WPP Marketing's CEO Andre Nair: Size does matter

AGENCY
Let's WPP The Competition
One-year old WPP Marketing Communications is India's biggest media agency.

Quick, name India's biggest advertising agency? JWT India (formerly HTA)? No. O&M? Wrong again. Mudra? Never mind, you aren't going to get this one; the position belongs to the year-old WPP Marketing Communications India, part of the eponymous $16.5-billion (Rs 79,200 crore) advertising conglo created by Martin Sorell. With over 30 clients across its three operating divisions, MindShare, which buys media for JWT India, Maximize, which represents all other conflicting businesses with either Ogilvy & Mather and Contract Advertising, and Fulcrum, which buys media exclusively for Hindustan Lever Limited (for the record, the fast moving consumer goods behemoth consumed an estimated Rs 700 crore of advertising space in 2002), WPP Marketing Communications already boasts billings around Rs 1,500 crore.

It isn't size alone that qualifies WPPMC for this honour; the company's entry into the staid calculator and spreadsheet heavy world of media planning has revolutionised the discipline. Self respecting media pros are no longer keen to be part of traditional full-service agencies. They'd rather work for WPPMC, Starcom India (part of the bcom3 network), or Havas Communications' Media Planning Group.

With a focus on media consulting through its Advanced Techniques Group (ATG), non-traditional media through BroadMind, and consumer behaviour, through Media Consumer Insight (MCI), WPPMC doesn't just offer customers an avenue to improve their advertising efficiency, it provides media pros with an environment in which they can excel.

Expectedly, with one agency now in charge of buying media for three of India's largest agencies-JWT India, O&M, and Contract Advertising-2002 has seen a redefinition of the term 'buying clout'. But what else would you expect from our choice as agency of the year.

-Shailesh Dobhal

Gujarat CM Narendra Modi: Brand for the future

BRAND
Make Way, Orange
Militant Hindu nationalism now has a brand personification: a triumphant Chief Minister.

Till just the other day in-your-face hindutva (the Hindu way) was a faceless ideology. In 2002, it found in Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, the perfect personification of its core values. Now, Modi seems to have emerged the Bharatiya Janata Party's strongest and newest political product, pre-packaged and ready to be marketed across India, starting 2003, when nine states go to the polls. In hindsight Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani's legendary Rath Yatra (chariot journey) of 1990 seems merely a successful below-the-line promotion.

So, if, after Gujarat, the BJP is a born-again political force, Modi must surely be its unique selling proposition. The man isn't just being credited for the party's victory in the state, he has emerged the visible (and saleable) face of Hindutva and the party, and wagers are being made about when he will make a shift to national politics, and as what. If Modi manages to successfully make the shift from a dominant regional brand to national market leader-and 2003's elections will be the test of that-Indian politics will never be the same again.

-Shailesh Dobhal

M&M's Scorpio: There's a sting in this tale

CAR
The Ute's A Brute
M&M proves that it is possible to build a good-looking Indian SUV.

The year may have seen the launch of the new Mercedes e Class in India-it boasts, ride-by-wire technology-but it is M&M's sports-UTE Scorpio that's our choice of car of the year. The company sells all the 1,300 Scorpios it produces each month and is now upping output to 2,000. That, despite increasing reservations about the Scorpio's ride-quality, handling, and engine-noise, should suffice.

-Suveen K. Sinha

DEAL
Softly Does It
Patni Computer places $100 m of its equity with General Atlantic.

In a year dominated by big-ticket public sector acquisitions (VSNL, IPCL, IBP et al), one significant private equity deal got buried under the disinvestment snowball: the $100 million pumped by it fund General Atlantic Partners, via the equity route, into the unlisted software major, Patni Computer Systems. The deal is noteworthy because Patni wisely decided to skip the IPO route to raise money, thanks to sluggish stockmarket conditions, and instead opted for a private equity deal to raise money.

-Brian Carvalho

Ten Sports: Anything but a perfect 10

FLOP
Ten, There Was None
Even the football world cup couldn't save this channel.

The football world cup has come and gone, and Taj Television Limited's Ten Sports' chances seem to have waned with its passing.

True, the channel effected a coup of sorts bagging Indian broadcast rights for the event over ESPN-Star and others in the fray, but in the 12 months of 2002, in cricket-crazy India, Ten Sports could not manage even a single live broadcast of cricket involving India. That's because the channel's cricket rights are restricted to games played in Sri Lanka, which Indians didn't tour, Sharjah, that India won't tour, and Morocco, which is still an emerging cricketing destination.

