Innholdsfortegnelse for 5-Apr-20 i Business Today

An ambitious, greedy banker ran his company aground by disbursing massive loans from the publicly listed bank in lieu of back-deals to enrich himself. That’s how the Enforcement Directorate has presented its case against former Yes Bank promoter and CEO Rana Kapoor. It’s the newest addition to the long list of corporate investigations the ED is pursuing in the ongoing assault on erring and defaulting promoters. It is now faced with the arduous task of conducting forensics and connecting the dots – deciphering the trail of money and linking it to the motive of kickbacks or bribery. The latter, the hardest to prove. Having established a money trail of ₹4,300 crore loans and ₹600 crore of alleged kickbacks, ED says it’s now zeroed in on ₹20,000 crore worth of loans…

At the height of the 2008 financial crisis, New York-based JP Morgan Chase agreed to bail out a troubled investment bank, Bear Stearns, after much prodding by the US government. The deal to buy the marquee bank at a measly price of $10 per share as against the market price of $30 per share (pre-crisis high of $133 per share) after the crisis looked attractive. JP Morgan’s CEO Jamie Dimon initially put up a brave front by boasting about the strengths of the bank’s $2.7 trillion-balance sheet and the marginal impact the acquisition would have on its capital. But as years passed, Dimon realised the big mistake the bank had made in rescuing Bear Stearns. Seven years after the global crisis hit the financial system, Dimon publicly expressed his regret.…

At a time when every business is in trouble, there are some bright spots. This includes makers of hand sanitisers and masks. As hand sanitisers are disappearing from store shelves, Philipe Haydon, CEO, Himalaya Drug Company, says: “People call me a hoarder. I have no reason to hoard a product that costs ₹30-50.” Demand has shot up 10 times. Other than packaging material, the input material has alcohol in it. You need an excise license to hold that amount of alcohol, he says. In the pre-coronavirus scare days, the company sold 250,000-400,000 units a month. Now it is done in a couple of days.” Haydon estimates the Indian hand sanitiser market to be in the region of ₹100 crore in the pre-coronavirus scare days. “Other players in the market include…

If you have started a religion, it helps to stay connected with your followers. At Microsoft, the seers from Redmond – from founder Bill Gates to current CEO Satya Nadella – know this well. As part of efforts to build a following, they have been systematically reaching out to India, following a similar pattern of interactions each time – meeting CEOs and addressing the developer community. Nadella followed the tradition during his just concluded visit to India. Only this time, the scale and level of engagement went much deeper considering that India matters both for talent sourcing (India operations have the biggest pool of engineers after the US) and business. Anant Maheshwari, President, Microsoft India, set the stage at the CEO Summit in Mumbai by pointing out that the tech…

SCORES HIGHLY ON Career Growth Path Healthy Work Environment Compensation & Benefit Package Talent is a key priority area for India’s second-largest drugmaker which has an India-specific talent strategy in place since 2014. “We focus on exceptional performance, a hallmark of Abbott employees worldwide, especially because our work impacts people’s lives. The consistent recognition of Abbott as "Best Company to Work For" continues to be rooted in a simple, clear and powerful, value proposition-‘Grow with the Leader’," says Ambati Venu, Vice President, Pharmaceuticals, Abbott India. A majority (85 per cent) of Abbott’s frontline and senior sales management vacancies are filled through internal assessment and development route, says Deepshikha Mukerji, Regional HR Director-India at the company, noting that attrition at Abbott is less than 16 per cent, while the industry average…

SCORES HIGHLY ON Work Life Balance & Flexibility Career Growth Path Learning Opportunities The IT giant is taking quick and nimble strides to ensure it remains an attractive destination for career growth. On January 30, IBM’s board of directors elected Arvind Krishna as its new CEO. The move had a positive impact in India. “There is a lot of exuberance and it brings a lot of positive energy to the workforce,” says Chaitanya N. Sreenivas, Vice President and HR Head, IBM India and South Asia. Sreenivas feels IBM provides its employees with several opportunities to learn and grow, given the need for skillsets such as cloud security, IoT or blockchain. He sees the company as a place to grow and "to stay relevant." IBM has done a lot over the…

