The great Indian fightback

When businesses bounce back, there are lessons to be learnt

- JAIRAM N> MENON

Shorn of the fluff and fancy talk, business is about making money. The more, the better. Businesses which do not make money and fall by the wayside also serve a purpose.

They are illuminating examplesposthumous tutorials to entrepreneurs on not dreaming the wrong dreams. Even more educative are businesses which teeter at the brink, and before the last ball is bowled, fight back spiritedly, and like a story scripted by Tilak Varma, claw their way to victory. In 2021, Dev and Pragya Chatterjee wrote Meltdown-a book that was grabbed greedily because some of us are closet sadists and love reading details about other people's misfortunes. Now, the duo comes back with fightback stories-India Inc's Greatest Turnarounds.

The book deals with five companies ranging from Tata Steel and Larsen & Toubro at one end of the pack to financial services firm Religare at the other. The information provided is informative rather than explosive. It has been put together cogently to give you a full map of the journey-the high-points, 'U' turns and dead-ends. Take the case of Jindal Steel, a company that can claim it was handed bad cards.