The Tata Group is an Indian multinational conglomerate headquartered in Mumbai, India and founded by Jamsetji Tata and currently employs 800,000 people globally (FY 2021). It is listed on the Stock Exchange and is India’s largest conglomerate, founded in 1868, with products and services in over 150 countries and operations in 100 countries across six continents. The group operates in the following industries: Metals, IT, Financials, Automotive, Retail, Infrastructure, Telecoms, Tourism & Travel, Aerospace and Defense.
TATA Africa Services (Nigeria) Limited was founded in 2006 and serves as the focal point for Tata businesses in West Africa. The company is a subsidiary of TATA Africa Holdings (SA) (Pty) Limited, South Africa, which serves as the headquarters for Tata’s operations in Nigeria and the rest of West Africa.
The company takes pride in having a thorough understanding of the local market and demands, highly qualified personnel, and a dedication to community development programs to improve people’s quality of life.
Tata Nigeria is committed to its mission of building and maintaining partnerships based on cooperation and trust and creating jobs and contributing to Nigeria’s societal development.
Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Steel Limited, Jaguar Land Rover, Tata Motors Limited, Tata Chemicals Limited, and Tata Power Company Limited are among some of the company’s subsidiaries.
Leadership team
Ratan Tata (Chairman Emeritus) is an Indian industrialist, philanthropist, and former chairman of Tata Sons. He was the chairman of Tata Group from 1990 to 2012, and again, as interim chairman, from October 2016 through February 2017, and continues to head its charitable trusts. He’s a graduate of Cornell University (BArch) and an Advanced Management Program of Harvard Business School.
- Natarajan Chandrasekaran (Chairman and Managing Director)
- Marc Llistosella MD/CEO
Investor relations
There are 29 publicly-listed Tata Group companies with a combined market capitalization of $314 billion (INR 23.4 trillion) as of December 31, 2021. Each individual company is listed in the stock exchange.
Each Tata firm functions independently, with its own board of directors and shareholders guiding and supervising it. Tata Sons is the principal investment holding company and promoter of Tata companies. 66% of the equity share capital of Tata Sons is held by philanthropic trusts, which support education, health, livelihood generation, and art and culture. On the other hand, Tata family owns only a minor percentage of the corporation.
Product and services
Tata Nigeria sells, services, and sells replacement parts for its vehicles. At its Amuwo Odofin Industrial Layout in Lagos, the company boasts a state-of-the-art 3S (Sales, Service, and Spare Parts) facility and a branch in Port Harcourt.
The company offers products in the segments of passenger vehicles, light commercial vehicles, medium commercial vehicles, heavy vehicles, material handling equipment(forklift trucks, stackers, tire handlers, and others), heavy pieces of equipment (excavators, backhoes, graders and cranes etc.), tires, construction equipment (concrete mixers etc.), steel and chemicals.
For proper distribution, there are dealers in every region of the country, namely: Simba Motors (Northern region) with headquarters in Kano and Viramsun Motors (Central region) with headquarters in Abuja. The South-West, South- East and South-South regions are currently being operated by Tata Nigeria. Other dealers are also being appointed state wise for sales, servicing and spare parts.
Products
Tata’s product range includes:
- Cars (Pickups, Small Vehicles, Light Vehicles, Medium & Heavy Vehicles, 4X4 Trucks, Tractor Heads, Buses, Infrastructure and construction (Earthmoving and construction equipment)
- Chemicals
- Pharmaceuticals
Competitors
Its competitors vary across different business segments.
- Cars: Innoson Vehicle manufacturing company, Nissan, Peugeot
- Construction: Mantrac, Bertola, JaPaul, JMG, C.Woermann Nigeria Limited
- Chemicals: Bond, Cormat Nig. Ltd, Henkel Chemicals, Bond
- Pharmaceuticals: May and Baker Nigeria Plc, Emzor Pharmaceuticals, Chemiron International Ltd., Fidson Healthcare Plc., Mopson Pharmaceuticals Limited, GlaxoSmithKline, Drugfield Pharmaceuticals, Aspen Pharmacare.
Revenue
TATA Africa Services (Nigeria) Limited has investments exceeding USD 10 million. In 2021, the group as a whole had an estimated annual revenue of US$103 billion. In 2018, it contributed about 4% to India’s GDP and paid 2.24% of the total taxation in India, the highest by any corporate group.
Controversy
In 2016, the Trade Union Congress, TUC, condemned the alleged victimization of an employee of TATA Africa Services, Nigeria. It queried the management of TATA for advertising on a national daily that their employee was no longer in its employment when he had not been served a letter of termination. The TUC accused the company, saying that the said individual had also been denied promotion, queried severally, and transferred to another city with denied benefits.
The Congress had urged the management of TATA to call the Head of Human Resources to order to avoid an industrial crisis in the company.
News
In March 2021, Tata International introduced the first-of-its-kind Pan Africa five-year warranty, which applies to the full range of Tata Trucks and Buses and Daewoo Trucks in all 12 markets in which Tata International Africa operates. The warranty covers its Medium, Heavy and Extra Heavy Commercial Vehicle range.
Another benefit of the warranty is that it reinforces the company’s commitment to enhancing the customer ownership experience. An added benefit is that if a customer needs to sell the vehicle, they will enjoy a higher resale value, plus the warranty is transferrable to the next owner.
“We started this journey two years ago, and we’re thrilled to offer retail financing to our customers in so many African countries. Rest assured, six is not the end of this journey. We are planning to roll this out in all 12 countries in which we operate,” according to Len Brand, CEO of Tata International Africa.