Ratan Tata spells out the consequences of JLR failure

This is the raw copy of my second piece filed from Mumbai today, Tuesday March 24. It’s here because Birminghampost.net is currently experiencing technical problems.

The consequences of continued government inaction over Jaguar Land Rover were spelled out by Tata chairman Ratan Tata in his interview with the Birmingham Post.

When Tata bought Jaguar Land Rover exactly one year ago tomorrow, crucial to its wooing of the UK government and its new workforce was the promise to maintain the company’s three main UK plants.

Halewood, Solihull and Castle Bromwich were all safe in Tata’s hands, promised the chairman in March 2008.

In March 2009, what has changed?

“We made that promise in the process of taking over the bbusiness long before the global finance system collapsed in front of us. The promise was made and kept in those circumstances.

“There was a concern we would rationalise the plants after we bought the company. We did not..

“But to say we should be held to the same promise after the meltdown? It’s a new set of circumstances. The whole collapse in the market place is something no-one foresaw. What we’re trying to do is to keep that promise, but we need to have funds to sustain ourselves through this period.”

The 12 months since the takeover have seen Jaguar Land Rover’s hi-tech research and product development programmes bear fruit, most notably the diesel model of the XF, which is the greenest and most efficient car of its class.

Mt Tata said: “There’s another important issue that the government doesn’t seem to understand. We took a company which had two parts. One was the gold standard in off road vehicles and the other a venerable respected British brand that had gone through its ups and downs.

“Jaguar was on verge of coming out with new products in the XF and new XJ, and JLR as a whole had new developments in hybrids and aluminium architecture. We encouraged this and invested in it.”

“We even reinvigorated a project shelved by Ford to produce a new roadster.

“We went into the downturn with all these projects in process. It’s imperative we come out of the downturn with them all in place.

“We must come out of the recession with two British brands on their way back to their old glory. That would be my dream.

“But I need to sustain myself. The worse thing I can conceive is us coming out of the downturn no further forward than when we entered it – as though time stood still.

“And what’s likely is that these projects would be first to take the hit, with terrible long term raminfications, but it’s the easiest thing to do. And that would be a real slap in the face for what we undertook to do with the brands.”

What would happen if it becomes clear that the UK government is not going to come forward with the help JLR needs?

“What will happen, inevitably, is that we’ll keep cutting, we’ll keep denying ourselves. We’ll cut this project and that, laying off the people involved. And we’ll keep cutting until finally we have a company that’s stood still or moved backwards.”

Ratan Tata blasts UK government over Jaguar Land Rover

This is my raw copy filed to the Birmingham Post from India today, Tuesday, March 24. It can’t be published on the Post’s website because it’s broken. Normal service will be resumed soon.

An exasperated Ratan Tata, boss of the multi-billion Indian giant that owns Jaguar Land Rover, has broken his silence in the UK media to accuse the government of failing to value the manufacturing sector.

He also highlighted the potential cost to the company and its employees if the government does not come forward with the requested loan guarantees. He raised the prospect of JLR’s development projects being wound down, halting progress on a new sports roadster and leading to layoffs amongst development staff.

As the luxury car maker still waits for the government to agree to guarantee commercial loans to fund its working capital needs, the 71-year-old head of India’s largest company said the UK government didn’t seem to understand what it was his company was asking for.

Speaking in his office in the centre of Mumbai, the day after the launch of the Nano, dubbed the world’s cheapest car, Mr Tata said: “For some reason, our interactions with the government and members of the government seem to come back to ‘Tata is seeking a bailout for JLR. We’re really not but we have nowhere else to turn.

“The entire banking system has come to a halt in the UK, the US and India, but with one big difference. In the UK the banks have virtually been taken over by the government. They’ve bailed them out.

“When you go to the banks, they don’t say they won’t lend you the money. They set covenants you couldn’t possible accept and then say we couldn’t come to terms.

“All we’ve been asking is for the government to ask the banks they now own to give us a commercial credit on our balance sheet that will enable us to get through this period. £500m is what is required.”

Since the JLR crisis started in late 2008, the role of the Treasury and outside advisors has been called into question by observers who accuse them of having little understanding of the manufacturing sector.

