 A very good evening ladies and gentlemen. My name is Harish Pat and I am the brand custodian at Tata Sons. It's my pleasure and privilege to address all of you at the India brand conclave this evening. I want to start by asking all of you a question. So, how old or how young the Tata brand is? If you do, you have come to a conclusion, put down the number of years on paper. The Tata brand this year, ladies and gentlemen, is 154 years of age. It was founded in the year 1868. The Tata group was founded in 1868 by a Parsi merchant of this very city, Mumbai, Jamsherji Tata. But the question I have for all of you is, how many brands can you think of? How many Indian brands or how many global brands can you think of which are more than 150 years old? I'm going to pause for half a minute because I really want to give you time to think of brands which are more than 150 years of age. All of you are marketers here. Some of you are very senior marketers. Some of you are aspiring marketers. Think of brands which are more than 150 years of age. How many can you think of? One, two, five, ten. I asked this question in many classes that I speak to. I get a few brands and there are a few brands which are more than 150 years of age, but they are very, very few. The question then arises in my mind as a marketer and as a historian of brands and marketing. Why has the Tata brand survived and flourished for 154 years and why does it continue to grow from strength to strength? The average age of a brand on the Fortune 500 list is 40 years. The average age of a medium-sized brand in this world is about 18 years, a medium-sized company. Companies come and go, but for some reason the Tata Group and the Tata brand has lived on and flourished and grown from strength to strength and it continues to grow from strength to strength today. It is India's most valuable brand today with a brand valuation of more than 26 million dollars and the only Indian origin brand in the top 100 in the world as per the Brand Finance Annual Report of 2023. This takes me back. The answer to this question is very, very relevant to all of us who want to build sustained brands. So this takes me back to the foundation of the Tata brand in 1868. Let's go back to the time this brand was founded and this group was founded. The first enterprise that was established by our founder Jamshiji Tata was a textile mill. The first category in which the Tata Group was present after the establishment of the Tata & Sons by Jamshiji Tata was a textile mill that he created in Nagpur called the Empress Mills. Now the Empress Mills soon became a very, very profitable enterprise. It was established in Nagpur in the heartland of the cotton industry. Jamshiji Tata used the best quality of long stapled cotton for the textiles that he made there. He used the most modern innovations like the ring spindle which had not even been used in the UK at that time to make the textiles that were woven there and it soon became one of India's most profitable enterprises. But that is not why I'm narrating the story. He did a few things in the Empress Mills which are memorable until today. In the 1870s and 1880s, he introduced in the Empress Mills accident insurance for his workers. Soon thereafter in the 1880s, he introduced a pension fund for workers of the Empress Mills and these were semi-educated or uneducated women who came from the hinterlands of Nagpur. In 1901, he did something that all of us who work in corporates today see every month on our facelifts. He introduced the concept of the Provident Fund. He introduced Provident Fund for his workers in the mills. And a few people went to him and asked him, why are you doing all this? Why are you spending so much money on the welfare of workers? After all, wealth belongs to shareholders, doesn't it? And Jamshaji Tata in a speech in 1895 said, we are not more generous or more philanthropic than others. We believe that the success of our shareholders, the wealth we create for our shareholders is indeed very, very important. But we also believe that the welfare of our workers and the welfare of our community is central to our enterprise and is a very, very important foundation on which we build the tomorrows of our enterprise. He said that because he had come to believe that the community is center stage in an organization. An organization exists in Jamshaji Tata's views for the sake of the community. Indeed, brands like yours and mine have to make a lot of profits, have to earn economic wealth. But he believed that eventually that wealth should go back to the community. And he set out his vision of a group and a brand where the community is center stage and not another stakeholder. It's fashionable to say that in today's day and age, where conscious capitalism is repeated like a mantra by many, many people and indeed it's the right mantra to repeat. But what his sons and he did thereafter was a master stroke of conscious capitalism. What they did, his sons Durabji Tata and Siratantata, what they did was they transferred their wealth, charitable trusts and thereby the parent company of the Tata group, Tata sons became majority owned by the Tata charitable trusts. That was quite unheard of. Very, very few corporations in the world are owned by charitable trusts. But more than 100 years after Jamshaji Tata and his sons did that, Tata sons today, the holding company of the Tata group is still 66% owned by the Tata charitable trusts. What does this mean? This means that of all the profits that the Tata group generates through dividends, 66% of the dividends are issued to the Tata charitable trusts. And what do the trusts use these for? Over the years, they've used them for the building of the Tata Memorial Hospital at Parail, the Tata Cancer Hospital in Kolkata, seven new Tata Cancer hospitals which have recently been inaugurated in