Things are unlikely to get better. SET max boasts the Indian broadcast rights for next year's cricket world cup in South Africa. Viewers will have to wait until 2003-that's when India tour Sri Lanka-to watch their favourite team on Ten Sports, but will that be too little, too late in a World Cup year?

-Shailesh Dobhal

EPITHET
The Supreme Court's Snub
Trust the SC to know how to tick-off someone without using a single epithet.

Never has a tribunal been ticked off by anyone like the telecom Dispute Settlement Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) was by the Supreme Court in its December 17 judgment on wireless in local loop (WiLL). According to the court, the tribunal's order giving the green signal to will on the CDMA platform did not fulfil the criteria of a judgment. It had failed to address whether:

WiLL with limited mobility was a new service;

It violated the TRAI Act;

The contractual rights of cellular operators had been infringed upon;

CDMA mobile could substitute GSM mobile; or

CDMA represented a march of technology;

That's not all. The judgement says TDSAT arrived at some findings without referring to any material on record, had not considered the materials placed before it on the issue of a level playing field, and that it should invoke consumer interest only after determining the legality of the service. Someone out there in the tribunal must be wishing the court had restricted itself to epithets

-Suveen K. Sinha

The Tata WiLL launch: Little risk

GAMBLE
Uncharted Territory
Tatas and the Ambanis decide to push ahead on limited mobility.

The Tatas have never been known to be betting men, but by being the first to launch limited mobility telephony, even as the Supreme Court's decision on the fate of this service continues to hang fire, they've indeed taken a gamble. Ditto for the Ambanis, who launched last fortnight. Call it a calculated gamble. For there's always Plan B.

-Brian Carvalho

Carrier Aircon's Moos: A tough find

HEADHUNT
In From The Cold
India's once premier air-conditioning company finally found a CEO.

It must rank as one of the toughest searches ever in India Inc. For nine months after Anil Srivastava quit as CEO of Carrier Aircon (in July 2001), the company didn't have a chief executive. The parent called in the services of old Indian hand G. Raghavan and hired an international search firm to find a replacement. Finally, in July 2002, after the search changed hands, Mumbai-based Shilputsi Consultants, identified former Goodyear India CEO Neville P. Moos, then working in the US as an independent consultant. Moos is currently trying to win back some share from Korean twins LG and Samsung.

-Seema Shukla

Bharti Televentures' Sunil Mittal: Will he prevail?

IPO
Telecom's First
It had to be the first major issue by a telco.

In the end, 2002 turned out to be a horrible year for Initial Public Offerings. In all, six issues managed to raise Rs 1,981 crore from investors. Of that, Bharti Televentures' mopped up Rs 834 crore from a 100 per cent book-building issue-the first of its kind in India-that was over-subscribed 2.5 times. In one swoop, the IPO of 10 per cent of the company's stock gave it a valuation of Rs 7,803.67 crore. That was the only good news for Bharti's Chairman and Managing Director Sunil Mittal. The shares were picked up at Rs 45, listed at Rs 55 but soon touched a low of Rs 22. On December 26, the stock was trading at Rs 23.45. Clearly, while telecom is a long-term play, the market is unwilling to look beyond traditional metrics such as earnings and net profit. Alas!

-Roshni Jayakar

JACKPOT
Twist In The Tail
Surprise, surprise, it was VSNL.

In February 2002, when the Tata Group paid Rs 1,439 crore for the government's 25 per cent stake in Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited most people thought Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie has struck the jackpot. That view gained ground as the government scotched a decision by VSNL's new masters to burn Rs 1,200 crore of its reserves on a 22-26 per cent stake in Tata Teleservices.

In hindsight, though, the windfall seems to have been the group's. The government has agreed to have the company invest Rs 835.8 crore for a 19.9 per cent stake in Tata Teleservices. Seen in the context of VSNL's revenues (over Rs 7,000 crore), the Tata Group seems to have got a bargain.

-Suveen K. Sinha

Minister of State for Surface Transport B.C. Khanduri : Goldfinger?

KEYNESIANISM
On The Road Again
There's just one government initiative that qualifies.

Keynes would have approved of the Golden Quadrilateral, the government's efforts to connect the four metros of the country by building some 5,846 kilometre of highway at the cost of Rs 30,300 crore. In 2002-03, for instance, the National Highway Development Project, as it is christened-it has the blessings of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee himself-will see the creation of nearly 4,500 kilometre of roads at an estimated cost of Rs 18,000-20,000 crore. For a country starved of other big projects-the government has little to spare and India Inc., reeling under the impact of a near slowdown, has chosen to focus on efficiencies rather than growth-that is nothing short of manna. Forget the long-term impact of what this will do for India's transportation infrastructure and look at the immediate gains: an annual consumption of 30-40 lakh metric tonnes of cement and 300,000 metric tonnes of steel and daily employment for over 250,000. Truly Keynesian.

