Roads to Resilience

to approval from the US. Tata Motors, on the other hand, expects all its subsidiaries to operate as independent companies. Their philosophy is very much ‘arm’s length’. Tata are decisive in appointing companies’ executives, they expect strong performance and ethical behaviour, but then they leave people to get on with it. In other words, they had no intention of providing the corporate services Jaguar Land Rover had been accustomed to under Ford. The company was going to have to learn to become independent, and quickly. Although Jaguar Land Rover lacked many of the corporate functions expected in standalone companies, and their product line was not as strong as that of their main competitors, Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz, the company did not suffer from fundamental weaknesses. For example, Jaguar Land Rover was more than capable of designing, engineering, and manufacturing luxury vehicles that are desired and admired by customers, and it had a market presence in more than 170 countries. Further, Jaguar and Land Rover are two iconic British brands that have strong heritage and distinctive identities that remain relevant and popular. Hence, following the takeover, there was no need to reposition the brands or to make them stand for something new. Also, people at Jaguar Land Rover were passionate about the brands and willing to change the business in order for the company to remain successful. The problem was access to money to expand the company’s size and launch new models. Earlier in the Ford ownership period, Jaguar Land Rover had been able to benefit from Ford’s global scale, performance, and strong relationships within the financial markets. As a result, funding wasn’t an issue. However, in the years leading up to its sale to Tata Motors, the challenges experienced by the Ford brand, meant that funding available for investment in new Jaguar and Land Rover models and production facilities was limited. Although Jaguar Land Rover was profitable at the time of its takeover by Tata Motors, while some funding was available from India, Jaguar Land Rover was larger than its new parent and needed to get its finances under control quickly to minimise the impact of the economic downturn and enable investment in a sustainable future. The leadership for this task was given to a small task force. In the absence of an established treasury function with responsibility for cash flow management and to support decision making, this team, consisting of 20 people from across the business, set out to build up this capability. Many of the team members were not executives or managers. Knowing the business inside-out, being able to make decisions on the spot, and working across boundaries as one team were regarded as more important qualities than rank. In other words, the focus was – and still is throughout the company – on getting the right people in the right roles. Over time, this team was increasingly more able to rely on real-time data for their decision making. This enabled the team to ensure production was safeguarded at all times. With Jaguar Land Rover’s financial position slowly improving, an influx of fresh thinking and good practices from outside the company, to expedite progress, became possible. For example, while a large number of existing executives remained with the company, new executives were brought in. This enabled the development of an executive committee with deep company experience, complemented by experience of running the type of company Jaguar Business challenges

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Appendix A Case study: Jaguar Land Rover