INTERVIEW with Tata Steel CEO Rising Elephant: Tata and the Indian Steel Industry Mr. Thachat Viswanath Narendran CEO & Managing Director, Tata Steel Limited Mr. T.V. Narendran joined Tata Steel after completing his MBA from IIM Calcutta in 1988. He became the Managing Director of Tata Steel (overseeing India and South East Asia) on November 1, 2013. On 31st October, 2017, he was elevated to CEO & Managing Director of Tata Steel Limited. Mr. Narendran s career in Tata Steel spanned many areas in India & Overseas including Marketing & Sales, International Trade, Supply Chain & Planning, Operation & General Management in Jamshedpur, Kolkata, Dubai & Singapore. He was actively involved in Tata Steel s first overseas acquisition, NatSteel, and was seconded there as an Executive Vice President in 2005. He took over as the President & CEO of NatSteel from January 2008. He is currently on the Boards of Tata Steel Limited and Tata Steel Europe. He is also the Chairman of Tata Steel Thailand and NatSteel. He is the Chairman of the Board of Governors of XLRI. He is a member of the Board of the World Steel Association and the Chairman of the Economics Committee of the World Steel Association. He is the co-chair of the Mining & Metals Governors Council of the World Economic Forum. He is a member of the National Council of CII and former Chairman of CII Eastern Region. He is also a member from Indian side in BRICS Business Council, Co-Chair of the India Myanmar Joint Trade & Investment Forum and a member of the Indo-French CEO Council. 58 Asian Steel Watch
Rising Elephant: Tata and the Indian Steel Industry Q: Please introduce Tata Steel Group to our readers and tell us about the brief history, management philosophy, major business, and human resources status of your company. How has Tata Steel Group been able to remain as India s representative steel company for more than 100 years? Is there any success factor for such longevity, for example its own core competence? Tate steel s Indian business keeps transforming and reinventing itself and keeps upgrading facilities and improving productivity to be one of the lowest cost and most profitable steel companies in the world. A: Tata Steel was set up more than a 100 years ago as our Founder J N Tata felt that for any nation to be able to stand on its own, a strong steel industry is essential. He and his son Mr. Dorab Tata went across the world to get the best of metallurgical and engineering talent from the USA, UK and Germany to help set up the steel plant. The company was set up not only to become a leading steel company in the world but also to become a benchmark in corporate citizenship. The founder, J N Tata, felt that the community is not just another stakeholder in the enterprise but the very purpose of its existence. So right from the early days, Tata Steel had employee-friendly policies well before they were required by law. We introduced an 8 hour working day in 1912 though the norm then was 12 hour working day. We introduced maternity leave for employees in 1929 and free medical facilities for employees in 1915. In addition, the city of Jamshedpur, which was named after the founder, was better planned and had better facilities than most Indian cities of that time. So we have a strong foundation of values on which the enterprise was built. The company s Indian business also keeps transforming and reinventing itself and keeps upgrading facilities and improving productivity to be one of the lowest cost and most profitable steel companies in the world. We have very passionate and committed employees and some of them are the 5th and 6th generation employees of the company. We have a strong culture of continuous improvement and are the only steel company outside Japan to win the Deming Prize and the Deming Grand Prize. We have done some very innovative work in marketing and sales and have a strong distribution network and a bouquet of very successful brands. We also have a strong and growing business with small and medium-sized enterprises (we call them the Emerging Corporate Accounts). We are the leading supplier to India s automotive industry and have a market share of 44% in our supplies to the automo- Vol.04 December 2017 59
INTERVIEW Tata Steel Jamshedpur tive industry. We are the number one player in India for wires and tinplates, and we also have a large pipes business. Overall we have a passionate and talented employee base, strong relationships in the market, a great competitive position on cost due to our efficiencies, and a culture of continuous improvement. This explains our longevity and strength even after being around for 110 years. Q: Now much attention is paid to the rapidly rising Indian steel industry. What are the factors that drive growth of India s steel demand? How do you see the National Steel Policy (NSP) 2017? And can you please share the investment plan of Tata Steel Group? A: India is still at an early stage of develop- ment and so the potential for growth in steel 60 Asian Steel Watch consumption in India is immense. Our per capita consumption of steel is currently at 63 kg which is about 25% of the world average and 15% of what it is in China. The per capita consumption of steel in rural India is about 5 kg. If India has to grow at 7 to 8% as has been predicted, the government has to spend on building infrastructure and a lot of actions on that are already evident. If you look at the National Steel Policy, you will see that the biggest growth in steel consumption is coming from the Infrastructure segment where the government is expecting steel consumption to grow from the current level of 10 million Mt to 100 million Mt in the next 10 to 15 years. Tata Steel will continue to invest and grow in our two main production sites of Jamshedpur & Kalinganagar. Over the next 10 years, we hope to grow from the current level of 13 million Mt in India to 25 to 30 million Mt.