-Ashish Gupta

Playwin's Subhash Chandra: Change success

LAUNCH
Punch Your Own Luck
A $155 billion market globally, it finally made an entry into India.

Every week 22 million people-the numbers continue to grow-participate in an online game of chance organised by Playwin Infrawest, a Subhash Chandra-promoted company, across 14 Indian states; the results are aired live on Zee Television, and the success of the model has encouraged Modi Entertainment Network's subsidiary MWC Market Services, and Martin Lotteries to enter the business. Welcome to the world of online lotteries, where customers pick their own winning numbers, and punch out their tickets from slot machines; Playwin has 4,300 such across the country. With a potential market of Rs 100,000 crore a year-the Rs 47,000-crore textiles and garments market and the Rs 42,000-crore fast moving consumer goods market pale in significance-Playwin, and the other companies can look forward to a lucrative future. "Ours is like the FMCG business, where we are building each lottery draw as a brand," says Sanjay Das, CEO Playwin. By March 2003, the company will expand its network to 10,000 machines. Put all the numbers together, and you'll realise why this has to be the launch of the year.

-Shailesh Dobhal

RIL's Anil Ambani: Come together

MERGER
Here Comes The Giant
RIL-RPL merger saw the coming of a Rs 60,000-crore monolith.

In a year when there wasn't much merger action, there shouldn't be any prizes for guessing who gets the consolidation crown. Yes, it has to be the Ambanis for their merger of flagship petrochemicals manufacturer, Reliance Industries, into the refining major, Reliance Petroleum. The deal may not score too many points on the innovation and predictability parameters, but it's the sheer size of the merged entity that gives it pride of place.

By creating a close to Rs 60,000-crore giant, the Ambanis have strolled into the Fortune 500 list. That's more of a fringe benefit than being one of the drivers for the merger.

The major advantage is that the Ambanis now have a stronger balance sheet that, in turn, is expected to be beneficial in raising money to take on global petroleum giants as well as in bidding for public sector undertakings. IPCL's in the bag. Any guesses as to what's next?

-Brian Carvalho

BPO execs: Calling card to success

OCCUPATION
Back-Office Boom
Hint: 160,000 more joined the ranks in 2002.

It was the sector that saw the most hiring action-GE capital International Services alone did 18,000 in the course of the year-and, according to hr consulting firm Hewitt Associates, the highest average salary increase, 16.4 per cent. Business Process Outsourcing didn't just create jobs at the agent level, it made, and re-made CEO careers. Neeraj Bhargava, the former head of venture capital outfit eVentures, moved as head of the British Airways BPO company WMS and Electrolux's Ram S. Ramsundar, as CEO of Satyam's BPO initiative Nipuna. With a growth rate in excess of 60 per cent and average attrition rate of anything between 35 per cent and 60 per cent, the action in BPO will continue well into 2003.

-Seema Shukla

The Dabhol Plant: As NP as NPAs come

NPA
The Big E
Rasiklal Mardia's may have made the headlines, but it was a different NPA to which the honour goes.

Fine, let's split some hairs: officially, it is still a standard asset; unofficially, it is clearly the non-performing asset of the year. The exposure of financial institutions and banks, together, to the Rs 13,000-crore Dabhol Power Company (DPC) stands at Rs 6,200 crore. In the past 18 months, the company has generated neither income nor electricity. And so, the fate of IDBI's Rs 2,121 crore, SBI's Rs 1,749 crore, ICICI's Rs 1,473 crore, IFCI's Rs 454 crore, Canara Bank's Rs 407 crore, and the rest hangs in balance. The subsidiary of the infamous Enron Corp. missed its first loan repayment in April 2002. Other defaults followed: one in June, and another in September. The IDBI-led consortium (listed above) has applied to the RBI for permission not to treat their loans as NPAs. There it stands.

-Roshni Jayakar

POLICY-MAKER
Sush's The Word
One minister was responsible for two media-related legislations.

Some of India's media tycoons hate competition in any form. So, when the government initiated moves to allow 26 per cent foreign direct investment in print media, the very people who call for more economic reforms and an open market through the columns of their publications, did a volte face and insisted no foreign investment be allowed in the sector. Fortunately for the free market, I&B Minister Sushma Swaraj prevailed. Later in the year, she even managed to get Parliament to approve Conditional Access System, thereby revolutionising the way the broadcast and cable industries work. Bravo!