SCORES HIGHLY ON Career Growth Path Compensation & Benefits Package Learning Opportunities On January 14, in his earnings call after announcing the third quarter results of IT major Wipro, Abidali Z. Neemuchwala, the company’s CEO and MD, highlighted efforts made to improve people practices – enhancing campus hiring, deepening employee engagement and making significant investments in training and skill development. These measures “reflected in attrition rates, which improved to 15.7 per cent for the trailing 12 months,” he said. The company reported “a strong quarter both on revenues and margin,” said Neemuchwala. “Wipro is a purpose-driven organisation. Sixty seven cents of every dollar of profit Wipro makes goes towards funding various social causes,” says Saurabh Govil, President and CHRO, Wipro. “To keep up with the global nature of our work,…

SCORES HIGHLY ON Career Growth Path Learning Opportunities Compensation & Benefits Package Uday Kotak, Chairman and MD, Kotak Mahindra Bank, says a mix of digital and physical is leading to a change in the nature of jobs and also bringing new skill sets in the banking sector. The entire HR strategy of the bank is aimed towards finding the right mix to serve customers across the country. “It is multi-pronged to build a team with a mix of young and experienced professionals with new skill sets,” says Sukhjit Singh Pasricha, President and Group CHRO, Kotak Mahindra Bank. The bank is hiring in domains such as Big Data, AI, Cybersecurity, Design Thinking, Blockchain, API and Connected Banking. The private lender is moving towards an aligned and agile cross-functional, multi-skill team for…

This is the 18th edition of the Business Today Best Companies to Work For survey conducted in collaboration with HR solutions company PeopleStrong. The survey aims to understand the perceptions and aspirations of India’s employees across industries. It provides an insight into how industry at large and in specific verticals can align their employer brands to aspirations and thoughts of the Indian workforce. This year, too, we followed a survey open to employees from various industries. To cross-check the authenticity of respondents and to ensure that the quality of responses were of acceptable standards, checks were done by calling a certain proportion of respondents randomly. The PeopleStrong Study Team then constructed a ranking of companies and analysed the various aspects that make a company a good place to work.…

The rapid spread of the novel coronavirus (Covid 19) across the globe has got investors worried about the impact this will have on the financial markets, especially equities. In such a situation, the question on the minds of investors is whether to stay invested or exit. Equity indices worldwide, including India, is having a tumultuous 2020. The Dow Jones and FTSE 100 indices tanked about 26 per cent and 31 per cent, respectively, while emerging market indices RTS (Russia) and Bovespa (Brazil) plunged 38 per cent and 37 per cent, respectively, on year-to-date (YTD) basis. The story was no different back home with the Indian benchmark indices (S&P BSE Sensex and Nifty 50) down 17 per cent and 18 per cent, respectively, YTD. On March 12, 2020, trailing the manic…

“BET BIG ON TECHNOLOGY TO MAKE QUALITY HEALTHCARE MORE ACCESSIBLE”MEENA GANESH, MD AND CEO, PORTEA MEDICAL Q. What was the problem you were grappling with? A. When faced with handling out-of-hospital care for my father, we came across a complete lack of institutional solutions for taking care of elderly chronic patients. While the potential opportunity was very clear, creating an entirely new category or sector was daunting. Some challenges that we were trying to find answers to revolved around creating a new segment of healthcare market from scratch, convincing customers to trust and adopt, and attracting employees to the nascent market. Other areas we needed clarity on included scaling up such a venture using technology and ensuring quality of services at scale. Q. Who did you approach and why? A.…

THE MISSING BOUNTY The dividend payout ratio of CPSEs touched a sixyear low in FY19, though their net profit grew 15.2% 62.3% Dividend payout ratio in FY17, a 10-year high Holding Back Government guidelines on capital restructuring of CPSEs in 2016 supported double-digit growth in payouts in FY16 and FY17 Source: Public Enterprises Survey 2018-19 5.4% Fall in dividends declared by 121 operating CPSEs in FY19, following a 2.7% fall the previous year 20% Share of BSE CPSE Index companies that have seen a consistent decline in cash reserves over the past four years Blame it on Dipping Cash Reserves Combined cash and bank balance levels of BSE CPSE Index constituents (ex-BFSI) have been declining steadily since FY15 #Aggregate of BSE CPSE Index constituents (Ex-BFSI); Source: Ace Equity MEETING TARGETS…

