One thing we noticed throughout India was a brand name called Tata. We saw it on the bottled water, tea and coffee in our hotel rooms. It was on vehicles: cars, trucks, and buses. There were billboards for Tata's high speed Internet service in Hyderabad (for a really, really good price!). I had a sense that Tata was big, a corporate giant, when we saw their massive building complex in the area of Hyderabad called HITEC City, which also included complexes for pretty much any other technology company you can name.
But I didn't know how big Tata was until after we had come back to the U.S. and did a little Internet about their corporate holdings. Guys, Tata is HUGE. Tata is like Big Brother. Tata is going to take over the world.
Our hotel in Mumbai, the Taj, was not only owned by Tata--it was the company's first project, opening in 1902. Within the next few years, Tata branched out into a bunch of other industries, like education and steel and electricity. They now have 93 hotels in India and 16 around the world.
In Italy, I had always giggled at the tiny 3-wheeled "trucks" I saw hauling goods into the narrow alleys of Rome; I was a bit puzzled when I saw the same little trucks around Mumbai. As it turns out, Tata bought Piaggo (an Italian company) in 2008.
Reading the list of Tata's acquisitions and holdings is dizzying. They bought Tetley Tea in 2000. In 2004, they bought Daewoo Commercial Vehicles. They own the Boston Ritz Carlton. They bought Jaguar and Land Rover in 2008. Steel, chemicals, information technology, airlines, salt, financial services...you get the point.
Go to your local grocery store, to the coffee and tea aisle. Pick up a box of Tetley Tea or Eight O'Clock Coffee, and Tata's logo will be staring back at you from the side of the package.
Tata is watching you.
