Thursday, October 11, 2012

CEOS (FROM L TO R) : B. MUTHURAMAN, TATA STEEL; RAVI KANT, TATA MOTORS; AND S. RAMODARAI, TCS

2009 will see Tata Steel, TCS and Tata Motors lose their top men to retirement. Is the Tata Group prepared for this, or even the larger leadership crisis?

Russi Mody was well past 70 and was unceremoniously ousted. Darbari Seth fought a subterranean battle that he lost when he turned 70. Even his son had to quit as MD, Tata Chemicals. And Ajit Kerkar could not even enjoy the fruits of being non-executive Chairman as he was turfed out of the Taj group when he turned 65. The exit of regional chieftains enabled Ratan Tata to transform the group from a loosely held federation to a tightly controlled corporate house where he and his trusted, hand-picked team held all the aces. In fact, Tata leveraged his unchallenged supremacy to ensure that the holding company Tata Sons substantially increased its stake in all group companies. This has been one of the key reasons for group companies like Tata Tea, TCS, Tata Steel & Tata Motors to execute expensive global acquisitions.

In 2002, when he turned 65, Ratan Tata stuck to the ‘group’ policy and retired as executive Chairman of the group. But then, no one in the group or anywhere else had any doubt whatsoever as to who called the shots in the group, no matter who the ‘executive head’. If you think Ratan Tata has actually relinquished control after 2002 when he retired as executive chairman, you will believe that it is Manmohan Singh, and not Sonia Gandhi who calls the shots in UPA. This arrangement worked well for while and then the clock started ticking again. It was Ratan Tata who had introduced a policy that defined 70 years as the final cut off age even for ‘non-executive’ positions; the same policy that was invoked to oust big wigs like Russi Mody and Darbari Seth. Most leaders tend to think that they are indispensable and Ratan Tata is no different. The dilemma was how to transform his ‘indispensability’ into official group policy. Out went the Sonia model and in came the Zia ul Haq cum Mussharraff model of governance. They changed the constitution to extend their rule and Ratan Tata changed the official group policy to extend his tenure. Back in 2005, Tata Sons announced that non-executive chairmen can now function up to age 75. Ratan Tata was 68 then and earned a fresh mandate to lead the group till 2012 at least.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
 
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face
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Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Icing off the cake!

Iceland's PM resigns on the back of global economic turmoil

Iceland's Prime Minister Geir Haarde has quit office following violent protests against his coalition’s policies that resulted in the collapse of the country’s currency and banking system. But Haarde said his coalition would stay around till the elections scheduled for early May 2009. Iceland's economic meltdown is so severe that Haarde’s Independence Party and its Social Democratic Alliance partners are unable to find even wiggle space. If it was not for the meltdown, Haarde and Ingibjorg Solrun Gisladottir, who heads the Alliance party, would have held on till 2011. Their two-thirds parliamentary majority would have ensured their blissful sojourn, but now, with things deteriorating steadily, the 57-year-old Haarde is the first world leader forced to exit due to the financial turmoil.

Haarde's popularity fell steeply in public ratings after Iceland’s deeply indebted economy fell apart in the midst of the global debt crisis. As the crown (Iceland's currency) fell, the government was left with just one option: to seize control of its three major banks.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
 
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face
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Tuesday, October 09, 2012

The Zoroastrian race is vanishing, yet there’s much people of all religions can learn from its legacy

Well, they say that it is the success of early Parsi entrepreneurs and other successful people such as the Wadias and the Tatas that pressurises Parsis to aspire for a fortune before getting married! This leads to either no marriage or late marriages or marriages which result in no more than one kid.

People have adopted realistic ways to keep the Parsi traditions alive. For instance, the Zoroastrians in Iran have tried to preserve the community’s identity by learning Persian poetry of the Shah Nameh, by holding religious classes and enjoying celebrations such as their New Year, Nowruz. In order to preserve and keep the race pure, inter-faith marriages are also discouraged. But the trend says people have moved with time and do not consider themselves faithless if they marry someone from another religion. “I feel, to save the religion you have to be more embracing. You should rather extend and expand to continue the religion in some form. Religion must keep up with prevailing times to let one live one’s life to the fullest,” remarked Cyrus Oshidar, ex-VP, creative, MTV. Modern Parsis present an example for many to emulate. They are secure about their existence as good human beings.

