Tata Sons chairman warns of more disruption, volatility in new year

Tata Sons chairman warns of more disruption, volatility in new year

Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran has warned of more disruption and volatility in 2024, even as he said India’s future is bright as the country fared better than most others this year.

The country’s economy is thriving and gross domestic product (GDP) is on track to double to $7 trillion over the next five years, while technologies such as generative AI (GenAI) is a potential antidote, he added.

Geopolitics is also a potential source of volatility, he said, adding that 2024 is a year of elections with 40 nations heading to the polls. Despite this, the near-term global outlook feels shadowed with uncertainty, but India’s future is bright, Tata Sons chairman said.

“In 2023, we (India) fared better than most. We showed admirable leadership at a historic G20 summit. Our economy is thriving with GDP on track to double to $7 trillion over the next five years. And I am certain that India is poised to benefit from the aforementioned shifts transforming the world. GenAI, for example, is a potential antidote to our access and inequality problems—provided we are careful and introduce the right rules,” he added.

According to Chandrasekaran, 2023 has been a tumultuous year as the world faced an array of destabilising trends from escalating geopolitical tensions to the mass adoption of GenAI to the ever-accelerating push toward sustainability.

“Some of these trends have been welcome, others much less so. But all of them have made the rules and processes governing our world trickier to navigate—and all of them have added to the pressure to adapt,” he said.

In 2023, two stories — one of lunar mission and the Indian cricket team’s journey in the World Cup — stood out, he said. Talking about Tata Group, Chandrasekaran said it performed “admirably” in 2023. This was due to the company’s principles of simplification, synergy, scale, sustainability, supply chain and AI, which will also bring “resilient growth for decades to come”.

The combined market capitalisation of Tata Group companies increased by 32%, nearly double the rate of the Sensex, which rose by 17%. In 2024, he said, the group needs to prioritise on execution, customer satisfaction and technology, even as he called every company in the group to appoint an AI champion to pursue its benefits.