Ratan Tata, Chairman Emeritus of the Tata Group, on Wednesday said he was looking to increase his personal investments and felt that the fledgling e-commerce sector had great potential for growth in India.

Avoiding a direct reply to a question on whether he was considering a personal investment in e-tailer Snapdeal he said that “e-commerce was (a) hot” business proposition in the country with over a billion people trying to access products and services without difficulty. “You can just walk away with what you want. This adds new dimension in a huge market,” he explained during a conversation with the Ladies Study Group members here.

He confessed that among the takeovers during his regime at Tata House, Jaguar and Land Rover were closest to his heart. However, initially many people thought it was a “stupid” decision, but people called it “courageous” later on.

He said he had to personally allay the apprehensions of Jaguar and Land Rover staff that its production units would be razed to build real estate properties and tandoori restaurants.

Global visibility The industrialist said he could make the Tata brand visible globally. “During Russi Mody’s time, the first attempt to make the brand visible was taken up by Tata Steel with the catch line ‘We also make steel’. We carried it forward and created one common brand and logo, along with a common code of conduct.”

Tata Group, he said, was facilitating a joint venture with Massachusetts Institute of Technology and IIT Mumbai for the Tata Centre for Creative and Frugal Engineering. He was personally interested in seeing the project take off as Design Engineering had been his favourite subject as a student of architecture.

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