• A thorough audit of the entire ₹3 lakh crore-loan book to look for stress signs • Assessing value and quality of collateral • Ask for more collateral in cases where the value has gone down • Hiring to build recovery and resolution capabilities and using the best option – one-time settlement, ARC or NCLT • Monitoring exposure to housing finance, NBFC, telecom, real estate • Aggressive provisioning for stressed loans • Increase in provision coverage ratio from 40 per cent to 70 per cent…

Google Pay has grown from 22 million MAUs in September 2018 to 67 million MAUs in September 2019, driving transactions worth over $110 billion on an annualised basis, with hundreds of thousands of offline and online merchants With Google Station – a partnership with Railtel and Indian Railways, able to make fast, reliable and secure WiFi available across 400 train stations (May 2019) Google Assistant expanded to nine Indian languages With Bolo – a speech-based app that helps children learn how to read, around 800,000 young Indians have read stories more than three million times, and have spoken half a billion words Has the girth to drive new growth: With few thousand employees spread across four locations in India Artificial Intelligence lab, created in Bengaluru, is first explorative research into…

SCORES HIGHLY ON Challenging Work Opportunities Career Growth Path Learning Opportunities The employees of Larsen & Toubro, be it Chairman A.M. Naik or shop floor employees at its numerous factories, take immense pride in the iconic projects they have executed over the years. Yogi Sriram, Senior Vice President, Corporate HR, L&T, says the company has been consciously branding these achievements among students of key NITs and IITs in recent years to attract high quality engineers. "Academic excellence is only one part. We look equally at their extra curricular achievements and leadership skills, as most of the projects we do require quality professionals who can mitigate challenges and can efficiently lead a team," says Sriram. The company recruits about 1,200 engineers and 60-70 MBA graduates every year. "We have a robust…

SCORES HIGHLY ON Compensation & Benefit Package Career Growth Path Challenging Work Opportunities Reliance Industries (RIL), India’s most profitable company, has onboarded about 130,000 employees in the last two-and-a-half years as part of building Reliance Jio’s digital ecosystem. It launched a mobile app and an online interface to shrink the pre-boarding process to 5-6 minutes. The digital infrastructure helps candidates to walk in without any documents and join. RIL has about 500,000 employees across its petroleum, retail and telecom businesses. The behemoth traces the roots of its people-philosophy to what Dhirubhai Ambani used to ask his employees: “Are you having fun?” RIL wants to create a workplace that is geared towards being exciting, thriving, dynamic and challenging. “People are encouraged to take ownership of their work,” says Ashwani Prashara, CHRO,…

SCORES HIGHLY ON Career Growth Path Work Life Balance & Flexibility Learning Opportunities It’s been tough times for most retail companies as consumption fell last year and fashion retailer, Lifestyle International is no exception. B. Venkataramana, Group President (HR), Landmark Group, is thankful for his organisation’s lean people structure. At a time when peers shut stores, laid off people and cut salaries, Venkatramana proudly says they didn’t have to do any of that. “We had seen double-digit growth in the last 7-8 years, but last year’s growth was much lower. However, we kept our people informed,” he says. In the last one year, it has enhanced its employee engagement programme. “We believe employee engagement has a direct correlation to attrition and productivity,” he says. The company is taking care of…

SCORES HIGHLY ON Compensation & Benefit Package Career Growth Path Challenging Work Opportunities In January 2019, the New Jersey-headquartered IT services provider Cognizant celebrated its silver jubilee in India. Starting operations in 1994 with just ₹10 crore revenue and 200 employees, the NASDAQ listed company concluded 2019 with ₹1 lakh crore in revenues and a 200,000 strong workforce. There are about 100,000 women employees in the close to $17 billion corporation, of which 75,000 are in India. Picturing the company as one that is about growth and career advancement, Ramkumar Ramamoorthy, Chairman and MD, Cognizant India, says, "2019 was a watershed year for us. Cognizant emerged as the first multinational company to cross 200,000 employees in India." He adds that Cognizant takes pride in having a strong female representation across…