Assam, the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, education, water facilities, the National Center for Performing Arts, NCPA in Mumbai and a host of other institutions. In fact, when COVID-19 came upon us just three years ago, in March 2020, Mr. Ratan Tata who is the chairman of the Tata Trust and Mr. Chandrasekharan who is chairman of Tata sons jointly announced that the Tata group would commit 1,500 crores in the fight against COVID-19 as a continuation of that focus of the community. And I felt very proud that day because it reinforced what we stand for as a group, that the community is set the stage for us. What this means, ladies and gentlemen, is that the Tata brand, the Tata trademark is of course owned by Tata sons. But emotionally, and for many, many reasons, the Tata brand is emotionally owned by the people of India. It belongs to the people of India. It's a brand which I think has transcended being a commercial brand and become in many people's mind their own brand. That happens when you put the community center stage. When over years and over decades, you do what you think is right for the community. Then I think the brand transcends commercial boundaries and becomes an institution that people resonate with very, very strongly. That indeed is the story of the Tata brand. It has done a number of things for the community over the past 150 years of its existence, some of which I've already pointed out, some of India's finest institutions, finest universities, the fight for health, the national water mission, the cancer grid, and I can go on and on and on. But I suffice it to say that the community lies at the heart of the Tata group's success over the past 150 years. GRD Tata, who was a chairman for more than 50 years, said the philosophy of the Tata group is that what comes from the people must go back to the people time and time and again. What that does for a brand is very important since all of you here and me myself are marketers. When a brand exists in harmony with its community, when a brand contributes to its community, then I think it also builds a lot of trust. People see the brand doing that time and again over years, over decades, over a century. But that is one of the pillars of the Tata brand, the fact that the community is center stage for us in everything that we do and that is the central idea that underpins Tata. But the other central idea which underpins brand Tata is that we have chosen to invest in industries which are very important to our niche, industries which lie in the confluence of national interest and business opportunity. Let me give you some examples. Let me narrate a story to you. In the late 1890s and early 1900s, Jamshedji Tata felt that India needed its own steel mill to make steel. He said India should not depend on foreign countries for all its steel. It should not depend on the UK for all its steel. Remember, we were still ruled by the British at that time. He went round the world, found the right technologist, brought him to India. One of the finest metallurgical engineers of the world, Charles Page Perini, attracted him to India to put up India's first integrated steel plant which came up at Sakshi, now called Jamshedji. That is the plant and that is the brand you now know as Tata Steel which is one of the finest brands in the country. As they say, we also make tomorrow, we also make steel but it is the company that came in because of Jamshedji Tata's love for India. He wanted India to have its own steel plant. More than 40 years later, J.R.D. Tata thought India needs aviation. He said aviation is essential to a country's progress and therefore he began at that time what was called Tata Airlines. Tata Airlines is the airline that later became Air India. At some stage it was nationalized by the Government of India and very recently, just about a year back, the Tata's have acquired it back and it's back in our group now. But the reason why Air India began was J.R.D. Tata's love for aviation and his strong belief that a country to advance requires aviation, requires quick air transport. And it went on to become a business where I mean it was one of the finest airlines in the world in the 1960s and 1970s to the extent that when the Singapore Premier League when you was thinking of an airline for Singapore he said go and study J.R.D. Tata's airline in India and find out what has made it tick. But let me give you a more recent example. If you come to the 2000s, 1990s and 2000s, Mr. Ratan Tata who is now the Chairman Emeritus of our group and the Chairman of the Tata Trust, at that time he was the Chairman of Tata Suns, he was convinced that India needed its own car, its own indigenous car. At that stage India had the Maruti 800, the Hyundai Centro, but these were cars which were designed in Japan and Korea and assembled in India. He wanted a car which was completely indigenous, made for Indian families to Indian specifications using Indian ancillary parts. Once again people were skeptical of his aid but he said we would invest in this because it is important for a nation when a nation has an automobile industry it sets new levels of engineering excellence. And it's a story which can be told, I can narrate the story in great detail but at that time he had to actually... Telco or Tata Motors was a small company. He had to invest more than 2 billion dollars in creating a new car plant because Telco did not have the money, his team and he went across the world found a disused Nissan car plant in Australia. Brick by brick the disassembled it in Australia brought it to Pune, set it up in Pune. He got his engineering research center people to create the designs along with idea of tuning for what the Indica should look like. A car as large as the ambassador, as stylish as the Zen and as fuel efficient as the Maruti and that is how the Tata Indica was born. There were some initial quality hiccups but