Ratan Tata emphasises innovation as key to gaining upper hand in auto sector – Moneycontrol.com

It is quite conceivable that a leading car manufacturer would be Tesla rather than Ford, GM, or Mercedes, said Ratan Tata, Chairman Emeritus, Tata Group, stressing on the innovations brought in by the American electric vehicle company.

Implying that those with innovations had an upper hand in auto space, Tata, in an exclusive interview with CNBC-TV18 on May 11, said, “So tomorrow the largest carmaker could be an Apple because it brings to the table a new approach to doing something.”

“If you look at the automobile industry, and you look at the changes that are being envisaged today – autonomous driving, artificial intelligence being merged in terms of application, the industry was there… you had automobiles which you are seeing today, as a new world application for them – shared mobility, it is something that would be laughed on 10-15 years ago and yet it is happening in a smokestack industry,” said Tata.

Tata said in many ways, the smokestack industry -- a traditional industry like heavy engineering or manufacturing, and not modern industry such as electronics or IT -- finds it difficult to change the entire supply chain.

"...can improve on it, but it is by and large tweaking it compared to what is happening in the digital area," he said.

"The barriers are coming down and one way to look at it is that is being driven by the hardship that we are all facing in the marketplace caused by completely different phenomenon namely a virus that has overtaken the world," he added.

Tata has penned down a note for entrepreneurs advising them to adapt and create to tide over the COVID-19 pandemic that has brought economic activity to a juddering halt.

"It can all start on a clean sheet of paper that looks at ways of doing things that were never thought of before. This crisis will force entrepreneurs to adapt and create," he wrote in a note on Instagram on May 11.