Tata Steel is planning to re-look at its new material business and exit some of them which are not scalable in the long run. The company was bullish on the new material business until recently and wanted to develop it as a hedge for cyclical steel business.

Tata Steel has set a target to generate 10 per cent of the revenue from new materials by 2025 and enhanced its research and development strength with over 200 researchers besides collaborating with 40 institutes.

TV Narendran, Managing Director, Tata Steel in an interview with businessline said the company is going have a relook at the new material business to evaluate whether it is worth to continue pursuing it further.

“I think that is the call we are taking because for us it is important to be in businesses which can scale up. Being ₹2.50 lakh crore company, anything we build needs to be scalable. Otherwise it becomes too small for us to give it the importance that it may deserve,” he said.

The company is rethinking some of the plans and may prune the ambitions a bit while sticking to businesses that can be scaled up, he said.

Not everything that the company had looked at can be scaled up and the process of evaluating the business will be completed in the next three to six months after which a final call will be taken, said Narendran.

However, he added, at present the business is going on, but the portfolio is being reviewed.

Tata Steel has developed new materials business around Fibre Reinforced Polymer Composites and Graphene.

The company has adopted an asset-light model through partnerships and collaborations to develop FRP products that cater to automotive, industrial, infrastructure and railway sectors. The FRP solutions includes street light poles, pressure vessels, pipes, modular toilets, chemical tanks and foot over bridges.

The company has established Tata Steel Advanced Materials Research Centres at Chennai in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and another at Bengaluru, in collaboration with the Centre for Nano and Soft Matter Sciences. The objective of these Centres is to work closely with academia and other centres of expertise to strengthen the portfolio of advanced material research and its applications.

The company has developed Graphene as the super material of the future and it is 300 times stronger than steel. It has various applications across wearables, personal tech space, medical, rubber and paper industries. It has many potential applications, including in materials handling, textiles and packaging.

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