As one of India's top companies, Reliance Industries, gets ready to deliver its latest entity, the 4G services under the "Jio" brand, it has also brought with it a rather quiet, but telling transformation in the refining-to-retail group's corporate culture.
For the top executives leading a 17,500-strong, full-time team, including chairman Mukesh Ambani, gone are the wood-panelled, plush rooms. Not even closed glass-door cubicles.
The top 70 leaders in the team, which includes his son Akash Ambani, daughter Isha Ambani and long-time associate and confidant Manoj Modi, are having to make do with a work station in an open office -- a culture that started on Wednesday at the 7th Floor of what is called "PC 22 Building" of Reliance Corporate Park in Navi Mumbai.
This, officials at Reliance said, was a part of what Mukesh Ambani had told shareholders about the "Jio" project some months ago: "One of the largest transformational, green-field digital initiatives anywhere in the world."
"No walls, no barricades," is how the officials additionally described the office of Jio venture, touted as the largest start-up project in India with an investment of Rs.100,000 crore already deployed.
