Ishan scratches beneath the surface to see if the resurgence at Tata is for real…

I had an interesting weekend in Goa in the middle of June. No, I wasn’t on holiday. I was there to attend the launch of the latest passenger car from Tata Motors – the Zest compact sedan. Now, to say that the Indian business of Tata Motors has been struggling for some time would be a gross understatement. Sure, Jaguar Land Rover is posting record numbers and profits – which is keeping the bottom line healthy – but Tata itself has been suffering. The reasons for which are quite straightforward actually. There was a lack of engineering integrity in the product line-up and, more worryingly, there was a complete lack of vision. And when you’re competing tooth-and-nail with the likes of Maruti-Suzuki, Hyundai, Honda, and Toyota, that’s akin to committing corporate suicide. But events on the ground in Goa seemed to suggest that the company may just have turned the corner. The most refreshing thing about the whole event was how open and honest the senior management was when discussing issuing about the brand and its products. Any talk of this nature would simply have been shunned and pushed under the carpet till very recently. If realization is the first step to recovery, then they’ve clearly begun the process. In fact, the top brass openly admitted to issues with the current product line-up and perception of the brand. And the plan to reshape the brand doesn’t lie purely with the Zest. Not only are there a full range of vehicles coming, but the company realizes that the entire customer experience has to be addressed – and they’ve been developing plans to do so for well over a year. The heartening thing was the acceptance from the people in charge – they clearly understood the scale of the problem, and had a plan in place to address it. After years of meandering, it seemed that there was finally a vision, and the groundwork was being laid to achieve it. There has long been a perception that owners of Tata vehicles also doubled up as company test drivers – or guinea pigs at the very least! The company would launch a vehicle and then depend on customer feedback to develop it into a finished product. Surprisingly, admission of this actually came from a senior Tata exec – which also amounts to recognition of the enormity of the task that lies ahead. Having driven the Zest (check out our review later in this issue), I can safely say that all this was far more than mere lip service. If the Zest is anything to go by, the company certainly seems to have learnt from the mistakes of the past and has its engineering integrity well and truly restored. They’ve put a massive amount of effort into this car – and it shows. The Zest, in fact, is good enough to challenge for the top spot in its segment – and it’s a very competitive one at that. This is certainly a product worthy of leading a resurgence – one that will hopefully see the Indian automaker finally go toe-to-toe with the best in the world.