With company veteran N Chandrasekaran taking over the reign of the Tata Sons chairman today, one of the fiercest board room battles in the country has been finally put to rest.
Even though interim chairman Ratan Tata and ousted chairman Cyrus Mistry will never be able to fully forget or forgive each-other — in terms of the Tata Group companies, the initial success of Chandrasekaran would be measured by how far he is able to keep Tata Sons unaffected from the controversies that have come to the fore due to the bitter power struggle at the top in the last few months.
It is his ability to keep controversies and confusions at bay that will be put to test to the full in the next few months till he firmly gains control of the Group’s affairs.
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Those who know him from close do think that he will be able to strike the balance between what Ratan Tata wants and what is in the benefit of different group entities – something that Mistry failed to do – whether he was right or wrong in doing that is a matter of subjective analysis.
To his advantage, he has been at the helm of affairs of the money spinner TCS for quite some time now, and in fact has turned the company to that level.
If he succeeds in replicating the TCS’s successful model in even some of the group firms in the steel, auto and hospitality domains; and handling the problems faced by it in the steel business in Europe, besides maintaining the JLR advantage; Chandrasekaran will certainly be considered a right choice at a crucial stage.
Though pushing all the companies to become industry leaders in their respective sectors, which he has outlined as his plan immediately after taking over, will not be an easy task, it is a good note to begin with.
But, while traversing this path, he needs to be extremely cautious about transparency and corporate governance standards, as the group will be under strict watch from all quarters, at least in the next few years due to the disclosures made by its previous chairman.
The Bombay House crown of the $100-billion salt-to-software conglomerate has quite a few thorns to be dealt with carefully by 53-year-old Chandrasekaran and despite Ratan Tata’s full support, the job will demand much more than what TCS did, especially in making all the decisions conform to the Tata core values, which at times appear to be against the pure business interests.
