India’s Tata vaulted into the global spotlight a few years ago when it began making a series of high- profile acquisitions, from the four-star Pierre hotel in New York to Anglo-Dutch steelmaker Corus to, more recently, luxury carmaker Jaguar Land Rover. But then the world economy swooned, and the $85 billion conglomerate found itself losing customers and buried under a pile of debt. Time to put innovation initiatives on ice, it might seem. The company’s chairman, 72-year-old Ratan Tata, doesn’t see it that way. In his 2009 message to Tata’s 320,000 employees, he urged them on: “Cut costs. Think out of the box. Even if the world around you is collapsing, be bold, be daring, think big.” The boss is getting his way. Tata Motors has turned itself into the talk of the global automotive industry with its $2,000 minicar, the Nano, which goes on sale in India this month, and is far along in developing a follow-up, a low-priced electric vehicle. Meanwhile, Tata Chemicals is working on a low-cost antimicrobial water system that uses no electricity, and a UV-blocking nanomaterial that keeps paint from getting bleached by sunlight. And Tata Power is planning to unveil soon an advance in a smart electricity grid.

Questions

1. What kind of decision making does Ratan Tata engage in?

2. Do you think Tata is a learning organization? Why or why not?

3. How does Tata encourage its employees to be intrapreneurs?

4. Why does Tata have annual employee awards for the most outstanding innovations as well as for employees who tried to develop a promising new idea and failed?