“Ratan Tata outperformed JRD. He toppled people as strong as Russi Mody, thought out of the box and came up with path-breaking concepts like the Nano,” – Bala V Balachandran, faculty member at Kellogg School of Management.

Ratan Tata was born to Naval Tata, a successful businessman since British rule in India.  Ratan Tata was a highly educated professional. He holds a Bachelors degree in Architecture from the Cornell University, USA, and has pursued and Advanced Management Program from the Harvard Business School, USA. Ratan, after completing his higher studies returned to India and turned down a job at IBM on JRD Tata’s advice and joined the Tata Group in 1962, for which he was sent to Jamshedpur to work on the shop floor at Tata Steel, just one of several thousand employees.

Ratan Tata’s first success as a thoughtful business leader came in the year 1971 when he was made the Director of National Radio and Electronics (Nelco). During those days, Nelco was struggling hard with the losses of 40% and a market share of meagre 2%. Under the guidance of Ratan Tata, Nelco, soon claimed the 25% share of the consumer electronics market. Just when he turned it around, the blow, however, came in 1975 when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency, which led to an economic recession. Acute union problems in 1977 ensured a strike and an eventual lockout. Though Ratan Tata continued to believe in the fundamental soundness of Nelco, the venture did not survive.

In the year 1977, Ratan was entrusted with the next assignment of nurturing a loss making unit – Empress Mill into a profitable one. He did turn it around to some extent but to make it fully profitable, he needed a needed an investment of Rs.50 lakhs which was refused to him from the management. And finally the unit was closed.

With this, Ratan’s second shot at glory had also failed. But it did not stop or undermine him. He emerged as a winner. Under his stewardship, Tata Tea acquired Tetley, Tata Motors acquired Jaguar Land Rover and Tata Steel acquired Corus, which have turned Tata from a largely India-centric company into a global business, with 65% revenues coming from abroad.

Putting aside lot of internal hue and cries, JRD Tata declared Ratan Tata his successor in 1981 and Ratan had to face criticism since people believed that he’s not experienced enough to handle a business of the scale that of like the Tata Industries. After ten years of his entry into the Tata Industries, he was appointed the Chairman of the Tata Group. With Ratan’s appointment, The Tata Group reached absolutely new heights which had never been experienced by this group earlier. Under his direction, the company went through several different entrepreneurial ventures. Under him Tata Consultancy Services went public and Tata Motors was listed in the New York Stock Exchange. In 1998, Tata Motors came up with Tata Indica, the first truly Indian car. The car was the brainchild of Ratan Tata.

One of Ratan’s biggest contributions has been converting a ragtag and slumbering conglomerate with overlapping businesses across multiple companies into a cohesive group which became battle-ready to face the challenges of an economy that was opening up in the early 1990s. So the group got out of businesses such as cement, textiles and cosmetics, even as it increased its focus on others such as software, and entered telecommunications, finance and retail.

There were hardly any red marks in the group’s financial scorecard in the 21 years that he was at the helm of the Tata group, till December 2012.

In his final year as chairman, Ratan Tata has been keen to foster innovation. In order to show that failure is an increasingly central part of any business strategy, a unique annual competition has been instituted: a prize for the best failed idea. By recognizing failure and even rewarding it, Ratan Tata was keen to show that failures are likely in the pursuit of innovation.

Ratan Tata was honored with Padma Bhushan, one of the highest civilian awards in 2000 and is the true jewel of the Tata Group that has made it shine as a corporate brand.