 |
| Ratan N Tata, Chairman, Tata Trusts |
Ratan Tata, chairman-Emeritus of Tata Sons, on Tuesday, called for better co-operation and collaboration within the corporate sector.
Addressing the members of Madras Management Association after receiving the MMA Amalgamations Business Leadership Award 2014, he said “the corporate world has to exist side by side, complement each other and move together to make the country rise. Whenever this has ceased to happen, the nations of sort have tumbled economically or moved to a direction of being dictators of banana republic or creating crony capitalism.”
It was difficult to get 20 business leaders in a room, he said. Even then, they would only talk about their companies. They won’t take a position on India as a whole and what they could do or what they could provide to the new India. “Indian business world seems to - unlike the spectrum of business people elsewhere in the world - envy or frown on success. The net result is that we tend to pull each other down needlessly whereas in other countries you see business is pulling together,” he added.
Mr Tata said that industries and government should collaborate in a proactive manner for growth and prosperity. Government and corporate sector had a combined task of moving the country ahead.
Government had the role of improving infrastructure, creating environment for its people, giving them security, safety and opportunity for growth based on meritocracy. Corporates have to be entrepreneurial and they have to generate the spirit that drives the country.
Asked about his vision for India, he said that he would like to see an India where all Indians had equal opportunity, where one could find job based on his capability and where everybody had equal opportunity.
When his comments were sought on the auto sector, he said that the auto industry had grown because of the growth of the international companies in India. Yet, the Indian car industry and component sector survived.
“We should be bolder and should think bigger than what we are and should have the confidence to know that we can grow.
“The potential in the country is enormous. It is for us to grasp, and we should not confine to India alone but go to the international markets. We got all the ingredients. We should exploit,” he added.
“We should try to lead, not to follow, even as a nation also. We are in the threshold of e-tailing. India can possibly teach the world how to be a successful enterprise. We don’t have to learn things from the western world only,” he pointed out.
This article was first published in The Hindu, August 19, 2014
