We all know how popular and good Ratan Tata was in terms of business and humanity. His contribution and initiatives to help the Indian economy grow are tremendous. One fine morning while Ratan Tata was about to visit his office, he saw a family of 4 riding the bike with unsafe measures and lacking precautions. Instantly, he analyzed that situation and wanted to provide them with happiness and safety both together.
*Imagine a family of 4 on a bike ?
*How risky and unsafe is it ?
*What if they fall down or have an accident?
*Can you imagine the pain of those families?
*How uncomfortable and adjusting is it ?
These thoughts have made Ratan Tata promise a car worth 1 Lakh. He wanted to make the middle class society happy, safe and comfortable. Most of the bikes were sold up to 50,000 to 70,000. What if Tata group provides a car worth 1 lakh? When Ratan Tata promised the launch of Nano, all the media provided free support and marketing. It was a big shock to many car brands. The free publicity which Nano received was astonishing. Few players have reacted with humour, saying how is it possible or extremely difficult to prepare, but Tata never backed down. His promise and words were respected not due to his business but his integrity and quality.
The Journey.
Ratan Tata took this challenge personally as few people praised it and few criticized it. He called his engineering team and asked them to prepare the design. Their team prepared 80 patent models by cutting the costs and reducing to minimal requirements. It was extremely difficult and many said Tata had taken this decision with emotions rather than business.
We all know Ratan Tata's commitment was to never back away from his words. Finally, they prepared the design, but the real challenge came up when nano manufacturing went through massive protests in West Bengal. Mamata Banerjee staged massive protests across Nandigram and Singur as poor people's land was being occupied.
After seeing such narrative, Ratan Tata shifted his manufacturing unit to Gujarat.
He claimed a 1400 crore loss and asked for compensation as the Tata group had to shift. After shifting, the brand was launched with 1 lakh rupees for the basic model as promised, but for the premium model, it was extended to almost 2 lakh rupees. Around 2 lakh cars were sold, but after which, eventually, the sales were reduced. In India, cars are respected. The Nano only provided comfort and safety but couldn't provide respect as people called it a cheap and less priced car. Few individuals called it Auto and few called it a small car.
Sometimes doing welfare and charity can harm the business and its values. The idea of comfort, safety, happiness was great, but the car and society's acceptance have made Nano close its shop. Ratan Tata has provided great contributions, but Tata Nano failed in the market due to society and its reputation only.
