Mind Blogging. Mind Boggling.

An extremely surprising and novel facet of the bigwigs of India Inc. - the business model they follow. For starters, consider the Fortune 10:

Each of these behemoths is sector specific- oil, retail, automobiles...then moving on to others that populate the top 50, we have Banking (BOA, JPP Morgan, Morgan, ML), FMCG (P&G, Unilever) , Communication (AT&T, Verizon)- all sectors represented by their world leaders. Specialization is indeed a common thread running through global giants.

However, coming to the Indian market, we see a totally different ball game. The idea for every big desi company is to dabble in every possible sector- offer an umbrella- a wide range of products and services.

Take the Tata group- India's largest business entity with 96 companies under their fold- they have a mind boggling array of products and services. Many of the Tata group companies are household names by themselves, and frequently star in the headlines. Consider,

1. Steel (Tata Steel, Corus, the hue and cry surrounding Corus)
2. Power (Tata Power)
3. Retail (Westside, Trent)
3. Automobiles (Tata Motors, the world automobile market watches with bated breath as the 1 lac car story unfolds in India, as there is atalk of the Rover acquisition)
4. Telecom (Tata Indicom, the big spectrum battle raging in the telecom industry)
5. FMCG (Tata Salt, Tetley, second largest tea maker of the world)
6. Consulting (TCS, TSMG)
7. Insurance (Tata-AIG life insurance)
8. Software (Tata Elxsi)
9. Communication (Tata Sky)
10. Consumer Appliances (Voltas, Titan)
11. Hospitality (Taj group of Hotels, the Orient Express turning down Tata's bids)
12. Publishing (Tata McGraw Hill)
12. Tata Chemicals (Acquired British company Brunner Mond in '06)
10. Fundamental Research (Tata Institute of Fundamanetal Resesarch, CSR: Computational Research Lab)

All put together, the 28 publicly listed companies generate revenue of $22 billion (05-06). This would comfortably place the Tata Group in the Fortune 100 list. The variety is simply mind numbing. In each of the aforementioned sectors, Tata products are not just around to mark their presence but are thriving and are market leaders in many cases.

There is Wipro( FMCG- soap, talcum powders, IT) and there is ITC (cigarettes, packaged food, chips, Paper- Classmate range of notebooks, Hospitality, Clothing) and there is the comparatively low profile $ 2 Billion Murugappa group (Sanitaryware- Parryware, Cycles-TI cycles whose marquees include BSA and Hercules, Mutual Finds and Financial Services, Confectionary - Parry's) .

Is this 'umbrella' philosophy sustainable ? Will it lead to unsurmountable internal rifts and strains ? The Reliance split seems to suggest so, but as the India Inc. juggernaut rolls on seemingly inevitably, the umbrella model stands ratified. As a bystander, one is compelled to stop, stare and wonder.