July 2026 | 908 words | 2-minute read
In the 1970s, the Tata group named their ambitious watch project Titan Watches, the word, Titan, being an acronym for Tata Industries (TI) and Tamil Nadu (TAN), the two partners in the venture.
Could there be a more fitting name for a company born out of the vision and resolve of Tata group Chairman JRD Tata and founding MD Xerxes Desai, both titans of industry?
A winning partnership
Titan Watches was born in 1984 as a joint venture between the Tata group and Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO), which had a license to manufacture watches.
Beginning with watches, the company diversified into jewellery with Tanishq. A series of challenges and misses at this point could have spelt an end to the business and even the company. But the determination of the two titans breathed fresh life into the company, helping it to beat its challenges and grow to add other allied businesses to its ever-growing portfolio.
Sluggish times
In the 1970s, the watch market was ruled by two Indian names, both of whom made sturdy and conventional mechanical watches. In those days, businesses were subject to the guidelines of the Licence Raj, making every business effort and initiative a huge challenge.
Watches were treated as a luxury item, and watch buyers found themselves on long waiting lists. Foreign watch brands were smuggled into the country. In fact, gold and watches were contraband items.
The few watch manufacturers in the market produced 1½ million watches every year. In a scenario in which the middle class was getting increasingly aspirational, the watch market was worth at least 30 million watches per year. It was clear that there was a market for smart-looking, branded watches.
Mr Desai was quick to see the opportunity available in the insufficiency. Despite the challenge of doing business in the stifling License Raj, he stepped up to the task, motivated by the backing of JRD, who trusted Mr Desai’s vision and provided wholehearted support.
Staying the course
The first task that the Tatas were up against was finding a technical collaborator to work on the most crucial part of the watch: the movement of the hands, which is critical to the functioning of an analogue watch. There were five large integrated watchmakers then who could have supplied the technical know-how to the Tatas, but most of them were already working in collaboration with other companies. The Swiss watchmakers were unwilling to share their technical know-how.
“There was one man who thought that the effort should not be slackened. That was JRD Tata.” - Xerxes Desai
It was Iravatham Mahadevan, whom Xerxes Desai had helped when he was running Tata Press, who came up with a way out. In 1979, he had been appointed Chairman and MD of TIDCO. Mr Mahadevan called Mr Desai from Madras (now Chennai) to say that they were in talks with French movement manufacturer, France Ebauches, but that they were looking for a joint-venture partner. Would Tata Press be interested?
Here was the breakthrough they had all been waiting for. Subsequently, when François Perret, President of France Ebauches, came to Bombay House to seal the deal, JRD not only signed off on the deal but also, being fluent in French, conducted the final negotiations smoothly.
When the French company quoted a fee that seemed too high, JRD agreed to the fee, but negotiated a better deal in exchange for the fee. He asked for more intensive training for the workforce.
But even after the deal was signed, hurdles arose; the Tata group was denied permission to make watches as the government had reserved the sector for public and small-scale industries. The nine years that followed were a period when the team found themselves struggling in the face of government bureaucracy, industrial licensing restrictions and entrenched incumbents. This was a period of misses and near-hits.
Speaking of that struggle, Mr Desai spoke of several occasions when they came close to “abandoning the effort.” But always, the conviction of Chairman JRD Tata motivated the team to keep going. In Mr Desai’s words, “There was one man who thought that the effort should not be slackened. That was JRD Tata.”
Under the direction of JRD, the team stayed the course, tackling one problem after another, until their hard work was rewarded.
A city for Titan
Hosur, a small town in Tamil Nadu, was chosen to be the site for Titan’s watch factory. The company hired young men and women from nearby districts and trained them to do precision work. Simultaneously, the group brought in pioneering architect and urban planner Charles Correa to design Hosur township and build housing and educational and community infrastructure for the new workforce. JRD dedicated the new complex to the nation in March 1988.
The birth of Titan Watches created excitement from the get-go. Its watches, built with the latest quartz technology, designed with attention to style and design excellence and available at reasonable prices, were a bestseller. When the company printed an ad in the newspaper with photos of the new watches that had been launched, customers showed up at the stores with clips of the ad.
Today, Titan Company is a jewel in the Tata group, a highly valued brand, and a favourite of customers. The spirit of entrepreneurship and boldness, exemplified by JRD, continues to influence the company in its bold forays towards reinvention.
- Cynthia Rodrigues
Photographs courtesy Tata Central Archives