Mr Tata said: “The government has advisers who seem to think the Tatas are trying to fob the problem onto the British government. The government thinks that because we’re approaching them for help, we must be asking for a bailout. But all we’re seeking is the governments facilitation of a commercial loan via the banks they own.”

JLR’s new product development programmes would be most at risk if the government failed to act, he said.

“We went into the downturn with a range of exciting projects in place, spanning new models and new hybrid and materials technology. It’s imperative we come out of the downturn with all these in place.

“But it’s likely that these projects would be the first to take the hit.”

The Birmingham Post site goes live

On the eve of our 150th Anniversary celebrations, we had a ceremonial turning on of the Post’s new website.

I’ll be transferring my blog to a new home alongside our already 30+-strong blogging community.

Come over and take a look here.

We’ve been thrown a Googlie

Just a quick update: When I started this blog I promised to be honest about our experiences setting up the Post’s new website, so here goes….

One of the features that I think could be a killer USP for us is Google’s neat Calendar widget. We wanted to embed one on the site, and then use it to list all the dozens and dozens of business events in the region.

This was set up easily two weeks ago, and we’ve been busily filling it up since.

Until today. Google Calendar hates Internet Explorer 6 so much it crashes the browser. IE7 and Firefox are fine. Guess how many of our current site visitors use IE6?. .. . . yes, half of them.

We’re now trying to find a solution. If anyone has a mate who works in Google, please ask them to get it sorted for the Birmingham Post as soon as possible.

The transparent newsroom

Is it hideously solipsistic to devote part of the Post’s blog space to discussions of our editorial decision-making processes? Who really wants to eavesdrop on the inane chatter that informs our daily grind, and would readers want to challenge us on our reasons for including or excluding certain stories and issues?

Neil Benson, the editorial director of Trinity Mirror’s regional newspapers – which includes The Birmingham Post – recently questioned whether the group’s editors were really signed up to the principle of interactivity. Despite our furious nodding at Neil’s regular forums, where such issues are addressed, Neil suspects we’d all rather the audience accept what we’ve been broadcasting at them for years – and keep their views to themselves.

I think Neil’s right to throw out the challenge. It’s hard enough agreeing on the news agenda when there’s only half a dozen of us sitting around The Post’s daily conference table. And if there’s disagreement, I just play the editor’s trump card (it’s a kind of feudalism in this business). Imagine the chaos if I had to take into account what you lot think.

Until we got our teeth into the new Post site, I think I have been guilty of rather sniffily dismissing the issue of interactivity as one only for my tabloid colleagues. Let them encourage Jean from Scunthorpe air her views on J-Lo’s babies, or Wayne from Teesside share a video of his mates joyriding – that’s not something The Post need worry itself with. Surely our readers are far too busy making money or ruling the city to engage in this kind of low-level drivel?

But surely if The Post is to secure its reputation as the paper that holds others to account by championing transparency, then it needs to heed its own rules – particularly as it moves into a medium which is about nothing if not the free exchange of information. We pass judgement daily on the decisions of others – and the consequences of those decisions. Why not help others judge ours?

Other papers are making brave steps towards opening up and making themselves more accountable the editorial process.

Chief amongst these is the Spokesman Review in the US, a family owned daily paper. Its editor Steve Smith blogs about the issues and decisions behind his newspaper’s coverage in a section labelled News is a Conversation. He discusses current stories and the paper’s coverage of them against the benchmark of the title’s published core values.

This is a tremendously brave approach. But it goes further: he streams the twice daily news conferences, publishes the newslist, and invites readers’ challenges.

Now, I don’t know to what extent all this has helped or hindered the Spokesman Review’s performance, but it seems to me that conducted honestly, this is a surefire way to build trust, and with trust comes loyalty, and with that audiences.

So how far should The Post go? This blog will evolve into something akin to Steve’s ‘News is a Conversation’ section (and I’ll be moving it from WordPress across to our own bespoke MoveableType platform next week), but what else should we do?

I’m interested in your comments, but remember – I am the feudal overlord.

