-mover advantage for EVs.
5. Debts from State Govts for Tata Power , continue to pull it down, and there is no end in sight, the Govt's  UDAY(Ujwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana) scheme notwithstanding.
6. The recent Tata foray into the airline business has not exactly been stellar. AirAsia and Vistara continue to bleed. And now, the third, the prodigal son- Air India-  has come back home. It remains to be seen how the Tata will actually turn these three around, and start making money, and when. 
7. Tata Teleservices and Tata Communications have not exactly covered themselves in glory, so far, but I expect some streamlining to happen soon.

Chandra chugs along, though, unfazed. Totally focused on the humungous tasks ahead. The good thing is - he has the carte blanche from the Tata Sons Board. Clearly, the Tatas appear to be poised to go from strength to strength under Chandra, and, in the process be a significant player in nation-building, something that was close to the heart of founder Jamshedji Rowrojee Tata, as well as the illustrious JRD (Jeh) Tata. 

One year into his tenure, Chandra, in his year-end message to employees,  had furthered his 'One Tata' strategy embarking on a plan of simplifying, synergising, and scaling. Chandra, an avid Marathoner, surely walks the talk, nee - runs the talk.