The making of India's GE

Since early years under Thomas Edison to this day with Jeffrey R. Immelt, General Electric (GE) has been one of the most important company throughout US industrialization. GE's has rich corporate history & is a very big conglomerate with business from Media, to Commercial Finance, to Consumer Finance, to Healthcare, to Industrial, to Infrastructure. All this enable it to develop, manufacture and market a variety of products which range from aircraft engines to cutting edge health care systems to electricity. These capabilities & successes with world class management, sincerity towards corporate citizenship has always kept it as the worlds most admired company.

If someone looks at Indian corporate today, one can't help but notice the striking similarities between GE and Tata Group. Since Jamsedji Tata, Tata group has been in the fore front of Indian economic landscape. Tata's as a group undoubtedly enjoy number uno position among India corporate houses. They have businesses interest from Telecoms to automobiles; Software’s to cements, Investments to hotels, Tea to Steel. Just like GE, Tatas also command respect not only because of been a big industrial house but also because of been agents of change in India and for people of India.

But there is one striking difference between the two, GE is a much bigger corporate compared to Tatas. Slowly but surely this difference is also fading. With Mr. Tatas’ current push towards taking his group companies to top position can not be overlooked or overstated. The seeds of change and desire to be top global companies can now be seen in all Tata group compaines.

Tata Steel is now world 5th largest steel company thanks to acquisition of Corus; with brands like Tetley & Good Earth Tata Tea is second largest branded tea player globally; Tata Motors with Nano and Indica car design under it belt is taking a shot at JLR; Indian Hotel is also gunning for tie-up with Oriental Express Hotel to be a player in hospitality sector. TCS is already India's number one (and hence worlds) top s/w outsourcing company having big plans in area of business consulting, engineering design services & KPO/BPO sectors.

Tata group companies have changed at remarkable pace in last coupled of year. The shift is not only in the range (local to global) or sectors (traditional to high growth) but also in the manner in which they operate. Tatas are changing from been a slow paced business house to fast & much more nimble corporate. The aim of Tata group has changed from been best in India to been among the top players in the world.
To achieve this, they are changing their old conservative business approach for new.
Tatas now seem to be ready to play the game by the new rules. From solely replying on internal resources and its own reserves, cashflow for growth, they are ready to take a shot at top slot using much higher leveraged positions external debts and tie-ups. All this change might actually look risky especially in current times of financial turmoil, but if successful will give India its own General Electric soon and later.