The Tata Group is synonymous with its diversified businesses, which easily cut across manufacturing, IT, hospitality, consumer, infrastructure, to name just a few. Most of the large ones that have attained scale and size have had the benefit of time or just being around for a long time. Think of time again, and one that comes to mind is Titan.
Starting off with watches, it moved into jewellery, where a series of failures could have put an end to the business and perhaps even the company. Instead, through serendipity and just staying the course, it is today the second most valuable company in the Tata Group; that numero uno position is held by TCS. The moment you realise Titan came into being in 1984, unlike its peers in the group with a much longer history, the magnitude of the achievement is that much larger.
Titan’s success can be attributed to the vision of JRD Tata and Xerxes Desai, then the company’s MD. It is a remarkable story and Made in India: A Titan Story is now a web series, starring Naseeruddin Shah and Jim Sarbh. In a watch market dominated by the likes of HMT and Allwyn, Titan brought in substance, style and a very ethnic Indian touch.
In many ways, Titan is unique. Unlike other group companies, it has its headquarters in Bengaluru, far away from Mumbai. It was and remains a joint venture between the Tata Group and Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO), an unusual and most interesting marriage. The first plant was in Hosur (in Tamil Nadu) and since then Titan Watches became Titan Industries, and now Titan Company. Legend has it that Titan is a result of Tatas in Tamil Nadu.
Titan is a story of the metamorphosis and how, through sheer doggedness and smart thinking, adjacencies were identified. Today, Tanishq is a household name, and so is Titan Eye Plus and with Taneira and Skinn, new avenues have been explored.
A detailed story on where Titan stands today, with a breakdown of its strategy, was the topic of Business Today’s cover story – Raking It In: How Titan Company is Reinventing itself
It tells you that the ethos remains but with a very contemporary touch.
