EE204: Business Management for
Electrical Engineers and Computer Scientists

Tata Nano - The People's Car

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Case Summary

The case explores how Tata Motors, India's largest automobile company, developed the Nano, the world's cheapest car. The case focuses on the translation of Ratan Tata's (Chairman of Tata Motors) vision of a safe affordable car for the masses by Ravi Kant, Managing Director of Tata Motors into the Nano Project. The case raises questions around breaking the price - quality barrier and changing existing internal processes to accommodate revolutionary new ideas. The dilemma of success - Tata Nano was a runaway bestseller - left Tata Motors debating how large a bet they should make on the Nano and what kind of capacity commitment this requires.

Discussion Questions

1. What drove Tata to commit to design an affordable car?
2. How did Tata leverage his network to produce the Nano?
3. What enabled Tata to produce a disruptive innovation from such a large company?
4. How would you describe Tata's leadership style? How is that different from Chairman Lee at Samsung or Steve Jobs at Apple? Is one leadership style better than the other? What role does culture play? What criteria should we use to measure leadership success? Do different cultures have different measures?
5. The case mentions a thin margin on the Tata Nano, estimate the break even point in units if Tata invests in plant capacity for an aggressive launch. Recommend your investment decision

Read the following three articles

1. Article 1
2. Article 2
3. Article 3
Is there anything in the case that would have lead you to foresee this outcome? Given these recent developments, how would you recommend Tata proceed?