Rising Elephant: Tata and the Indian Steel Industry Tata Steel Kalinganagar Q: Tata Steel is doing business not only in improve the performance. India but also in Europe and Southeast Asia. I wonder how the restructuring of Tata Steel s Q: As I understand, the Indian steel industry European operations is going. Please tell us is probably in need of restructuring due to about the global business plan for Tata Steel. overcapacity and heavy inflows of steel imports. How do you see that restructuring and A: We have a footprint of 2 million Mt in integration will develop in the Indian steel Southeast Asia which is essentially long products for the construction industry through the EAF route. We have three plants in Thailand and one plant in Singapore for steel making and rolling mills and downstream units in both countries as well as in Vietnam, Malaysia and Hong Kong. In Europe, we have a footprint of 12 million Mt now (between the Netherlands and the UK). The focus of our overseas facilities is on efficiency and profitability and not so much on growth. Most of the restructuring in Europe and Southeast Asia is complete but we will continue to look for opportunities to industry? A: The Indian Steel Industry has a tempo- rary overcapacity problem as I believe that demand growth will outstrip supply growth over the next few years. Restructuring is happening because of the financial health of this sector which has invested a lot of capital in building capacity and has been plagued by a falling market in 2015 and early 2016. In addition, some of the producers who had mining lease or promises of mining leases when they set up the steel plants were adversely impacted when the courts ruled Vol.04 December 2017 61
INTERVIEW Nightview of Tata Steel Kalinganagar against them or the law changed. Fundamentally, India s steel industry is quite competitive. Until 2015 it had no problem competing with imports from anywhere in the world. When a slowdown in China led to imports flooding in from China and other countries at prices lower than the prices in their domestic markets, the industry took up the issue with the government and had got some support. India also allows 100% foreign direct investment (FDI) in steel and mining and so anyone who is keen to participate in growth opportunities in India is welcome to invest in India. Q: As Worldsteel ECON committee chairman, how do you predict the global steel industry in the medium- to long-term? Which country or region will lead growth of the global steel growth in consumption in countries other than China will more than offset the shrinkage in consumption in China, so overall global growth in steel consumption will be in the 1 to 2% range. We expected growth to come from India, Southeast Asia, Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and a recovery in Europe. The USA was also expected to grow well. However, over the last few months we have seen China exhibit strong growth. We will now need to revisit the number again but in summary the industry is doing better than we had expected six months ago. The most significant demand growth is expected to come from India and Southeast Asia. Together, it is a market of almost 1.7 billion people consuming about 160 million Mt of steel and growing at 5 to 6% on average. industry? Q: India is a vast country. Please advise fora: Until a few months back, we felt that 62 Asian Steel Watch eign investors on what they should particu-
Rising Elephant: Tata and the Indian Steel Industry Blast Furnace, Tata Steel Kalinganagar The need for advanced high-strength steel extends beyond automotive to other markets like construction. We recently completed a project at our Nucor-Yamato mill in Arkansas that makes it the first mill in North America capable of rolling ASTM A913 steel sections. larly consider when they invest in India? A: When foreign investors look at India they should take a long term view. It is a challenging market but a market with full of potential. It may be one country but it is not a homogeneous market. There is a lot of talent available in India and it is a young country demographically. There will be challenges in land acquisition and sometimes with the myriad values and regulations. But it is a market worth investing in. Korean automo- tive companies and appliance manufacturers are great examples of foreign companies who came in well before many others and have built a strong equity in the domestic market. It is one of the fastest growing large economies in the world and still at an early stage of development. It is blessed with a lot of good quality raw materials. It has a government which is trying very hard to improve the ease of doing business and attract foreign investment. It is a country that can t be ignored! Vol.04 December 2017 63