Tata It makes sense for Tata to buy Jaguar/Land Rover. The reason is that Tata has synergies in things like steel production and distribution, but does not have too many viable cars. The Nano was not a success. The company has unique access to the Indian market, and can also use this merger to expand on the global stage.

There are increasing trends towards globalization, and these trends will provide opportunity for Tata to build a global automobile business, not just the small one they have built in India. The company already has a global truck business. Adding a pair of premium brands will help Tata to gain some market share, and provide complementary lines for any Tata-branded cars that it might want to produce. Furthermore, with its own brands, Tata's move into cars can be made more concrete. The idea is that the company needs to have a bigger presence in the domestic market, which is growing rapidly, in order to help neutralize foreign competitors, as automakers from all over the world want to get into the Indian market. To enhance its existing competitive advantage, new brands that have prestige will help Tata significantly.

As a conglomerate, there is little added value to this company. But as an automobile manufacturer, there is a lot of appeal to Jaguar/Land Rover because of what it means for global prestige in this industry, having manufacturing capacity in Europe, and in terms of global market share. So on that level,...

The major market for Tata is India, but it has also been able to expand internationally with its steel, trucks and other products. Tata is actually a fairly large seller of tea, both in India and on the international markets. This company, Tata Tea, has many brands including Tata, Tata Coffee, Good Earth Teas, Tetley Tea and Eight O'Clock. It also operates Starbucks in India in a joint venture with the American head office.
Tata Tea has conducted significant globalization, and in that respect it has entered many foreign countries. Tetley in particular has a large footprint, as it was originally an English company and remains prominent in the UK and many former colonies. Tata Tea is the world's #2 tea company at this point. What is interesting about its globalization effort is that it often does not use the Tata brand. For a conglomerate, it operates a number of different businesses. Usually the value of this is that the brand has a lot of brand power, and therefore can translate into market attractiveness no matter what the business is. So Virgin would be a good example of that. Tata has this sort of market power in India, where it is one of the…