SCORES HIGHLY ON Challenging Work Opportunities Career Growth Path Learning Opportunities If you are in the parcel service industry, doorstep delivery has to be an integral part of your business plan. But what about an internal programme called 'HR Aapke Dwar'? Under this initiative rolled out by DTDC Express, its HR managers reach out to every employee to understand their problems and offer solutions. Shiv Rawat, National Head, HR, DTDC, says these visits allow them to share information about the company and developments within, thus creating a sense of trust, which helps reduce the attrition rate significantly. He adds that DTDC’s attrition rate fell 12 per cent this year (till January 2020). Apart from this, career growth opportunities are also a reason why the company has a lower churn rate.…

There has been a bloodbath in stock markets globally. Indian equity indices are no different. The trigger is the rapid spread of coronavirus that is leading to shutdown of businesses, lockdown of big industrial towns, even entire countries (such as Italy), apart from snapping of supply chains, across continents. A further spread will trigger an even sharper correction, say experts. “At the start of the year, only companies with dominant China exposure were affected. Later, as the pandemic spread, stock prices of Indian exporters also corrected, primarily on demand concerns. If the virus continues to spread and results in a contagion in India, stock markets could face a sharper correction depending on the intensity of the spread,” says Nimesh Chandan, Head Investment Equities, Canara Robeco Mutual Fund. As we go…

The BSE Sensex crashed 2,919 points on a Thursday of mayhem. More than ₹11.4 lakh crore of investor wealth was wiped out in a matter of hours. The spread of coronavirus across the world; a 45 per cent crash in oil prices, the biggest drop since the Gulf War; and the Yes Bank crisis led to panic selling in stock markets. So, is this the right time to buy select stocks? The sharp market correction has made available quality stocks at attractive valuations. This is expected to continue, making it the right time to accumulate stocks. Buy these stocks and hold them for the long term. Analysts see the ongoing crisis as an investment opportunity. But don’t buy stocks blindly without doing ample research or try to time the markets.…

When interviewing a candidate, K. Sudarshan, MD of executive search firm EMA-Partners, tries to gauge the fitness level of the applicant. He believes physical fitness is important for leadership roles. "Physical fitness leads to mental fitness. In today’s dynamic business environment, while not explicitly stated, physical fitness becomes a critical parameter when you evaluate a candidate for a leadership role," he says. Sudarshan walks the talk too. His plush Mumbai office is studded with an array of marathon medals. He has run the half marathon at the Mumbai Marathon every year for over a decade now. Sudarshan also ran the half marathon in Amsterdam last year. A frequent traveller, Sudarshan’s running shoes are always part of his travel kit. When he is in town, he makes sure he runs at…

• India’s investment rate is expected to fall from 29% to 28.1% of GDP in FY20, the lowest in 16 years • Recent sharp decline in investment rate can be largely attributed to lower construction activity. In the past five years, CAGR has been only 7.5%, the lowest in any five-year period in three decades • Share of construction sector in fixed investments has fallen from its peak of more than 60% in early 2000s to 52-53% in recent years, the lowest in two decades • Residential investments were 7.8% as % of GDP; this was about 13% in FY12 • At over 15% of GDP, investments in construction sector in India are more than double of that in the US and Thailand Source: MOFSL, CMIE…

High flying foreign banker Rana Kapoor, who stitched the Tata-Tetley deal in early-2000, got in the driver’s seat when two other co-founders abruptly exited from Yes Bank. The 62-year-old pounced on the corporate lending opportunity in the post-2008 years. The economy was slowing and the corporate sector was highly over-leveraged. The bank’s loan book grew 10 times to ₹2.24 lakh crore in the last decade. But Kapoor’s ambitions went beyond the highly regulated banking space. He became the President of industry body ASSO-CHAM, and when the opportunity presented itself, he bought Rajiv Gandhi’s painting for ₹2 crore from Priyanka Gandhi. Kapoor also started building a family empire with his three daughters and wife managing the show. He also bought properties in posh locations of Mumbai and Delhi. But things changed…

