Efforts to salvage a famous Goliath

Life couldn’t be worse. The aftermath of the Jan 7 incident, one of the biggest corporate scandals in the Indian industry has started to show its true colors. Being a part of an organization whose reputation was smashed within hours of the announcement of the scandal is difficult. Trying times to all those who are still a part of the IT giant – at least I believe the organization is still a giant, both in terms of workforce and revenues as per Indian terms.

The reason why I hadn’t written about the incident till now was simple. I hadn’t given it much of a thought. We were also asked by our leaders to be in similar terms. I did not ponder too much on those issues for the past 2 months. Of course we were interested in all those news items which were flashing in all the news channels continuously for a month (the headlines only to be replaced by the General Election news) only to be laughed off. Half of those headlines were not true. We knew that.

The bidding process had started earlier this month and there are too many speculations on who is going to OWN the so called TAINTED company. It was hard to read such news in the daily newspapers. The prefix to all the company related headlines would be either tainted or fraud hit or scandal hit. The media had played a very good part to bring down the character of the company. I think they understood the definition of an organization in terms of its immovable assets and a few top men. But, the underlying definition is made of its associates who are very much alive, professional and among the best. The media was indirectly bringing down the reputation and quality built by its members for over 20 years.

Now with accusations of the bidding process not being transparent and many of its employees choosing other safer havens, the organizations is in doldrums. And with a significant number of customers terminating their contracts the situation has become worse. Add to it the recession blues.

Will all the efforts made by its celebrated BOD’s to transfer the control of the management work out? How successful will the winning bidder be in re-organizing the once 4th largest IT firm in India?