It was not until the late 1990s that the Indian media took notice of Indian IT firms and started their coverage as such... Typically there were 5-6 firms which received a major chunk of the coverage.. Infy, Satyam, HCL, Wipro, TCS & Cognizant in more are less the same sequence.. Infy & Satyam were headed by really flamboyant and media savy bosses back then... TCS was unlisted and CTS was seen an outside firm as it was unlisted in India ....
Then came the folklore which everyone loved... a disciplinarian boss, darling of the media, core IITans blah blah... Media was seeing only the rosy picture.. with information about the industry itself so sparse and the key players were either unlisted or did not live by the media, Satyam & Infy which warmed up to the media became quite popular..
Mind you the serious business media were carrying stories on all major ones and were always doing serious comparisons even when TCS was unlisted... but I'm talking about the general media, which mortals like me follow...
Media frenzy is like underworld.. u live and die by it, Satyam, AAP are all great examples.. so it was not a surprise when after a while of sluggish growth, media ruthlessly cut off the bellwether tag and I read some articles which late in 2012 said TCS is the new bellwether.. 7 years after listing... i found that funny....
Anyhow, the reason for Infy sluggishness was attributed to the MD, 3.0 strategy and what not... but one man stood out and made a revelation, albeit late, to me which seems likely cause.. Chairman of Manipal Institutions and Infy veteran Pai has said that lack of empowerment among senior executives may have caused some of the sluggishness...
In the end all this drama and hype boiled down to just CEO selection... Naturally, the way the company has been operating and given the media limelight there will be many contenders for the top post...
Not many media reports are to be seen on the top execs of other firms.. no one knows the VPs of TCS ot CTS or wipro beyond the C level or the ones who are not in the board...Infy names keep getting published every now and then...
There were some key exits in TCS just around the 1-2 year period before and after the transition in 2008...Wipro also saw some exits at the time of 2 CEO model...none of these was made headline material....
On the one hand people are somehow made popular and on the other , when they leave its being said that not all were high performers.. well if that is the case then how did they make it so high up to the corporate ladder?
The CEO succession could have been done in a muted fashion as well... TCS, CTS saw a relatively smooth succession and so did wipro after Vivek Paul and 2 CEOs to Kurien....
similar hype was made in replacing the exec chairman after murthy... Yes media would intervene.. they did so in the case of the Tata succession be in in 1991 or in 2012.. I still remember in 1991 when my family elders were quoting a media report ad said RNT is quite a surprise choice don't know what JRD is thinking..
and the noise around Rohan Murthy.. I still can't fathom.. Rishad Premji wa inducted into Wipro and has been silently working for more than 7 years.... I don't think there was ever such noise..
may be this noise was because of Murthy's own doing.. the kejriwalesque statement on wards of Infy founders will never work in the firm.. Why? is the firm too lowly for them? or are they not qualified enough.. it would have been better had he just said.. there would be conscious plan for the succession of he wards of the founders.. they can join and rise through the ranks per their interest and merit... I never heard such a positive statement from Murthy...
always I have been hearing comments with some level of attitude.. be it the comment attributes to him on love ur job not ur company...that was silly... or be it that comment/memo on people spending time in offices for free AC & net... well that's equally silly...
These things go unnoticed when success is the norm of the day.. and when success begins to get slow ( mind you no failure yet just slow success) the scrutiny is more minute..
That's why many media carried a series of articles which eventually seen as defamatory culminating in the notice for apology or court case... Well let's see if this new mgmt. brings out any changes..
Then came the folklore which everyone loved... a disciplinarian boss, darling of the media, core IITans blah blah... Media was seeing only the rosy picture.. with information about the industry itself so sparse and the key players were either unlisted or did not live by the media, Satyam & Infy which warmed up to the media became quite popular..
Mind you the serious business media were carrying stories on all major ones and were always doing serious comparisons even when TCS was unlisted... but I'm talking about the general media, which mortals like me follow...
Media frenzy is like underworld.. u live and die by it, Satyam, AAP are all great examples.. so it was not a surprise when after a while of sluggish growth, media ruthlessly cut off the bellwether tag and I read some articles which late in 2012 said TCS is the new bellwether.. 7 years after listing... i found that funny....
Anyhow, the reason for Infy sluggishness was attributed to the MD, 3.0 strategy and what not... but one man stood out and made a revelation, albeit late, to me which seems likely cause.. Chairman of Manipal Institutions and Infy veteran Pai has said that lack of empowerment among senior executives may have caused some of the sluggishness...
In the end all this drama and hype boiled down to just CEO selection... Naturally, the way the company has been operating and given the media limelight there will be many contenders for the top post...
Not many media reports are to be seen on the top execs of other firms.. no one knows the VPs of TCS ot CTS or wipro beyond the C level or the ones who are not in the board...Infy names keep getting published every now and then...
There were some key exits in TCS just around the 1-2 year period before and after the transition in 2008...Wipro also saw some exits at the time of 2 CEO model...none of these was made headline material....
On the one hand people are somehow made popular and on the other , when they leave its being said that not all were high performers.. well if that is the case then how did they make it so high up to the corporate ladder?
The CEO succession could have been done in a muted fashion as well... TCS, CTS saw a relatively smooth succession and so did wipro after Vivek Paul and 2 CEOs to Kurien....
similar hype was made in replacing the exec chairman after murthy... Yes media would intervene.. they did so in the case of the Tata succession be in in 1991 or in 2012.. I still remember in 1991 when my family elders were quoting a media report ad said RNT is quite a surprise choice don't know what JRD is thinking..
and the noise around Rohan Murthy.. I still can't fathom.. Rishad Premji wa inducted into Wipro and has been silently working for more than 7 years.... I don't think there was ever such noise..
may be this noise was because of Murthy's own doing.. the kejriwalesque statement on wards of Infy founders will never work in the firm.. Why? is the firm too lowly for them? or are they not qualified enough.. it would have been better had he just said.. there would be conscious plan for the succession of he wards of the founders.. they can join and rise through the ranks per their interest and merit... I never heard such a positive statement from Murthy...
always I have been hearing comments with some level of attitude.. be it the comment attributes to him on love ur job not ur company...that was silly... or be it that comment/memo on people spending time in offices for free AC & net... well that's equally silly...
These things go unnoticed when success is the norm of the day.. and when success begins to get slow ( mind you no failure yet just slow success) the scrutiny is more minute..
That's why many media carried a series of articles which eventually seen as defamatory culminating in the notice for apology or court case... Well let's see if this new mgmt. brings out any changes..
No comments:
Post a Comment