Tata began his career in the Tata group in 1961. He started on the shop floor of Tata Steel, shovelling limestone and handling the blast furnace. He could not turn around group companies, NELCO and Empress Mills, which he was given charge of in the 70s.

In 1991, JRD Tata stepped down as chairman of Tata Sons, naming him his successor. When he settled down into the new role, he faced stiff resistance from many company heads some of whom had spent years in their respective companies and rose to become very Powerful and influential due to the freedom to operate under JRD Tata.

He derived dosage them by setting a retirement age, and then made individual companies report operationally to the group office and made each production some of their profit to build and use the Tata group brand. Innovation was given priority and younger talent was infused and given share . Under his stewardship, overlapping operations in group companies were streamlined into a synergised whole, with the salt-to-software group exiting unrelated businesses to take on the onslaught of globalisation.

During the 21 years he led the Tata Group, 40 years, and profit, over 50 times. Where sales of the group as a whole, overwhelmingly came from commodities when he took over, the majority sales came from lobby when he exited . He boldly got Tata Tea to acquire Tetley, Tata Motors to acquire Jaguar Land Rover and Tata Steel to acquire Corus. All this turned Tata from a large India-centric group into a global business, with over 65% cent coming from operations and sales In over 100 countries. He conceptualized the Tata Nano car. As he explained in a recent interview for the Harvard Business School’s Creating Emerging Markets project, the development of the Tata Nano was significant because it helped put goods at a price-point within reach of The average Indian consumer.

Recently, he invested his personal savings in Snapdeal – one of India’s leading e-commerce website and in Jan 2016 made an undisclosed funding in Teabox — an online store selling premium Indian Tea  and CashKaro.com — an online discount coupons and cashback website. Ratan Tata has been making small investments in both early and late stage companies in India. He made investments of INR 0.95 Cr in Ola Cabs and INR 1 Cr in Paytm. In April 2015, it was reported that Tata had acquired a stake in Chinese smartphone startup Xiaomi, with specific terms undisclosed. In October 2015, he partnered with American Express in investing in Bitcoin venture Abra. In Jan 2016, it was reported that Ratan Tata invested in an online Pet care portal called Dogspot.

Board & Advisor Roles

List of entities associated with Tata Group

Companies with TATA name

Subsidiary companies of the Tata Group and joint ventures using ‘TATA’ in their names includ e:

• Tata AIA — an insurance based joint-venture company with American International Group.
• Tata Capital — a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Sons Limited, the apex holding company of the Tata Group.
• Tata Communications (aka: Tata VSNL} — a communication company
• Tata Consulting Engineers Limited (aka: TCE Consulting Engineers Ltd)— engineering, design, and consulting firm for diverse types of infrastructure and industrial developments. Specializes in power/energy sector.
• Tata Consultancy Services — Asia’s largest IT company and world’s largest software and services company
• Tata DoCoMo — a GSM based mobile company with alliance with NTT docomo
• Tata Chemicals
• Tata Defence
• Tata Elxsi — a Tata IT company.
• Tata Global Beverages, the world’s second largest tea business.
  • Tetley — subsidiary of Tata Global Beverages
• Tata Housing Development Company, Real estate development company
  • Tata Value Homes Limited — 100% Subsidiary of Tata Housing, operating in value and affordable segments
• Tata Insights and Quants Division — a division of Tata Industries Limited, an analytics and big data initiative by Tata Group.
• Tata Interactive Systems (TIS) — a provider of performance support systems and e-learning platforms.
• Tata Marcopolo Motors
• Tata Motors — India’s largest & the world’s 5th largest automobile company.
  Tata Motors’ principal subsidiaries includ e:
  • Tata Motors Cars — produces passenger cars under the Tata Motors marque
  • Jaguar Land Rover — British company making Jaguar Cars and Land Rover (including Range Rover) vehicles
  • Fiat-Tata — former joint venture with Fiat which manufactured Fiat and Tata branded vehicles, and automotive components.
  • Tata Daewoo
  • Tata Hispano — coach builder
  • Tata Hitachi Construction Machinery
  • Tata Marcopolo
  • Tata Technologies
• Tata Power — India’s largest private sector electricity producer
• Tata Power Solar
• Tata Salt
• Tata Sky — a Direct To Home service company in alliance with British Sky Broadcasting and Newscorporations STAR
• Tata Starbucks
• Tata Steel, World’s 12th largest steel company.
  • Tata Steel Europe, formerly Corus group
• Tata Technologies
• Tata Teleservices — India’s second largest CDMA telecom company.
• Tata CLiQ — e-commerce website, selling apparel, footwear and electronics.

Subsidiaries without TATA name

Subsidiary companies of the Tata Group and joint ventures without ‘TATA’ used in their names includ e:

• Brunner Mond — subsidiary of Tata Chemicals
• C-Edge Technologies — TCS-SBI joint venture
• CMC Limited — computer maintenance corporation, IT services + consulting, and software company
• Computational Research Laboratories — Tata initiative in high performance computing
• The Dhamra Port Company Limited
• e-Nxt Financials ltd. — enterprise solutions provider
• Infiniti Retail Cromā
• Jaguar Land Rover — British car manufacturer, formed when Tata Motors acquired Jaguar and Land Rover from US multinational Ford in 2008
• Mjunction — a Tata Steel & SAIL Joint venture – India’s Largest B2B E-Commerce company
• Rallis India Limited — an agricultural research company
• Taj Air Chartered flights
• Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces — owner of ‘Taj’ hotels
• Tanishq — a jewelry brand in India
• Tetley — UK based international tea brand
• Titan Industries – a joint watchmaking venture in India between the Tata Group and the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO)
• Trent (Westside) – a retail chain
• TRL Krosaki Refractories Limited – a refractory company, formerly Tata Refractories Limited with Krosaki Harima Corporation.
• Voltas
• Vistara – an Indian airline that is a joint venture with Singapore Airlines
• VSNL International Canada – based in Canada