Champions are the ones that have survived the test of time, continued to score and outperformed market perceptions. They select themselves. Nobody questions why they are on the list. If the sieve is fine, the finest pass through the filter. Once we get these 23 corporations, we see what is common among them — that they survived so long and did so well. And retrofit an explanation of excellence. This is what Peters and Waterman did, and Jim Collins too. So this cannot be a methodology that is flawed. Not if we are reverential towards “gurus” and not sceptical. Not if we do not apply objectivity and treat bestsellers as authorities.
Karunakar falls into the trap of looking at the past work of a few writers with awe. Even when he refers to an academic like Sumantra Ghoshal, he reverentially mentions the popular books that the gurus sermonise on. The basic flaw in the book is that it tries to retrofit an answer of excellence to the lists drawn up by him based on Jim Collins’ criteria. He benchmarks this with lists of popular journals. At the end of it all, his list of 23 good to excellent companies (that is, those that are going to be great in the next 20 years as India becomes a developed nation) like Apollo Tyres, Torrent Power, Exide Industries does not figure in any of the lists against which he tries to benchmark for at least two recent decades.
Let us not nit-pick on the lists and, for a moment, assume that the 23 companies to which the author refers continue to be champions. How did they get there? Here the author uses the “case study” method. A case study method usually entails studying, say, a company comprehensively, understanding the inter-linkages between different functions, examining the strategy over a period of time and distilling and codifying the learning. When one does multiple case studies, one expects to get the common elements across diverse organisations to understand what could be a winning practice. Not so with this book. It gets methodologically innovative. There is an upfront business model divided into three circles: strategy (which includes going global; cost leadership through scale; technology leadership and alliances; sales distribution network and focus on core or non-core), leadership (includes openness to change, leadership skills, succession and history), and execution excellence (including total quality management, International Organisation for Standardisation, business process re-engineering, enterprise resource planning, technical process management and Deming Award).
So we have a chapter under each of these heads and most of the 23 companies described under each subhead in a couple of paragraphs. A list of initiatives these companies have taken is interspersed with profound-looking graphs. For instance, a section under the head “Technology Alliances” has a series of graphs — a bar graph on PBDIT (or profit before depreciation, interest and taxes)/total income and PBT (or profit before tax)/total income for the post liberalisation era followed by a full-page line graph on the debt-equity ratio of the company being discussed. These pictures continue for each company and are accompanied by a paragraph that just does not discuss the financials.
Having described each of the themes and slotting companies under the themes, it is time to end the argument. However, on page 167, we get a series of inane FAQs which repeats the methodology chapter, produces an apologetic argument for not including giants like Wipro and Infosys (they were not incorporated in 1974) and IndianOil (it was not listed in 1974) and gives some recommended readings.
Another 10 pages of wrapping up, and the text ends at page 180. We then have nearly 200 pages of appendices. These include a mix of graphs, downloads of financials of all the companies from the Prowess database, synopsis of inspirational books, and so on.
If a book mentions that “In understanding history and leadership, the book by Gita Piramal – Business Maharajas [1996] – was researched with respect to select companies”, we know where the author is coming from. The entire bibliography and references are restricted to company websites, popular business magazines, pink papers and a few articles from Vikalpa, the journal of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. Most of the footnotes in the book read “Source: Author”. Wonder what that means.
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One thought publishing an academic book was tough. The publishers go through a rigorous process of a double-blind review, take the comments of the reviewer seriously and make the author sweat it out before the book sees the light of the day. The editors are usually ruthless about the emotional involvement of the authors. Sage Publications is generally seen in the academic world with respect and reverence. This book shows the total failure of a review process and editorial intervention.
I wish I could say something positive about the book. Yes, it looks nice, is well printed and might be a good spine to display in “learn easy management” section of a library, if such a section exists.
The reviewer is an independent researcher and consultant.
mssriram@gmail.com
CORPORATE CHAMPIONS
Excellent Companies of India
B Karunakar
Sage (Response Business Books)
380 pages; Rs 450