-Ashish Gupta

REVIVAL
Steel's Stainless
The Indian steel industry engineers a miraculous turnaround.

Indian steel: The good times are back

For years, happenings in the Indian steel industry were the stuff of which tear-jerkers are made- over-capacity, falling prices, and poor demand. Last year, finally, things started looking up.

A Fitch Ratings report on the Indian steel sector estimates prices to have increased between 6 per cent and 14 per cent. During April-September 2002, finished steel production went up by 7.4 per cent against a 0.36 decline in 2001.

On the domestic front, demand picked up in the course of the year in anticipation of further price hikes. The government's Golden Quadrilateral project (see story in this section for how much steel it consumes) and Urban Reform Scheme are expected to cause a further increase in demand in 2003.

With the OECD countries agreeing to shut 125 million tonnes of inefficient steel making capacity over the next three-to-five years, demand for Indian steel could go up in export markets too. China, for instance, will need to import a significant amount of steel to keep up the pace of its urban renewal. It is on the basis of factors such as these that Fitch predicts a 11 per cent growth rate for the sector, as compared to a 5.6 per cent increase in global demand. Surely, that must count as the year's biggest revival.

-Roshni Jayakar

QUEST
Is There Anybody Out There?
After 23 months in court, things are none the clearer.

India's cellular operators first challenged the government's decision to allow basic telephony companies offer mobile services on January 22, 2001. They may have found some succour in end-2002, courtesy a Supreme Court judgement that directed the Telecom Dispute Settlement Appellate Tribunal to re-examine the issue and create a level playing field in telecom. Still, with the court coming down heavily on the tribunal for its previous laxity, the latter is likely to take its time doing a thorough job (no one likes another rebuke). The quest, therefore, continues...

-Suveen K. Sinha

STOCK
JISCO, Anyone?
A low-profile steel company surprises everyone.

The year may have belonged to PSU scrips that gained ground following the government's disinvestment process, but in numerical terms it was the Jindal Iron & Steel Company (JISCO) stock that outperformed all comers. The scrip rose 970 per cent between January and December, moving from Rs 4 to a high of Rs 73 (it now trades at around Rs 55); the Sensex rose 3.6 per cent in the same period.

The market's sudden faith in the future of the maker of flat steel products can be attributed to the overall revival in the steel market. JISCO exports 54 per cent of its production and the increase in global demand, especially from CIS countries investing in infrastructure, augurs well for it. With sales of Rs 1,051 crore in 2001-02, JISCO, part of the Rs 7,000-crore Jindal Group, is still an attractive stock. A stock price of Rs 73 may not seem to be much in the context of India's software superstar but, believe you us, in steel, it is as good as gold.

-Roshni Jayakar

TORCH-BEARER
It's The PM!
A beleagured patriarch is still the reforms process' biggest champion.

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee: Reforms' # 1 proponent

Guess where much of India's economic policy gets made these days? And guess, who is drawing up the blueprint for the next generation of reforms? We'll spare you the blushes and get straight to the answer. The Prime Minister's residence, #7 Race Course Road and his office in South Block are where the policy is made. And the draft for nex-gen reforms is being drawn up by the Prime Minister's Office. Neither answer comes as a surprise: with much economic policy-making these days revolving around contentious issues such as disinvestment, labour reforms, foreign direct investment and the like, the Prime Minister finds it necessary to step in and function as a jamcracker. There can be no doubts over the man's own commitment to reforms: he has, time and again, spoken about how he'd like to see the Indian economy grow at 8 per cent a year. And he has, time and again, risen to the support of his beleagured pro-reform colleagues-Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie is one beneficiary. Still, with electoral considerations likely to dominate the thinking of most political parties over the next two years, the question is not what Vajpayee can do, but how much he can do without hurting his party's chances.

-Ashish Gupta

UTILITY
The Water-Method Firm
It's French and it traffics in water.

The French connection: Tata Steel and Vivendi ink the deal

What's a French company doing supplying water in the heart of Jharkhand? The company in question is Vivendi, the global leader in water and wastewater management services, and in November 2002, it signed a memorandum of understanding with Tata Steel to create a joint venture that would manage the water supply in steel town Jamshedpur.

If all goes well, starting mid-January, the joint venture-the assets will remain with Tata Steel, while Vivendi will run the utility-will supply 35.5 million gallons of water to 1 million people and pipe and recycle some 60,000 cubic metres of wastewater everyday. For Tata Steel, this is just another in a long list of efforts to focus on its core business. And for Vivendi-it already works with the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and the Chennai Water Board to make their water supply networks more efficient-it is the logical next step.

