Welcome to Edition #102 of Gorick's newsletter, where Harvard career advisor and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Gorick Ng shares what they don't teach you in school about how to succeed in your career.
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→ Read time: 5 min
STORY
The car that was too cheap to succeed
If you’ve ever heard of businessman Ratan Tata, then you know about India’s largest company: the Tata group.
You may even know that the Tata group once released “the world’s cheapest car,” the Tata Nano.
But did you know that the Tata Nano, meant to “improve the quality of life” for millions of low-income Indians, ended up being a “commercial failure” that led to “substantial loss” for the company?
It’s 2008. Tata Motors had just launched the Tata Nano, a 4-seat compact car priced at ₹100,000 (roughly $2,500 USD at the time).
This announcement was a big deal: cars, often out of reach for the average Indian household, would suddenly become accessible to countless people.
It was launched with “high expectations.” The press called it “the pop star of the car world.”
But, instead of dominating the market, the Nano struggled to gain traction.
The company had projected “annual sales of 250,000 units,” but in its first year, the Nano only sold 30,000 units—or 12% of its projected sales.
Only 300,000 units were sold over the course of the Nano’s 10 year lifespan—barely over the company’s initial sales projected annual sales. By 2019, the Nano was discontinued entirely.
What went wrong?
Here’s what Tata group didn’t realize: People wanted a car they could be proud of—“because nobody aspires to own a cheap car.”
“It should have been marketed as a smart entry-level car and not as an upgrade to a scooter,” Hormazd Sorabjee, an auto expert, shared about the Nano’s failure. Public commentary that I found on Reddit agreed:
By branding the Nano as “the cheapest car,” Tata unintentionally made it undesirable—even for India’s poorest consumers. A car isn’t just a mode of transportation; it’s a status symbol. No one wanted to be seen in a vehicle that screamed, “I couldn’t afford anything better.”
What does this mean for you? The next time you buy anything—whether it’s a car, a piece of clothing, or even a cup of coffee—remember that you wouldn’t have bought it had the company not understood your needs and wants (perhaps even better than you know them yourself).
UNSPOKEN RULE
Know what matters to those who matter
The Nano failed because of poor “positioning”—fancy speak for “how something is perceived by customers compared to its alternatives. ”It turns out that poor positioning doesn’t just lead to the downfall of products. It can also lead to the downfall of careers.
The big mistake many people make? Assuming that they are “just” in charge of what’s written in their job description.
Here’s the reality: Your organization didn’t hire you to simply fill a seat or to be busy. They hired you to show results. That means not only doing the work but “owning” the work.
I mean it! I interview senior leaders all the time and the #1 characteristic they see most lacking in their employees is an “ownership mindset.”
How do you have an ownership mindset?
It begins with understanding what matters to those who matter.
1. Ask yourself: “What’s the #1 thing that my manager and other higher-ups are complaining about?”
2. Then ask yourself: “What can I do to help them solve this issue?”
“But how do I know if a complaint is worth paying attention to?” you might ask.
Complaints fall under 3 categories:
(a) Minor itches (e.g., slide templates that don’t align with the company’s rebrand)
(b) Massive pains (e.g., a lack of standardized onboarding processes leading to slower new hire ramp up time)
(c) Mission critical (e.g., a lack of staff to deliver on a major promise to a major client)
Just because a problem is big doesn’t mean it’s yours to tackle. After all, getting ahead requires more than just competence and commitment; you also need compatibility. So, before proposing anything, consider consulting a coworker who’s close to the problem to learn more about the context (like Walmart’s CEO did when he was a new hire on the buyer team).
In the end, it’s all about listening to your “customers”—which Tata group clearly never did.
Know what matters to those who matter!
See you on Thursday for my “Ask Gorick Anything” series,
—Gorick
What’s an “unspoken rule”? They’re the things that separate those who get ahead from those who stumble—and don’t know why. You can learn more about these rules in the workplace in my Wall Street Journal bestselling book called—you guessed it—The Unspoken Rules.
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Sources:
- “the world’s cheapest car”
- “improve the quality of life”
- “commercial failure”
- “₹100,000”
- (roughly $2,500 USD at the time)
- “high expectations”
- “the pop star of the car world.”
- A Tata Nano ad from 2012
- (The minimum downpayment.)
- “annual sales of 250,000 units,”
- Sales of the Tata Nano
- “300,000 units were sold.”
- “because nobody aspires to own a cheap car.”
- Public commentary that I found on Reddit agreed
- Ratan Tata called the Nano “the people’s car.”
