The Tata invasion

The Financial Page

By James Surowiecki

updated 6:05 p.m. ET Jan. 21, 2008

Americans are used to foreign cars — nearly half of us, after all, drive one — but no American has yet seen a vehicle bearing the brand name Tata Motors tooling along the highway. So when, a few weeks ago, news broke that this same Tata Motors, an Indian auto company, was close to buying Jaguar and Land Rover, the first reaction of many was “Who?”

The implausibility of the bid was magnified when Tata rolled out its newest product, a tiny, stripped-down car that will sell for a mere $2,500. The spectacle of a low-end specialist trying to buy a couple of established luxury brands looked to some like a cubic-zirconium peddler making a play for Tiffany.

There’s no denying the audacity of Tata’s bid—the company has never sold a car in the U.S. — but there’s also no denying Tata’s distinguished pedigree: The parent company of Tata Motors (called the Tata Group) started in the 19th century, and, in the years since, its divisions have created India’s first steel mill, provided electricity to Mumbai, started the country’s first airline, and built its first locally made trains and automobiles.

Today, Tata is a huge conglomerate — 98 companies producing everything from tea to steel and solar power — with annual revenues of around $30 billion dollars and a chairman whom Fortune recently named one of the 25 most powerful people in business.

If Tata is so powerful, why have so few Americans heard of it? In large part, because so much of its fortune has been made selling to its home market and to other developing countries, rather than to the U.S. and Europe.

Historically, developing-country firms that have become global powerhouses—like Japanese companies decades ago or, more recently, Korean companies like Samsung — were companies that, in addition to dominating their domestic markets, were heavily oriented toward exports to the West. Tata — with some exceptions, such as its steel and consulting businesses — has taken a very different approach, becoming tremendously rich while selling to people who are still pretty poor.

Tata has been able to do this because of the way the global economy has changed. Even three decades ago, selling to the U.S. and Europe made sense, because that’s where all the money was. Most developing countries had only a minuscule upper class and a tiny middle class, and business conditions in these countries were difficult at best.

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