Indian corporates

As the media covers the Satyam fraud , they should spend some time introspecting.  Most of the corporates in India, especially family managed businesses reflect the values of  the society in which we live, and  how honest are people today?  In the last five years,  people have become very materialistic,  how much money they think you have defines how people treat you, not the kind of person you are. India never had a culture of dissent or independent thinking, so few people have their own opinion, they only ape other countries.

While starting my own business has been rewarding both financially and work wise,  one of the things  I find missing is the trust I took for granted while working in India’s largest professionally managed non-foreign MNC company.  There were very good systems in place to ensure that no one tried to circumvent the system, but I think it is more related to the kind of  people  they recruited.  Most of them were not conventionally smart as defined by the media today, but they were sincere, disciplined and got work done.  Rules were the same for everyone, if  a person was on probation and came to office more than 5 minutes later than the official timings too often, the job was not confirmed and he was asked to leave.

Doing business online, especially with some Indian companies has been nothing short of a nightmare for me.  I have some domains that may be considered “valuable”  and  the underhand tactics used to get me to sell the domain names have been a revelation.  What I can’t understand is that if you want anything  from me, why not introduce yourself  and tell me what you want. I do not care for contacts or references, and  I find nothing wrong in directly approaching people  for business related issues,  after all  you have to make a start some time.

If  I find something fishy,  I will try to avoid any interaction or keep it to the minimum possible. For a period of a few years or decades, you can make a lot of money taking short cuts , but in the long run honesty is the best policy.  If  you want to be the best in the world, it is not by adopting foreign accents, names or dressing codes, (or plastering your website with foreign female models)  but by ensuring that the way you conduct  your business is such that no one can point a finger at you.