Some other newsroom blogs from around Trinity Mirror:

• Graeme Whitfield: Newcastle Journal newsroom insights

• Adrian Seal: searingly honest warts and all insight into the life of a weekly newspaper editor

• And here’s Ali Machray from the Liverpool Echo dissing rainy Birmingham
• And my Birmingham Mail colleague Steve Dyson’s. An active and very conversational blog, I know Steve’s has become one of the hotspots on the new Mail site

Mission possible?

Who on earth thought it made sense to stage one of the biggest events in the Post’s history and launch our completely new web service on the same day?

Of course it makes sense: on February 29 in the Great Hall of Birmingham University, we’re celebrating the Post’s 150th anniversary at the kind of gala event that can only be described as ‘glittering’. There’ll be 500 people there – each one of them epitomising our target audience (please shoot me if I use the word ‘demographic’). Politicians, businessess people, celebs, lawyers, cultural leaders . . . all read, write for, are featured in or advertise with the Post – and sometimes all four. If we can persuade them that The Post can be just as relevant and valuable online as it is in print, then we’re on our way.

So amongst the back-slapping and nostalgia, we’ll be spreading the message of what the new site has to offer to the ‘wealth creators and policy makers’ of 21st century Birmingham. This is some of it:

• Finely targeted content for the main business and industrial sectors of the region – with email alerts, RSS feeds and bloggers for each sector
• An online business events calendar (thanks Google Calendar) to bring together all the region’s main conferences, speeches, seminars and networking events in one place
• ‘Pagesuite’ versions of our main supplements and business publications
• A roster of more than 30 bloggers – including the cream of Brum’s ‘blogerati’ (thanks chaps – you know who you are)
• A smattering of video (that will – I hope – be the opposite of what Paul Bradshaw unearthed at the Reading Post http://tinyurl.com/24amvm)
• Neat, easily navigable arts, culture and leisure pages
• Some clever use of tagging to bring relevant material together from our extensive database

We have a snag list as long as your arm, and a list of wild and wacky ideas to tackle in the future – plus some that might actually make sense (such as Birmingham Post-nurtured online communities on Facebook and Linkedin for some of the business sectors…)

All credit to Steve Nicholls and Joanna Geary for putting in all the hard work – all I do is send them lists of more things to do.

The Power 50

 One of the most controversial initiatives undertaken by The Birmingham Post last year was the launch of the Power 50 list http://tinyurl.com/3y8nvp.

With our co-conspirators, Birmingham Future http://www.birminghamfuture.co.uk/, our aim was to highlight the people in and around Birmingham who have the most influence on the future shape and direction of the city. What I liked most about the list and the project was that it allowed us to look beyond the usual suspects, and celebrate the contribution and potential of people from all walks of life. So we had jazz musicians rubbing shoulders with financiers, and educationalists alongside web entrepreneurs.

Top of the list was Digby Jones (since elevated to Lord Jones of Birmingham, no doubt as adirct consequence), with such figures as Liam Byrne, Fyfe Dangerfield, Brum blogger Stef Lewandowski and developer Gary Taylor bringing up the rear.

The reaction was the most vocal I’ve experienced so far in the city, and evenly divided between those who seemed to ‘get it’, and those who thought it was outrageous that time-servers and faceless bureaucrats didn’t dominate.

Many criticisms were fair however: there was a disgracefully low number of women in the list, and many names were suggested after the event that hadn’t even made it on to the shortlist.

So this year, we’re ‘crowd sourcing’ the long listing process by asking key people in the region to tell us who the judges should consider. Let’s be clear, though: this is no ‘Pop Idol’ peoples’ vote. The judges’ final decision will be deliciously subjective based on the criteria (see below).

We’re kicking off the initiative at the end of March, with the list being revealed at an event in July.

This is the criteria we used last year. We already have some thoughts on tweaking some of the points for 2008 . . .  any suggestions welcome.