eventually by 2002-2003 the Tata Indica V2 went on to become the fastest selling car in India. That is the company which today produces the Tata Harrier, the Tata Nexon, the Tata Punch is the leader in electric vehicles in India but the origins of that company were in the creation of the Tata Indica India's first indigenous car. If you take the Tata brand forward a few years after that the creation of India's first major branded jewelry company, Tanishk which I was fortunate to be part of for several years the creation of India's first Iodized branded salt at a national level Tata Salt which reaches 700 million consumers across the country today may be more more than half of India's population garnishes its food with Tata Salt or if you go even further and take Tata New India a super app which has been created for India or you take the entire thrust towards electric vehicles which Tata Motors is leading with today and it's by far the market leader in India today because it's important for sustainable development of the country and good for the planet but at the same time we are grateful that tens of thousands of consumers are taking to driving electric vehicles in the country today. So if you take each of these ladies and gentlemen you will see that over the years and over the decades from steel to airlines to trucks to cars to IT services more than 50 years ago IS was founded by the Tata Group Tata Consultancy Services which is today India's bellwether and flagship of its IT industry I've talked about branded jewelry I've talked about branded salt so if you go virtually every decade you can find that the Tata Group reinvents itself and how does it reinvent itself by founding businesses which are at that very sharp confluence of business opportunity and national interest and believe that the second big pillar of the Tata brand is its pioneering instinct it's pioneering but at the same time pioneering of industries which are which contribute to the development of the nation. So pull back a little bit and think about what I've told you in the last 15 to 18 minutes first I have said the community is set to stage for the Tata brand and I give you many examples of the institutions created by the Tata Trust but I also told you that the Tata brand is eventually owned through Tata and Suns by the Tata Trust who are the majority shareholders of Tata and the second thing that I told you is the pioneering instinct of the Tata brand of the Tata Group in creating new businesses in creating new product categories new industries which are extremely important for the growth and development of our nation and of course it's very important when you do that to create excellent quality of products and services which are trusted by customers only then will customers come and buy the products and services that you make and the Tata Group is committed to that we have within the group the Tata business excellence model which emphasizes that excellence of products and services is very very important so these ladies and gentlemen are the three pillars of the Tata brand the community the instinct and a commitment to excellence the highest quality of products and services it is these three pillars together which constitute what the Tata brand is in the minds of people and it is the combination of these three pillars together which leads to trust in the minds and hearts of every Indian and indeed even customers outside the world who partake of products and services by the Tata brand so if you go on to the streets of the country today and I do that sometimes and ask people what do they think of Tata one common answer that I always get is that we can trust products and services that Tata makes that's what also comes out in the brand tracks that we do when we ask people about the Tata brand that poses a great responsibility on us in the Tata Group when your consumers and your stakeholders trust you then we have to ensure that we nurture that trust for the future we have to ensure that the 150 years that have gone by which have been dedicated to nation building the next 150 years and more are also dedicated to the same cause therefore I know I may be running out of time now I had a 20 minute session to deliver to you what I'd like to mention to you is that as you think about great brands as you think about iconic brands as you think about brands that have become institutions I would say the one the biggest learning that I've had and something that all of us should think about is why does your brand exist just like the Tata brand is dedicated to the community and nation building what is the core reason why your brand exists what is the core reason why your brand will be missed if it does not exist today if your brand will be missed if it does not exist then I think you're serving a core need of the consumer a core need of the society and community around you that is a single message ladies and gentlemen that I'd like to deliver to all of us today that the core purpose of the brand is what is important and if that core purpose is in harmony with your community and society and consumers and all your stakeholders then you have a good chance at longevity then you have a good chance that your brand will continue to grow and flourish into many years and many decades into the future there are many brands which do this very successfully across the world, Tata being one of them and I hope that this brief address from my side has left a few key messages for you to take back with you I'd like to thank the organizers of the India brand conclave for giving me this valuable opportunity of speaking to all of you and I hope that the words that I've put forward to you will resonate and there will be at least an idea or you or idea or two that you take out of this address thank you very much for giving me this opportunity and I wish all of you a wonderful week thank you