COMPANIES ON A JOURNEY OF EXCELLENCE

Best-managed companies make an extra effort to go beyond the call of propriety to care for their employees, outsourced help and customers. They also go beyond chequebook philanthropy

- 

IN the week gone by, I spent three full days sitting on a jury that went through a final list of Indian companies that vied with one another for the title of 'Best Managed Companies 2025.

For someone who is not used to be sitting all through the day in a board room, this was a pain. The point of pleasure was, however, the fact that three other jurors of eminent repute were breaking their backs as well.

Other jury members of more eminence than I included Kalpana Morparia, eminent banker and former chair of JP Morgan, Upendra Kumar Sinha, former chair of the Securities and Exchange Board of India, and N Ganapathy Subramaniam, chair of Tata Communications, who gave the best of their seasoned minds to decide which were the best-managed companies for the year.

What, then, is a best-managed company? Aren't all companies 'best-managed' isn't that the goal? And are there companies that are differently managed as they journey their way into the hallowed status of being a best-managed company? As I journeyed my way through companies of every size and kind, over simple cocktail samosas for tea and exotic purple-rice meals for lunch, I came to a conclusion. All companies that make their way through the due diligence process of such a title-search are good companies for sure. While some are better-managed, others are best-managed. The difference between one and the other is oftentimes subtle.

There are small give-aways that separate one from the other. Let me essay that a bit using non-corporate and boring jury-jargon.