Feet of clay

Okay, true story. Years ago, in 2007, I was bringing out two management magazines for Business Standard. Though I tried to infuse them with a dash of practical realism, the two magazines retained an unhealthy component of theory, rendering my job lugubrious to the point of being mournful.

- SUVEEN SINHA

To make the most of a turbid situation, I convinced my boss to let me attend a conference on family businesses at the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad, purportedly to learn more about the theory part of management. The conference turned out to be surprisingly useful, as much for the sessions as for the impromptu group chats during the breaks.

During one such break, I heard the well-known head of a family-led enterprise say: "They (meaning the expert speakers) want us to plan family succession, but what if we have a family idiot?"

His audience, other heads of business families, were nodding vigorously. The speaker had come into his own during the 1990s, while the country unshackled businesses and ushered in an era of competition and near-free markets. But he appeared to have serious misgivings about passing on the baton to the next generation.

The 1990s saw an entire posse of businessmen flower. Ratan Tata went from being the fledgling head of a sprawling empire to a player on the global stage. N R Narayan Murthy and Azim Premji rode the information technology outsourcing wave to the extent that "Bangalored" became a term to describe those who had lost their jobs in the United States.

Birla and Modi, entrenched business houses well before the onset of liberalization in 1991, grew bigger, with their many shoots and branches. Rama Prasad Goenka established acquisition as a bonafide business strategy for growth. Bajaj took foreign competition head on and morphed into a motorcycle company, leaving behind its storied legacy of scooters—essential dowry items at one point—for which buyers waited years.