History of Tata Group

From the small beginnings in India, Tata now has a major international reach with 65 per cent of the group’s revenues drawn from outside India.

Tata Sons was founded as a trading entity in 1868 by the visionary Jamsetji Tata (1839 – 1904), one of the Indian’s pioneering industrialists. Jamsetji created his wealth through textiles. In the late nineteenth century capitalism was at its roughest, he instituted a pension fund for his workers.

Jamsetji established Tata & Sons in 1887 and took as his partners his eldest son, Dorab and a young cousin called Ratanji Dadabhai Tata. Tata Sons is the promoter of all key companies of the Tata Group and holds the bulk of shareholding in them.

In 1907 The Tata Iron and Steel Company established to set up India’s first iron and steel plant in Jamshedpur. The plant started production in 1912.

In 1917 The Tatas entered the consumer goods industry, with the Tata Oil Mils Company being established to make soaps, detergents and cooking oils.

With respect to its global expansion, Tata’s business history began in 1907 with the establishment of Tata Limited (London) in 1907 followed by its association with Daimler Benz (1950s), Tata Precision Industries (1972), Tata African Holdings (1994), the acquisition of Tetley Tea (UK) by Tata Tea in 2000 and the takeover of the Anglo-Dutch steel company, Corus by Tata Steel in 2007.

Tata Sons holds a stake, ranging from 25 per cent to 75 per cent, in all the other major companies within the group. Today, Tata Sons holds almost 80% of TCS, 22% of Tata Motors and 27% of Tata Steel, The Tatas also hold a stake of 46% in VSNL.
History of Tata Group

History of Swatch watches

At the end of the 20th century, analog watches were considered out of fashion. The Swiss watch industry was facing fierce competition from Japanese. So Swiss watchmakers joined forces with designers from all over the world formed a new watch company that could make parts so cheaply that is was more reasonable to throw the watch away than to repair it.

Hence the Swiss Watch Company (SWATCH) was born. They were launching high precision watches at a low price.

Swatch was developed by a team of ETA engineers under Thomke’s supervision to beat the Japanese competition, the Swatch was a fashion product and a plastic quartz watch manufactured in Switzerland.

It was launched in 1983 and experienced growing popularity worldwide from the late 1980s onwards. It was explained that the introduction of simplified mechanism using only 51 parts as opposed to the standard 91 parts. This is one reason why the Swatch could be made so slim and cost brought down.

Swatch was revolutionary because it changed the whole paradigm of what a watch is. A watch was no longer regarded as a timepiece, but as an accessory. Swatch watches may made from more expensive materials and may be sponsored or designed by well-known artist.
History of Swatch watches

China National Petroleum Corporation

In 17 September 1988, China National Petroleum and Natural Gas Corporation (CNPC) was established.

The influence of the petroleum industry within the communist government varied significantly over time.

In the early years after establishment of the People’s Republic of China, the industry was under control of the Bureau of Petroleum, a division of the Ministry of Fuel.

In 1955, Ministry of the Fuel was promoted to the Ministry of the Petroleum Industry after merged with Ministry of Coal and Ministry of the Chemistry Industry.

Ministry of Petroleum Industry controlled the production of oil, and the refining was split among the ministry and a number of government bodies.

In 7 July 1998, the Ministry of the Petroleum Industry was dissolved and formed three state-owned companies to oversee and modernize its petroleum-related activities.

This reorganization created two regional firms –CNPC in the north and west, and Sinopec in the south. CNPC took over all onshore exploration and production of oil and gas.  The company is directly under the State Council and is a ministry-level institution.

In June 1997, CNPC acquired a 60 percent share in Kazakhstan’s Aktyubinskmunaigaz Production Association, which controls three large oil fields in northwestern Kazakhstan with combined recoverable reserves of 1 bb.
China National Petroleum Corporation

Volkswagen

The “Gesellschaft zur Vorbereitung des Deutschen Volkswagen mbH” was founded on 28th May 1937 and the name was changed to “Volkswagenwerk GmbH” in September 1938.

The success was beginning with the intention to provide affordable cars for the German people.

After years of developing further models, acquisitions of other car manufacturers such as Audi and SEAT, and starting international operations, the Volkswagen has become the largest automobile manufacturer in Europe and one of the leading car producers worldwide.

In 1934 Chancellor Hitler commissions the Porsche Design Bureau to build a Volkswagen or People’s Car for less than 1000 Reichsmarks, or USD142.

It was given ten months to complete the work. By 1937 Dr. Ferdinand Porsche, little known designer had built three prototypes and put total of 100,000 miles on the three.

In the same year Hitler announced that the Volkswagen will be both financed and built by the German Reich as a national project.

With the design finalized by 1938, a factory site was chosen in northern Germany, on the bank of the Mitteland Canal, which joins the rivers Rhine and Elbe.

