IMR JAN 2013 - Indira Institutes

Seth Consultantsmatter through out the organization.You will all be aware that as the first step inour growth plan, we had established the newpositions of “Business Heads” to work underthe top management team comprising of theMD, myself and the DCEOs. Each of our fourbusinesses is under the direct charge of aBusiness Head and to start with all of themhave been located here. At the otherlocations we have Deputy Business Heads.Ultimately a Business Head might be locatedanywhere the business requires and notnecessarily here. The primary objectives ofthe Business Head are customer, market andproduct development for that business.Separate organization wide teams have alsobeen established for this purposecomprising of employees who have beenspecially chosen for this purpose based ontheir expertise and potential to contribute toSPCL.We had spent a lot of money on the externalagencies we had appointed for the marketingand positioning of SPCL but that experimentwas not successful. So now we have decidedto handle those ourselves. As far as otherfunctions are concerned we will continue tofocus on core areas and outsource others tomore competent agencies. I can tell you thatwe are already seeing encouraging results insome of these initiatives.All these changes and more are in thepipeline to make SPCL the premier projectconsultancy organization in the country, asought after partner of the constructionindustry and the employer of first choice forthe best and brightest engineering andmanagement students of the land."Sometime after the meeting some quietconversations took place. ( Note: It may beassumed that all facts, incidents andexamples, reported or referred to in theconversations, are essentially true.Arguments/opinions should be assessed ontheir own merit/logic.)Cast of characters:Lakshmi Parvati (L): Expert with overall 18year's experience. At the time of the firstconversation she was a scheduling specialist.Vaishampayana (V): Veteran employee with14 year's experience. At the time of the firstconversation he was a design expert and theDepartment Head of his function.Yajnavalkya (Y): Veteran employee with over10 years' experience at SPCL. At the time ofthe first conversation he was a certified civilspecifications professional and theDepartment Head of his function.ConversationsAL: Let's see, I took some notes the other day…V: (Raising eyebrows sardonically) Tooknotes?L: (Unperturbed) It is useful sometimes. Onetends to forget things these days.Y: Yes, of course, words of wisdom, sorry,golden words are never repeated.V: Rare words from our non-resident CEO andnon-resident MD.L: (Looks up, vaguely interested) Yes, do tellme where these people are all the time?Business development?Y: What business development? Spendinglarge sums of money on meetings not held orotherwise unproductive.V: Meetings? Enjoying the comforts of homeyou mean!L: (Still searching) No, I mean, I thought, hewas supposed to be heading up that newbusiness?V: Where are you these days? He gave up thatlong back. They have appointed new people,72 Indira Management Review - Jan 2013