The world would only have been a better place if like Zoroastrianism, religions didn’t aim at converting people to their faith. So what if it doesn’t survive very many years. At least for generations its followers can prosper in peace and not burn eternally in conflict.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

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IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face
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Monday, October 08, 2012

Arindam Chaudhuri on WHY ISB IS BETTER THAN THE IIMs

and How to judge B-Schools

Introduction

First things first... Ever since we started Business & Economy, we avoided the temptation of undertaking B-school rankings for the simple reason that IIPM is a B-School we are very closely associated with; and at IIPM, we have always claimed that we are the best B-school globally. So any B-school ranking brought out by us would have had IIPM right at the top, at least in the three parameters of ‘course contents’, ‘global exposure’ and ‘research & consulting’! But if we were to have finally published such a ranking, our friends in the media would have taken no time to call them biased, however fact-based the rankings might have been. And undertaking a B-school ranking without speaking about ourselves would be next to impossible for an aggressive group like ours, which so passionately believes in our (IIPM’s) superiority. However, after the recent Zee Business B-School Survey that ranked us No.1 on at least one very very apparent criterion – of global exposure – I thought we could at least talk about Indian B-schools, if not rank them. And with the amount I personally am immersed in B-school mechanics and workings, it became but obvious that if our magazine were to do an article on the same, the story in any case would have been ghost written and dictated by me. So I thought I should anchor the story myself.

The second issue that needs clarification is that despite IIPM’s ‘Dare To Think Beyond The IIMs’ campaign, I have nothing against the IIMs; rather, all I have is sheer respect [My father was a professor at IIM Bangalore and is extremely proud of the same. My Managing Partner, my best friend at IIPM and the Editor of this magazine itself, A. Sandeep, is a product of IIPM and IIM Calcutta; and he specifically had gone to study there to have a first hand knowledge about the ‘IIM way’ before coming back to IIPM to take it up.

And finally, my best friend in school and the Head of our news portal TheDailyIndian.com, Partha Saha, is a proud product of IIM Calcutta]. We believe we are the best when it comes to education, but that doesn’t mean we don’t know how good the IIMs are or that their students get better placements than our students or even the fact that they attract the best of students of India – though we may still not accept that the final IIM product is, therefore, necessarily better! So, this article is not an attempt to malign the IIMs, but a simple attempt to analyse some facts. Having said that, let me also state that what I am writing shouldn’t shock many; at least not those who know that the 2008 Financial Times rankings have put ISB as the 20th best B-school in the world and haven’t put any of the IIMs even in the top hundred! Yet, what I hope this article will do is bring perspective to those rankings and explain to people what management education is all about; since no magazine undertaking B-school surveys in India has even a fraction of ability to comment upon management education in India, compared to our capability. And it’s no arrogance but pure facts that we present. Almost all of Business & Economy’s editorial team comprises educated MBAs – the reason our magazine is such a sell out amongst those who love sharp analytical articles instead of pages full of incomprehensible blah blah based upon tens of quotes [the only thing typical journalists can rely upon in the absence of analytical skills].

And finally, I must say that the reference of IIPM will keep coming up from time to time, though I will try my best to keep the focus on the ‘ISB vs IIMs’ issue in order to make it read most unbiased!


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

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IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face
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Saturday, October 06, 2012

CBI: POLITICAL MUDDLES

CBI has Recorded its Lowest Conviction Rate in 2009; What’s the Way Forward?
 
The government can learn from how the Election Commission of India was established in 1950 under Article 324. Once set up, India has seen many time periods that have witnessed massive friction between the powers that be and the election commissioners – with T. N. Seshan being the most noteworthy of them all, who ensured that the government understood the Commission’s superiority.

In other words, not only is it required that the government constitutionalise CBI, but also that it gives away the power to recruit the head of CBI in a manner that does not make it a mockery (akin to what has happened with the Central Vigilance Commission, where the top appointments have become politicised).


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
 
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face

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