Change at Tata Motors

Less than two years after moving into his current role, Niraj Srivastava, head of car product group at Tata Motors is on his way out. Srivastava is joining Audi India as head of sales. It was only in August 2010 that Srivastava had moved to Tata’s passenger vehicle business. In his earlier assignment at Tata, he was the regional manager (West) for the company’s commercial vehicle business. Why is this important?

Well, Srivastava’s exit comes at a fairly interesting juncture for his current employer. Today, about 65 percent of revenue and almost 90 percent of Tata Motors’s profits come from Jaguar and Land Rover (JLR). The India car and commercial vehicles business is dwarfed by the size and scale of JLR. And this new Tata Motors needs a new guy to take over since Prakash Telang, the company’s current managing director is set to retire in June 2012. “It is a very interesting situation now because if an Indian guy is appointed as MD then he won’t be taken very seriously at JLR. And if a foreigner comes in then he has very little understanding of Tata Motor’s domestic car and commercial vehicles business,” says a source who didn’t want to be quoted.

It is unlikely that Mr. Telang will get an extension. The change of guard at the company is likely to be a closely watched affair. Tata Motors says that whatever happens, an announcement will be made in due course of time. Speculation though has already begun and names of key people inside Tata like Bhaskar Bhat, MD of Titan Industries and Ravi Pisharody, the president of commercial vehicles are being talked about as contenders.

It is not that Tata Motors has a very large talent pool of second rung leadership team within the company to choose from. Because if one digs a little deeper, you will notice that in the last couple of years the company has seen quite a few senior executives moving out. And almost entirely in the company’s domestic passenger vehicles business where it sells cars like the Nano, Indica, Indigo, Manza, Safari and Aria. In many ways than one, it started with the appointment of Carl Peter Forster as group CEO of Tata Motors in February 2010. Just a few months later, Rajiv Dubey, president of Tata’s passenger vehicles business and often considered the blue eyed boy at Tata quit in May 2010 after a career spanning 27 years at the company.

To fill in for Dubey, Tata Motors re organized its car business. Nitin Seth, the then head of car product group who used to report to Dubey was sidelined to look after some cross company strategic initiatives. Instead in August 2010, R Ramakrishnan, vice president (sales & marketing) of Tata’s commercial vehicle division was appointed as vice president of passenger cars. Plus Seth was replaced by Niraj Srivastava. Seth finally quit Tata Motors in December 2010. Late last year in September 2011, Mr. Forster quit Tata Motors because of unavoidable personal circumstances.

The thoughts and opinions shared here are of the author.