The first Volkswagen Beetle rolled off the assembly line on August 15, 1940, less than a year after World War II started.

Production continued throughout the war, but most resources going to defense factories.

In 1947, the Beetle was first offered to the public. Also in 1947, the Beetle made its first border crossing, when 56 cars were exported to the Netherlands, and made its first appearance American, brought across the Atlantic by a few returning soldiers.

Volkswagen was first imported into the United States in 1949. In 1973, Volkswagen announced that would be marketing its own version of the Audi 80 under the name Passat. The Scirocco was launched in March 1974 and was well received.

It was followed in July that year by the three-door Golf, which was then joined one month later by a five doors version.

Today, Volkswagen’s largest shareholder is the German car manufacturer Porsche with a share of 18.5 percent, while 40 percent are still state owned.
Volkswagen

Monsanto Company

Monsanto was founded by chemist John F. Queeny in 1901 in St. Louis, Missouri. He named it after his wife, Olga Monsanto Queeny.

The company’s first product was the artificial sweetener saccharine, which it sold to Coca-Cola.

When the trade war with Germany nearly bankrupted Monsanto ,Queeny decided to diversify into the food additive. By 1916, Monsanto catalog included such well-known products as caffeine and Aspirin.

John Queeny passed on the business to his son Edgar Monsanto Queeny in 1928 and he turned to b a leader of exceptional quality.

However, at the start of World War I company leaders realized the growth opportunists in the industrial chemicals industry.

By 1964, Monsanto was producing diverse products as petroleum, fibers and packaging. A couple of years later, Monsanto created its first Roundup herbicide.

In 1981, Monsanto leaders determined that biotechnology would be the company’s new strategic focus, a dynamic change for the company.

In 1995, the company sold off the company’s chemical branches and bought seed companies, making Monsanto the largest seed company in the world.

By 2010, 90% of the world’s genetically modified seeds are sold by Monsanto or by companies that use Monsanto genes.
Monsanto Company

Beginning History of Oil Industry

The oils seeps to the surface is what people in ancient times first discovered. It is usually found in the form of bitumen.

Around 3,000 BC ancient people Middle East traded bitumen to be used as building mortar, medicine, and lightning fuel.

Starting in 900 BC the Chinese began using natural gas from wells.

Eventually small oil industry began to develop in Eastern Europe around 1854 that focused primary on peasant dug shafts to obtain crude oil.

This oil was then refined to abstract kerosene, which was then used in cheaply manufactured lamps.

The perfection of the oil lamp, at the end of the XVIIIth century by the Chemist Quinquet, led, a few decades later to a sudden increase in demand for oil.

To increase the availability of oil, some American financiers had the idea of using the cable tool technique of drilling, developed from the production of salt from brine wells.

On the 27 August 1859, after several weeks drilling and at depth of 23 meters, Edwin Drake found that the bottom of the well had filled with oil.

Later in the United States, the standard Oil Company, founded by John D. Rockefeller in 1870 as a refining company in Cleveland, dominated the industry for several decades. By 1880 it had a domestic market share in refining of 95 percent.

By that time, Standard Oil had also come to dominate the pipeline, shipping and drilling business.

In the advent of World War II the increasing popularity for automobiles, oil for heating and electric motors in industry made petroleum the dominant element of the American fuel economy.

As the consumption of energy skyrocketed in the post-World War II decades oil continued to grow in importance.
Beginning History of Oil Industry

History of Ford Motor

History of Ford Motor
Henry Ford (1863 – 1947) stands alone as a lone visionary personally responsible for the creation of the automobile industry in America.

A self trained mechanic with a lifelong disdain of experts with university degrees, Ford built his firsts automobile in 1893, and a decade later he founded the Ford Motor Company.

He intended to produce “the car for the great attitude,” and to do he had to harmonies mass production with mass consumption. Ford was not the first manufacturer to use interchangeable parts or to run an assembly line, but in his quest to produce an inexpensive and standardized product he perfected assembly line production techniques.

The result proved dramatic. In 1908, before he introduced the assembly line, Ford made 10,607 Model Ts – the “Tin Lizzie” – which he sold for $850 each. He shifted to an assembly line in 1913, and production quickly rose to 300,000 cars a year.

In 1916 he sold 730,041 Model Ts for $360 each, and in 1924 he produced two million of the cars retailing at $290 each. A total of fifteen million Model Ts rolled out of Ford plants before production ceased in 1927.

Prior to Ford, it took over twelve hours to assemble a car. By contrast his first assembly line turned out a model T every 93 minutes, and by 1927 Ford was making a Model T every 24 seconds.

The Ford Motor Company became not only the word’s largest automobile manufacturer but the world’s largest industrial enterprise.
History of Ford Motor