Chennai: Coming Up From Behind [Pg.2]

If there's a considerable change in perception about the city, it's for good reason. While pollution levels are growing, the flow of traffic in the city has been eased, thanks to the nine flyovers built over the last two years. For the current fiscal, the city's municipal corporation has a budget of Rs 160 crore for capital works. The corporation also maintains 302 kms of bus route and another 1,900 kms of interior roads, which are to be spruced up at a cost of Rs 71 crore.

The payoff in terms of perception is staggering. Chennai's perceptual rank has soared from 16 in our 1998 survey to number four this time round. Interestingly, the gap between perceptual and factual ranks for the city is almost negligible (factual rank: 5), implying that Chennai has done a good job of selling itself to people within and outside. Indeed, on seven out of 15 perceptual parameters, the city ranks No. 2. For example, cost of living, commuting, healthcare, education, and safety are some areas where Chennai is believed to be the second-best. Water supply, not surprisingly, comes in last at No. 26.

At its very core, Chennai is a manufacturing centre-especially automobile related. T.V. Sundaram Iyengar, who founded TVS as a car dealership firm, laid the foundation for an auto components empire now spanning tyres to motorcycles. Dewan Bahadur A.M. Murugappa Chettiar capitalised on the opportunities that World War II threw up and moved into light engineering industry. Today, the Murugappa group is one of the biggest business entities in the city. Others like K. Gopalakrishnan, and S. Anantharamakrishna of the Tafe group also contributed to establishing Chennai as the Detroit of South India.

It was largely because of the presence of auto ancillaries in and around Chennai that Ford Motor and Hyundai chose the city over other locations like Pune. In fact, it was former chief minister J. Jayalalitha who personally ensured speedy approvals for Ford. And in the case of Hyundai it was the then chief minister M. Karunanidhi who acted as the benefactor. Even today, the state treats the two companies as corporate royalties. Says P.H. Rao, Head of Bharti's mobile telephony operations in the city: ''People are allowed to go about their work undisturbed, and that has led to industries growing.''

Work culture is another area where the city scores. CEOs polled in the survey ranked Chennai at No. 3. Probably that's one reason why some of the best manufacturing practices in India are to be found in Chennai. Again, it's no coincidence that India's only two Deming Award (manufacturing's equivalent of the Nobel Prize) winners-Sundaram-Clayton and Sundaram Brake Linings-are to be found here. Chennai in the last 60 years was built by sheer dint of industry. But the next 20 may be courtesy its brainpower.

Jobs@chennai

Atul Vohra, Partner, Heidrick & Struggles
"Chennai is one of the best places to work and live in"

For the past three-to-four years Chennai has become one of the best places to work and live in. A good indicator of that is the amount of foreign direct investment Tamil Nadu has attracted. Among the industries doing particularly well are it and manufacturing (especially automotive). This is reflected in the presence of major corporations in these domains, like Satyam, Cognizant Technologies, Covansys, Ford it, and EDs on the it side, and Hyundai, Ford, Hindustan Motors, and TVS Group on the automotive side. Chennai produces over 60,000 engineers and science graduates annually, and that ensures abundant availability of talent.

Excellent infrastructure, global connectivity and abundant talent are all catalysing industrial growth in Chennai, making it an important business destination for both companies and executives. But on the flip-side, people working in Chennai seem reluctant to relocate elsewhere.