SHINNING VISION ARTICLE

BUSINESS India

DATE-14 TO 27 OCTOBER 2013

When the TATA group decided to take over British petroleum stake in the erstwhile 50:50. Core oil business exited its leadership in July 2012; they were looking for a new chief executive officer. And they found one in Ajay Goel who joined the wholly owned subsidiary TATA power in august 2012.

The company was in turnmoil with a lack of direction and leadership was in flux. Having an experience of 10 year in clean technology especially in solar power says Goel soon after the industry itself was in turnmoil globally growing fast earlier it faced constrain. The availability of solar cells and panel doubling from 2010-2011 driven mainly by china but then demand fell off a cliff to half ,because of financial crises .most companies faced a crisis, having installed expensive capacity ,so, they cut their prices. The Indian model of exporting solar modules to the US and Europe naturally came under threat. Goel says, “ 23 year in the business ,the foundation was strong. I only had to build a focused leadership team, with people who were passionate about solar energy and making innovation in the field”. After the US and Europe naturally came under threat they shifted to the India market. Indian market became a ‘keen area of growth, in mindshare even if not in number. TPS opened boasts of more than 80 MW of large scale, 30 MW rooftop installations. They have also “community off grid programs in key state like Chhattisgarh, Jammu and Kashmir, and Tamil Naidu”. It also has a ‘strong’ distribution and sales channel. The product has been useful for the end user customer include lanterns, home lighting system, street light and water pump.

TPS is now in three business- cost leadership in manufacturing, rapid growth in solar project, and launching slate of affordable new product for the off grid market. He says” every serious company is seeing resurgence”. He also says” they have also helped in structuring and financing to make investment affordable through our eco system of finance and partner”. TPS electrified 25000 houses in Tamil Naidu during the year and is increasing this to 40000.TPS has also designed lanterns with standard batteries, which the users can replace, and a retrofitted inverter. They says ” we have lowered the entry barrier so that our product can be mainstream and not just a fad”. He says “my background in software have helped in couple of ways like- he understand the cost of mistake they cause discomfort to millions of people and they take year to get correct” his vision is “to give us a solar plant on your rooftop and enable us to check its performance even when we can’t grow up to check on its physically”. The company is trying to build a culture where people connect without face-to-face interaction, and drive productivity. He has also been propagating the message of ‘invest and grow’ for the past year and he describe it as a driving factor in getting people to believe themselves.