DEPENDENCE ON CHINA IMPACT AUTO | 18% auto components are imported; 30% of tyre imports | Inventories sufficient in short term; but lack of even a single critical component can hurt OEMs Local Indian auto-component manufacturers cannot immediately capitalise on void as it takes time to recalibrate supply chain LEATHER AND LEATHER GOODS | China contributes about 38% to imports | Indian leather exporters are operating at 60% capacity, so they can absorb any sudden influx of orders from the US and the EU CONSUMER DURABLES | 45% completely built units of consumer durables Bulk of consumer durables components | Inventory already stocked so impact likely only towards end of Q4 FY20 Product prices could rise next month AGRICULTURE | About 50% of total pesticide input About 10% of urea…

SCORES HIGHLY ON Healthy Work Environment Career Growth Path Compensation & Benefit Package India’s third-largest private lender, Axis Bank, under its new chief Amitabh Chaudhry, has woven a people-centric strategy around the delivery of three important vectors – growth, profitability and sustainability. The entire organisation, with a workforce of 62,000-plus, is working towards the goal. The bank has seen a lot of changes in the past owing to transition at the top. Its new goal is to become a preferred banker for all. Under its people-centred approach, the private lender is aiming at reinforcing its core values, creating a workforce of the future because of digitisation and market changes, ensuring diversity and inclusion, and enabling learning and development thereby enriching employees' experience in the process. “Customer experience equals employee experience,”…

SCORES HIGHLY ON Work Life Balance & Flexibility Healthy Work Environment Compensation & Benefits Package Titles do not necessarily convey the whole story. But if Anupam Trehan is referred to as Head, People & Communities, and not CHRO, there is an embedded message. Cisco has an “environment of safety and trust, where you are heard and respected,” she says. Over the past year, the company took new initiatives around leadership, learning and discussions about wellness. “We had a global Mental Health Awareness Week. Cisco’s senior leadership, industry experts, and medical professionals discussed mental well-being at various forums. A few employees also volunteered to share their personal stories," she says. The company follows a practice it calls ‘Blind Hiring’ – to reduce or eliminate any bias in the selection process. “The…

SCORES HIGHLY ON Challenging Work Opportunities Learning Opportunities Compensation & Benefit Package The journey of Krishna Raghavan, Flipkart’s new Chief People Officer (CPO), is characteristic of the career growth opportunities that the e-tailer offers. He was the senior vice president of engineering till early this year. “Lateral movements across different business units are not only supported by the organisation but are also encouraged,” says Raghavan. Flipkart has an internal mobility portal with clearly defined career paths and work expectations that facilitates lateral job movements. The reason is simple. It not only adds to the repertoire of skills an employee possesses but also gives him a holistic perspective of the business, he says. This is made possible due to the culture of risk-taking and innovation where talent is given opportunities to…

The Business Today-PeopleStrong Best Companies to Work For Survey has been a sounding board for not just us but to employers in general for over a decade. Capturing the deepest insights from the salaried employee base of India, the survey has helped bring out perceptions and aspirations of India’s talent, which shape their workplace preferences. This year was no different. In a year which has seen a not so encouraging job scenario, over 17,000 respondents participated and shared their views. While this year’s report had lots of interesting insights, we received some fearless recommendations from people on what companies should do if they would like to be the best in the eyes of the young, independent, digital-native workforce. So, here are six things you need to ace for being the…

CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC: Markets are likely to be highly volatile till the fear fades away GLOBAL SLOWDOWN: Weaker global growth may hit sentiment LOWER CRUDE PRICE: Oil is India’s largest import. A lower oil price will reduce the import bill. This will gives a fillip to GDP ALTERNATIVE TO CHINA: Supply chain disruption will force companies to think beyond China, an advantage for India INTEREST RATE CUT: Lower interest rates bode well for economic growth BETTER MONSOON: Favourable weather conditions will push up rural demand…

Like most children, Vivek Bhargava, CEO of DAN Performance Group, dreamed of becoming a sports star when he was a child. And he had the skill to back it up. A table tennis player, he went on to compete at state and national level championships. However, Bhargava gave up the sport to focus on studies. He began his entrepreneurial journey in 1997 with digital advertising agency Communicate 2, which was acquired by Dentsu Aegis Network in 2012. Around the same time, Bhargava caught up with an old friend and after reminiscing about the good old days, they ended up playing table tennis together after almost 15 years. That is when Bhargava realised what he was missing in his life. Bhargava was soon back in the game – that too with…