"Prime can offer its manufacturing facility to other players in the market and cut losses'' R.L. Ravichandran, VP (Bus. Devt. & Mkt), Bajaj Auto

A CEO or coo can't pull off major corporate changes himself, unless he is the chairman and managing director of the company and has at least half of the board supporting him. Prime's case is pathetic. It seems the promoters have no fire left in them and have no commitment to save the company. Vikram Singh uses sound logic in his proposals and he seems highly convinced about and committed to success. But the promoters are reluctant to loosen their grip on the company-never mind that soon they won't have one.

For Singh to be able to turnaround Prime, he has to get 100 per cent buy-in and support from the board. Failing that he should walk out. He should be smart enough to find out what the problem is: do the promoters lack (a) conviction or (b) desire and commitment. If (a) is true, he can still convince them. If (b) is true, he should simply call it a day.

There is one more option that Singh can suggest to the promoters in the interest of saving the organisation. Since Prime has got a manufacturing facility for two-wheelers, it can approach the other players in the market and offer its facility as a captive unit of production. In this process the only thing that Prime has to sacrifice is its ego. But it can save the existing facility and cut losses.

There are enough precedents of such an arrangement around the world and Singh can cite those examples to the board. After all the idea is to make a turnaround a basket case into a profitable manufacturing organisation. In this way it will be a win-win situation, provided that the other dominant players in the industry believe that Prime has got genuinely good manufacturing facility with clean books of accounts.

What Prime's board has to understand is this: when you are suffering from cancer, popping a Crocin won't help. As things stand, Prime is a sinking ship. Instead of quibbling over who will take the helm, the promoters should focus on regaining buoyancy. If that focus and commitment is missing, Singh should abandon ship.

"Singh should be replaced with a less mechanistic CEO-one who will be a part of Prime's living system" Mathew Paul, Founder-Director, Cognan Consulting

Well, well. This is a tough one, isn't it? It's just five months since Singh has joined and he's caused so much damage to Prime. He's 38 years old and, surprisingly, he still thinks linearly.

The core problem is that Singh has treated Prime like a machine. He has obviously concluded that if he does what any good mechanic would do with a rundown machine, things will get back to normal. So, he went ahead and organised a VRS, presented the owners with some financial restructuring plan, and suggested a change in the product line.

But Prime isn't a machine, is it? It's made up of people and is, in the most profound sense, a living system. Living systems have many imperatives but we'll confine ourselves to just two here: the imperative to survive and to evolve.

Make no mistake about it: the people who make up Prime will never want it to die. Singh, who has not enlisted any of the people in Prime in his first task, should do so to ensure that the company survives. The people of Prime make up a community and a community has this propensity to come together when its survival is at stake.

Within the community, there are two clear groups whose support Singh should seek: the owners and the workforce. And yet Singh seem to have done nothing to get them on his side. He has merely presented them with one fait accompli after another and that is something that is definitely not expected of him.

For instance, he should have worked jointly with the owners, represented perhaps by Nikhil, to chart out the financial re-engineering he thinks is vital. It's possible that he could have got Nikhil to convince the owners that this was the only way out, even if it meant a shareholding below 26 per cent. Tough? Of course. Impossible? Of course not, it's happened in India.

Singh also made a mistake in the way he handled the people who worked for Prime. He should have convinced the union-the thread between the management and the employees-that the sale of the ancillary unit was the only way to save Prime and perhaps the only way to save jobs.

In the ultimate analysis, Singh's failure was the failure to build relationships. And, yet, the problem may have begun with Mehra's decision to hire Singh, a person with no knowledge of the industry. What kind of credibility would such a person command? Especially as he would not have to face the consequences of his decisions.

Assuming that Mehra believed that Singh's successful stint in his previous company would spell wonders for Prime, he should have made Singh a partner with one of the owners in the turnaround exercise. Preferably Nikhil, who would then carry the can when Singh goes to his BT 20 company. Singh would be in a position to command the credibility he badly needs.

Given that the damage has already been done, Singh should be replaced by a less mechanistic CEO-one who will build relationships and be a part of Prime's living system. And, this time, Mehra should choose his man very carefully. He should be someone who already knows the pulse of the industry and has good track record.

Having done this, the imperative that Prime will have to evolve, bringing with it issues of culture and values and mission and branding still remains. But that's another story. What is crucial now is that Prime manages to turnaround.

"He must do what he should have done five months ago. That is, draw up a contract in black and white'' Preety Kumar, Managing Partner, Amrop International India

To me it seems like a classic case of too much hurry and too little homework and ambition not balanced with maturity. While Vikram Singh did make a trip to Prime's Bhopal facility ahead of his decision to join, it's clear that Singh would have taken up the offer even otherwise. Consider the alacrity with which he runs through some important preliminary homework he should have done on the company. For instance, he should have met the outgoing CEO and found out more about Prime, its problems; management style of the promoters, and internal dynamics. But at 38, Singh is a man in a hurry, who is already looking to head a 'BT 20' company some day soon and, hence, also his willingness to be a stop-gap CEO.

Having made the cardinal sin of not doing his homework properly, what is Singh to do now? Should he quit? I don't think so. Besides the fact that it would be immature to quit in a huff, he simply hasn't given Prime enough time or effort. The following could be Singh's way ahead at Prime: First he must do what he should have done five months ago. That is, draw up a contract in black and white that spells out the decisions Singh can take without the board's approval, and the areas where the promoters or the board would call the shots.

The most important component of this contract should be the decision-making and approval process. Prime needs to make a host of vital decisions fast. For instance, the row over the ancillary division sell-off could have been avoided if Singh, ahead of his joining, had sat down with the promoters and the union and worked out a plan with key milestones month-on-month. Similarly, the issue of conversion of debt into equity and the resulting drop in promoter stake would have worked out without a hitch if he had discussed this with the promoters and got a clear mandate on how far he could go in discussions with the FIs.

The need for clear lines of approval and control is even greater considering that the promoters have done little to stop Prime's slide on the five-year-long grease pole. Singh must take the lead and create a structure that allows Prime to make some painful decisions quickly and without any hitch. A large part of Singh's problems are of his own making. Therefore, he must have a decisive, heart-to-heart talk with the promoters and other stakeholders and create Prime's future-which, as its CEO, is as much his own.