1. ACHIEVEMENT What has the contender actually achieved to date? What are their tangible attainments in terms of power and influence? How many lives have they already affected? What is their current sphere of influence? 
2. INFLUENCE  How influential is the contender, not only in his/her own discipline but also across other sectors. The influence of the contender should also be judged against different groups. For instance, does the influence extend across the whole age profile of the city and region or is it solelyconfined to one age group? How engaged are they or their activities in different ethnic communities? 
3. CHARISMA  Does the contender have the power to inspire others? Is he/she regarded as inspirational and as a role model? Do they have other personal qualities such as excellent communication or collaborative skills that characterisereal leadership ability? 
4. POTENTIAL  What is the contender’s ability to grow and improve? Does he/she show great promise as a future leader/entrepreneur? Is the person a pioneer of a movement / technology / industry that may have an enormous impact on our lives in the future? 
5. LEGACY  What kind of lasting mark will the contender’s contribution leave on Birmingham and or the West Midlands? This is designed to distinguish from contenders whose performance may be spectacular, but only on a short term basis – or limited to one narrow sector -, against those whose contribution will leave a lasting legacy for the wider community.  

In addition to the above, the judges will be asked to consider contenders’ ambassadorial qualities. Is he/she a person Birmingham and the West Midlands can be proud of?

Post Beta site released

….. but only to us insiders. Sorry.

But I do want to share my excitement at how this is progressing. Our fundamental concept of creating platforms for the various business and other sectors that provide the backbone of the Post’s current coverage is taking shape. We’ll have sector ‘channels’ within which all the relevant breaking news, comment, analysis, blogs etc will be found. We’ll also offer email newsletters for those who want them.

The drive to recruit a varied roster of bloggers has delivered some amazing results, and I think will be a major USP for the site.

 More soon

New Street Station: the future starts here

Much excitement in the Post newsroom last night when our Westminster correspondent told us he had confirmation of today’s Government announcement of the go-ahead for the redevelopment of New Street Station http://tinyurl.com/2avlsv.

In my two years at the Post, hardly a week has passed without us running a major story on this sorry saga of infighting and argument over the future of the station. Indeed, for the past few months, we’ve been publishing a running total of the number of days that have elapsed since we were last told a resolution was ‘imminent’ (it was 127 days today).

So it felt rather odd last night to be reporting that the city will, after all, have a shiny new station in time for the Olympics. And, at the end of the evening, the feeling was one of anti-climax.  While wanting to take nothing away from those whose herculean efforts resulted in today’s announcement, the fact is we needed a New Street upgrade decades ago. Now, the city has to catch up those lost years – and at the same time use the New Street success to push for the extension of the airport’s runway, the extension of the Metro RTS and the upgrade of the main rail lines which serve the city.

Please don’t think we’re ungrateful – just impatient.

24/7 or 16/6?

What’s the fascination with always-on rolling news?

There seems to be an assumption that when you launch a website based around news you immediately become a 24-hour channel constantly spewing out news breaks and updates to an audience of breathless insomniacs. Indeed, from what I read into the behaviour of some of the news websites I follow with my Google Reader, it seems many organisations go to great lengths to give the impression that they are a constantly manned media operation – while actually being anything but.

The truth is, of course, that they merely programme their CMS to release certain stories at predefined times, allowing their harassed news editors to get some well-earned sleep, and some breathing space before the onslaught of the next news day.

Does this matter?

Our approach for the new Post website aims to be both ambitious and pragmatic.

Ambitious in that our audience (being mostly business readers), will demand up-to-date and valuable information for their particular business sectors – at the time of day that they’re at work. This is a great opportunity for us, as we already have much embargoed information to hand from the early hours of the morning, but our print deadlines force us to hold it back to the next day. Now, we’ll be able to ‘flash’ the immediate news straight away, and add layers of information through the day as the story develops. This will require new approaches in the way we work, and new levels of collaboration between the print and multimedia desks, but certainly not the wholsale destruction of current processes.

As for pragmatism, I believe this is where we need to avoid the temptation to ‘break everything – now!’. The Post’s key journalistic quality is one of intelligent analysis and explanation of often very complex issues. Our readers would rather watch three or four key stories develop through the day – and, moreover, trust us to choose the right stories – than be bombarded with dozens and dozens of bitty one-fact newsbreaks. Sure, we’ll ensure there’s a constant supply of new copy into all the component channels of the site, but the main pages – the front and business in particular – will have to be as carefully crafted and managed as the front page of the newspaper.