In a recent study by HR and consulting giant Hay Group, India Inc’s very own Tata Group was amongst the top 10 companies for leadership in India. At the top of the group was Samsung, followed by Toyota and Uniliver. Tata Group grabbed 5th position overall.
The survey by Hay Group included insights from more than 7,000 respondents from more than 100 countries and 2,300 organizations. Other companies that got ranked in the top ten were Sony Corporation, Nestle and Petronas to name a few.
Worldwide, General Electric topped the list with Procter & Gamble and IBM coming 2nd and 3rd respectively, followed by Microsoft, Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Accenture and a few others.
Uniliver, IBM and Coca-cola were the companies that were featured in the list of top 10 leadership firms in Asia and Worldwide.
The primary reason for Tata Group being featured in the study was its ability to churn out innovations.
From Tata Nano by Tata Motors to Tata Salt by Tata Chemicals and to softwares for farmers developed by TCS, the Tata Group has pioneered groundbreaking products that have made an impact on the lives of people not only in India, but around the world. These innovations happen as a result of willingness of the leadership to forgo short-term gains for long term goals.
Vanessa Cen, Hay Group’s leadership & talent practice leader for Northeast Asia noted "The ability to translate future trends into new product offerings has kept Asia’s best ahead of competition. The willingness to bite the bullet now by putting off short-term gains to continue innovation investment is their hallmark. Coupled with their organizational resilience, this enables them to bounce back quickly from setbacks,"
While the Hay Group survey may have put Tata Group amongst the top leadership firms in Asia, the lineage of leaders in Tata could very well be the best in the world. Many of them have been pioneers and visionaries who have had the ability and courage to make a change in the lives of the average Indian. The group itself was founded in 1868 by Jamsetji Tata, who was known as the Father of Indian Industry.
Tata Group today operates more than 110 companies in more than 80 countries. Just managing operations of such a scale is a mammoth task, let alone thinking about leadership and innovation.
It would only be fair to say that the leadership lineage at the help of this massive ship is a prime example of great personalities who have played a major role in development and growth of India Inc.