Tata brand yet to make a global splash: Morgen Witzel, UK’s Winthrop Group

MUMBAI: It is one of the largest conglomerates in India and is present in a wide variety of businesses in India and abroad. It’s foreign footprint is growing sharply and now earns as much as 65% of its total revenue from across the borders. But outside the country, there is very little knowledge of the Tata brand.

This despite the group having made some large acquisitions in the recent past including Jaguar Rover and Corus, says business historian and senior consultant with UK’s Winthrop Group, Morgen Witzel.

“Even in countries such as the UK, where the group has its strongest presence outside India, few know much about the brand or what it stands for,” Mr Witzel told ET a day before the launch of his book, ‘Tata: The evolution of a corporate brand’.

In a recent list of major acquisitions made by Indian companies in the UK, a leading media house didn’t mention Tata Tea’s acquisition of UK brand Tetley. The beverages unit of the Tata group had bought out Tetley in 2000 for about £270 million.

The book tries to describe the various attributes of the conglomerate and which are reflected in the brand. “Trust and reliability are the two consistent factors that have crept up in the course of my meetings with various executives from the Tata Group,” said Mr Witzel who visited most of the group’s units including Jamshedpur, to speak to people working in various group companies and to customers.

The book on the Tata brand comes at a time when the conglomerate has faced challenges in various fields, the latest being that in Corus, a subsidiary of Tata Steel. The group which was forced to temporarily close down a unit of Corus, Teesside, faced a hostile reaction for its move which is said to affect about 1,600 jobs.

While the group has persisted with its plan for Teesside, the move has sparked speculation that the Mumbai-based conglomerate now wants to assert itself, the people added.