If you’ve had the pleasure to visit India, you would be more than aware of Tata Motors, as it would seem that every other car, van, truck and bus on their very crowded roads are a Tata.

Known as Tata Engineering and Locomotive Company in 1945 when founded by Jamsetji (JRD) Tata, the company was originally involved in heavy engineering and building trains. Wanting to diversify, they changed their name to Tata Motor Limited and in 1954 entered the commercial vehicle sector by forming a joint venture with Daimler-Benz. In 1988 they entered the passenger vehicle market with the release of the TataMobile, which they followed up with the Tata Sierra in 1991.

It was also in 1991 that after guiding the company for 46 years, Tata’s founder and chairman, JRD Tata handed the reigns over to his great grandson Ratan Tata, who at 54 years of age went about transforming Tata Motors from an Indian centric company into a global conglomerate.

During his 21 years as Chairman of Tata Group, Ratan Tata grew the company’s revenue by more than 40 times and profits by more than 50 times through international acquisitions like Tata Tea acquiring Tetley, Tata Motors acquiring Daewoo Commercial Vehicles Company and Jaguar Land Rover, and the company listing on the New York Stock Exchange.

By all accounts Ratan Tata is a modest and humble man who is known for his business ethics and philanthropy, so I was intrigued to watch the following video which looks at a couple of dealings Tata Motors had with Ford Motor Company.