Tata Nano : A Failure or a Success?

Authored by Satish Rao, Managing Director at Deltran Diesels Engineering Pvt. Ltd

Life gets wasted in mediocre ways of ‘judging others failures’. It’s more about finding a solace, an excuse for self. When 5 lac Nano cars hit the road, there isn’t any applaud. We have trained ourselves to write-off anything that defies our sensibilities, finding a sense of pride in saying “I said so”.

Not everything is done for the sake of profits. The idea of Nano had an altruistic motive in upliftment of the quality of lives for those unfortunate to otherwise own a Car. This itself marked the rise of a new era in doing unselfish business, and who else but the Tatas could start this revolution, nowhere else, but in India. But was India prepared for this change? The answer was No, as no one wanted to be a part of an experiment. The Best of the technologies were adopted for the manufacturing of the Nano car. A fully automatic plant, State-of-art robotics, Heller machining centres with the best of accuracies. By no means the Nano was compromised on Quality. Nano was a marvel offering from Indian minds, an example of our design capabilities.

With the recent sluggish sales, the Nano may eventually see the end of the road. We are waiting for it to be an example of a big failure. It’s not the Nano, but us, who have failed miserably to see beyond the obvious. Any perceived failure isn’t a failure till one quits. With Nano, Tata has stood by their decision. What did Tata gain from a loss making product?

Succession and upgradation to design capabilities with low-cost manufacturing technologies is what Tata has mastered today through the Nano. The newer lineup of their upcoming cars have the DNA of such capabilities that knows no compromise on quality, providing the best ownership value. The confidence of design started with the indigenously sculpted Nano, that had enthralled us when Ratan Tata had introduced it. Aren’t we captivated similarly with the Nexon today? The journey from Nano to Nexon is the real success story for the Tatas. What started as an experiment has started paying-off in the real sense.

Eventually, the life-cycle of every product should end with a newer product. Similarly, one has to upgrade himself through better understanding of such a life cycle, instead of hurriedly weighing it on the scales of success or failure. Failure has to be viewed as an essential ingredient of evolution. The Nano story can be experienced by us in different proportions at many instances. Writing-off others is similar to training ourselves to quit in our own enterprises. Who knows, one will very soon seen an electric nano that could power the Ola taxis of the future.

Thus, The Nano holds the key for the Mega. So is it with our sensibilities.