A Poor ‘Reflection'

- Girish Mainrai

Deepak Sharma, an area manager with India Telecom, was trying to assess the reason for the dismal rating given by his senior, Pradeep Gupta, who had joined the company as regional manager three years ago.

Prior to joining the telecom industry, Gupta was procurement head for northern region at Only Mart, a leading grocery store chain with branches across India. After serving the company for fourteen years, he had left following differences with the national operations head over changes introduced in the procurement policy, which entailed obtaining clearance from the operations head while sourcing from new vendors.

Gupta was known for his risk-taking and quick decision-making abilities at Only Mart. To cite an example, when local suppliers in his region went on a strike against delayed payments by the company, he started sourcing supplies from the central region—which he was heading earlier— forcing them to resume supplies. There are numerous instances where he not only exhibited quick decision-making ability but also took risks to run the show. During his stint with the grocery chain, he had many a time breached his delegated authority with respect to procurement while sourcing locally. However, these actions were happily ratified by his seniors, as it mostly resulted in handsome gains for the business. This aspect of risk-taking was often quoted boastfully by him, both informally as well as in meetings at India Telecom.