Tata Industries likely to re-evaluate business strategy, focus only on scalable businesses

Tata Industries, the investment holding subsidiary of Tata Sons, may re-evaluate its future business strategy following a group directive by Tata Sons to focus only on scalable businesses and not incubate any new businesses without its approval.

In recent times, Tata Sons has been merging small businesses housed in various Tata group companies that have been non scalable and unprofitable for a long time. Capital allocation, efficiency and scale are critical to be competitive in the marketplace, top officials close to the development said.

Tata Industries was traditionally set up to incubate new businesses for Tata group, but in recent years Tata Sons has directly set up new scalable businesses such as Tata Digital, Tata Electronics, merged aviation entities with Air India and set up Tata Batteries . Tata Industries and Tata Sons did not comment for this story.

Recently, Tata Industries hived off its startup businesses such as Tata Cliq, Tata Cliq Luxury, Tata CLIQ Palette and Tata Health into Tata Digital as part of a move to consolidate scalable ecommerce entities under one roof. Tata Digital runs the Tata Neu superapp and is the holding company for e-grocer Big Basket, Croma and 1 mg among others.

Tata Industries traditionally incubated business ventures in areas such as control systems, IT, financial services, auto components, aerospace and defence, telecom hardware and telecommunication services, amongst several others. Some of these startups includes Tata Cliq, Tata Health, Inzpera Life Sciences, Flisom Solar Modules, Tata Strategic Management Group, Tata IQ, Tata Class Edge and Studi under its wing. Tata CLiQ operates in categories such as Fashion, Footwear and Accessories.

In November 2021, Tata Consumer Products acquired Tata SmartFoodz from Tata Industries Limited while Tata Advanced Materials has been moved into Tata Aerospace. Employees in all these start-ups have been shifted and moved into group businesses according to their experience and skills.

Currently, Tata Industries houses Inzpera Life Sciences, Tata Strategic Management Group, Tata Insights&Quants and Tata Class Edge.