How Ratan Tata brought life to Jaguar Land Rover

 The XF and XJ sedans got more efficient engines in no time. Andy Vine said in a report, "Things that before we were told would take three, four, five years, by the time Mr Tata was done, we were seeing in 12 to 24 months.”

Moreover, it lacked efficient engines at the time when fuel prices were touching the sky. During 2009 to 2012, Jaguar could barely sell 50,000 units across the world.

Andy Vine, Jaguar Land Rover dealer in Louisville, Ky., US recalled Ratan Tata was directly involved in the business. Ratan Tata, along with Ralph Speth, travelled across the US meeting dealers and taking the feedback on Jaguar Land Rover brand.

Tata bought Jaguar and Land Rover in all-cash transaction of $2.3 billion from Ford in June 2008. Nearly half of what Ford Motor paid to acquire both brands.

At that time JLR's retro designs was getting outdated, and competing with new efficient diesel engines was just making the British carmaker redundant. It's not that the American car manufacturer Ford did not tried the turnaround.

The carmaker started the work much earlier with focus of resolving quality problems. But, the carmaker was not able to really dent the luxury car market. Before handing over to Tata Motors, Ford launched Jaguar X-Type, an entry level Jaguar, but later criticised for building a disguised version of Ford's bestselling Mondeo sedan in the European markets.

Ratan Tata, who was the chairman of the Indian conglomerate Tata Group in 1999, faced 'humiliation' when he with his team went to sell the group’s fledgling car business to Ford in 1999, but came back to 'do a big favour' just nine years later by taking over the US giant's marquee brands Jaguar and Land Rover (JLR).

Just months later, the global financial crisis hit, thrashing the auto industry, including Tata Motors, which made trucks and inexpensive cars too.

At that time, one thing that came as a blessing for JLR was the changing consumer preference from luxury cars to luxury SUVs. On other hand, Jaguar was facing the serious challenge to sell the XJ sedan and the XK coupe because of the retro design.

However, it was Tata, who was convinced the new acquisition will turn out well in future. According to an article by Forbes, Tata Motors majorly focussed on three areas - improving liquidity, cost control and new products.

Three clear and pointed strategy later worked out well for the company.