It has been three weeks since Satyam's ex-chairman, Ramalinga Raju, through his confession to the public, shattered the corporate responsibility and accountablity. There are several rumours over the very existance of the Co. and the takeover attempts on the way. But the event that still leaves several questions and debates, which do not seem to end for sometime..
#1. All business houses perform malpractises - Audit all of them
In business world, like the today's real world, competition rules the roost and people do commit mistakes and frauds once in a while. There are more than 4000 company listed in Bombay Stock Exchange and each company will have atleast 100's of pages of accounts. Can govt. verify and ? What about the thousands of other companies which are unlisted?
But the biggest debacle with Raju is that he cheated his OWN COMPANY. He founded the Co, built brick by brick, but later inflated the profits and balance sheets, sold out the sky-rocketed shares he then owned, and bought "real" estates. There are cases in the past that employees cheated a company, but an founder-chairman betraying his own Cos and shareholders is path-breaking. Heartbreaking too. 54,000 employees and lakhs of shareholders are left on the streets, fearing and wondering about their jobs and future and investments..
#2. Business is bad and businessmen are evil
This appears to be the first word I hear with many of the people.
Yes. Not just business, life itself in many forms is evil. We all came from the animal world, not heaven. Jeans may come and go, but not the survival instinct in our Genes. Everyone wants money in this world, but earning money is thought to be sin. That is the case not only in India but also in several Asian countries. Being an employee is OK, atleast with people coming from non-business backgrounds. If one builts factories and employees lakhs of people, earning them a livelihood and contributing to the nation, he is a devil. If one peeps into files, moves them up and down for his earnings, he is noble. The latter generates nothing - than dust involving petty politics. But the former brings from hairoil to shoes, nail polish to railway lines, but always hailed as underdog and fraudster.
Almost everyone does malpractises. Size varies, that's all. For eg. we were all taught in school - 'Honesty is the best policy' but "how many lies did you tell today?" That just explains that the world is not a noble men's court. Business world is run by people from this world - not aliens and we cant expect them to be surreal. Many of us lie, cheat, betray, dont we? ? Only in public life we expect people to be noble and also able - but the more things one is ashamed of, the great he becomes (Bernard Shaw).
So do not expect the world to be different from what we are and what we were.
So how to conclude?
It leaves us to one point - world just exists on individual integrity and mutual trust. One can cheat in relationship, till one confesses or the other discovers the truth. If both of these do not happen, the person still lives and roams, free on earth, with no regret at all. But most of us in this world do not commit such immoral thing only because of personal integrity. That is the way world has been. One can succumb to pessimism seeing such heartless incidents, there are 6.4 billion souls on earth and how many of them are criminals, may be 1/100 or 1/1000, thats all. But whatever happens life moves on, with higher hopes and wider compromises.