Change is continuous at Bombay House. With the unfettering of the economy, the clearing of cobwebs began at the epicentre of the wide and diversified Rs 45,000 crore Tata empire. The dismantling of the zamindaris and a succession of scandals notwithstanding, Tata group chairman Ratan Tata has tried to change the focus of the disparate group. An attempt has been made to give a direction to the conglomerate. Commodities are history, as brands and services are at the vanguard of the charge.

Many opportunities have been missed (the public float of TCS), but the percentage share of brand driven segments in sales turnover has ramped up from 19% to 53% over the last decade. The percentage share of the brand driven segment in profit after tax has risen from 20% to 74% during the period.

A series of events took place to rationalise the group’s businesses. For instance the amalgamation of Tata Electric companies, Tata Steel’s power units to Tata Power, Voltas’ chemicals business to Rallis, Petrodyne from Tata Industries to Tata Power, acquisition of Unisys' stake in Tata Unisys, spinning off the non-core activities in Tata Engineering et al.

But Ratan Tata is concerned about several issues not the least being developing talent internally. Telecom and IT are dominating his mental space. That is why the operational consolidation of group telecom services and supporting infrastructure in leased and owned networks remains a priority. Similarly, the thrust in IT enabled services and the design and application development services.

But there are other challenges— the price warrior Indigo in the C segment has to be pump primed even as operation Indica has stabilised and stopped bleeding. Questions continue to be asked about the integrated telecom play that the Tatas want to unleash, banking on the fact that a converged license is the future and extricating the group from the debilitating Tata Finance scandal.

At the same time, he has ensured that the shareholding in group companies has been upped to realistic levels.

As non-executive chairman, Ratan Tata now has the enviable task of both making a success the new Indigo and getting the timing of the TCS public issue right. A somnolent capital market is obviously not helping matters.