Tuesday, April 14, 2009

A quick update

I realise my blog post on Vishu was not concerning any business or recruitment activity!! And so I hasten to file my next post -so that it does!!
Yesterday, I was delighted to get a complimentary copy of the Business World SME White Book 2009-2010! It has an article largely attributed to my quotes on the challenge of Talent hunt by Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in India. The book is a treasure of information and inputs given by experts from various walks of life, and so, I am flattered to be acknowledged there.
Yesterday also happened to be the big day for Tech Mahindra as they were awarded the bid for Satyam. While I am glad it is a landmark event, it is yet another milestone of uncertainty that seems to have pervaded the lives of the Satyam employees in the last 4 months.
On paper, the deal seems to be fair-and the businesses seem to complement each other's offerings. Tech Mahindra has a strong presence in the telecom solutions while Satyam had a broad bandwidth. However, there are a lot of concerns for an average Satyamite:
- will the tainted brand affect the marketability of the resume? Being based in Hyderabad, I was surprised to not to see a single Satyam T shirt donning professional in the past 100 days, even though it was quite apparent that it was all a handiwork of a few creative senior management members!
- Will Tech Mahindra retain a majority of the Satyamites? The integration issues are yet to be publicly addressed, but it is any body's guess that a newly emerged entity would not want to carry excess baggage-of any kind, be it those on the bench or those freshers who were made offers, or even some of the business divisions that were seen as erstwhile new initiatives!! The irony would be the fate of the support services. Even a healthy company in the best of times, would not want duplication of effort....
The next few weeks would see a lot of action.It would be a case study for a generation of management students-in all spheres- entrepreneurism, ethics, business models, managing talent integration issues in a highly volatile environment globally.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The answers are pretty obvious

"Will the tainted brand affect the marketability of the resume?"
No, you acquire skills, it does not matter which employer you worked for, it is the work experience that counts- unless one was in the "ethics" department of Satyam!

"Will Tech Mahindra retain a majority of the Satyamites?"
Obviously not, the new Management has its own style. The top performers will be retained but if one were to restructure the organization, there have to be job cuts-cut the flab.!

AK Menon said...

Hi Anonymous,I am glad you were able to cut through the clutter. It is eventually the value add the employee brings in-and it shdn't matter whom you worked for!

As a recruiter, one is often carried away by the brand-be it alumnus of a ivy league school or some marquee names.