-Ashish Gupta

VACANCY
The Seat's Hot Again
It got filled, but that was a surprise.

Idea Cellular's Burke (left): The right thought

If everyone had stuck to the script, the merger of the AT&T-Birla-Tata combine's cellular operation, and BPL Communications would have gone through without a hitch. And BPL CEO Rajeev Chandrasekhar would have become CEO of the merged entity.

The buzz had it that AT&T-Birla-Tata CEO Sanjeev Aga put in his papers in October 2001, because he knew this was in the offing.

The combine started its search for a new CEO, and every headhunter in town wanted to be part of the action, but, in part because of uncertainty over the merger, and, in part because good telecom CEOs seemed suddenly in short supply, the post remained vacant, presumably for Chandrasekhar.

By mid-2002, though, it was evident the merger wouldn't go through (although the official line is that it is still on). Idea Cellular-as the combine is now known-may have finally decided that it was time to get on with life without waiting for the merger to happen. After all, it had bid for the fourth cellular licences independently.

So, just prior to the launch of its services in Delhi, the company unveiled a new CEO, expat Graham Burke, who has made a career out of successfully running telcos in Asia. His last stint was as President of Pakistan's Mobilink Communications. Idea's Delhi ops are off to a start, but with competition from the likes of Bharti, Hutch, and now Reliance India Mobile, the going will be anything but easy for Burke.

-Seema Shukla

TRAI's M.S. Verma: Hello?

WAIT OF THE YEAR
Verma's Inertia
Waiting for Verma has become the pastime-by-default of India's telecom execs.

The world over, telcos take interconnect, the right to connect to other networks, for granted. Not so in India, where interconnect is often a way to keep the competition at bay. Here's a sampling of the year's interconnect woes: Bharti Televentures' IndiaOne domestic long distance service began the year by trying to connect with the fixed service networks of BSNL and MTNL that, together, account for 95 per cent of India's basic telephony customers. While it has managed to hammer out an agreement, interconnectivity proves elusive. Then the newly privatised Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited found itself facing the combined bargaining power of its former stablemates BSNL and MTNL. And now companies providing limited mobile services on the CDMA platform are at loggerheads with cellular companies over interconnectivity. Much of the problem stems from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's position that service providers need to work out interconnect agreements themselves. They cannot deny connectivity, it warns, but they can approach it only when all else fails. Wouldn't it have just been simpler to set some guidelines for interconnect?

-Suveen K. Sinha

XENOPHOBE
By George, It's George
The enfant terrible of the out-damned-foreign-company movement returns.

Defence Minister George Fernandes: Coke, anyone?

All those who thought the man widely considered responsible for the exit of Coca-Cola and IBM from the country in 1977 had become more market-friendly were in for a rude shock in 2002. Defence Minister George Fernandes has joined the Left parties, the RSS, and the SJM as yet another opponent of the reforms process. This time, though, his ire wasn't targeted at a foreign company, or two, but at a foreign idea, disinvestment.

In a letter to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, he alleged that monopolies were being perpetuated by allowing private sector giants to bid for and acquire public sector companies. Retail investors, and other public sector firms, he continued, needed to be included in the process. ''Disinvestment should not be such that it makes the rich richer,'' he later said in Parliament. Some attribute Fernandes' sudden opposition to disinvestment, as something that is being encouraged by a certain corporate group. Others put it down as an effort to cosy up to RSS Chief K.S. Sudershan as an effort to stay relevant at the end of the government's term. Whatever it be, he's back.

-Ashish Gupta

Franklin Templeton's Ravi Mehrotra: Ace

YOUNG ACHIEVER
Our Mutual Friend
A mutual fund manager proves that it's easy to win when you know how.

Mutual funds didn't do too well last year. But Franklin Templeton did. Some credit for that should go to its President Ravi Mehrotra, a 41-year-old who moved to the company when it acquired Pioneer ITI-he had been Chief Investment Officer of the latter. In July 2002, when the merger took place, the combined asset size of the two entities was Rs 7,800 crore. By December 2002, the figure was Rs 9,400 crore. A growth of 20.5 per cent in five months may not look impressive, but as Mehrotra points out: ''The mutual fund industry has grown its asset size 20 per cent in the past five years.'' Mehrotra's task was no doubt made easier by the nature of the merging entities: ITI Pioneer was a retail big-wig, while Templeton was focused largely on fixed instruments. Now, with a band of talented fund managers in place, Mehrotra is scripting 2003 as the "year of delivery".

-Moinak Mitra

ZEITGEIST
Back With A Vengeance
The year 2002 saw the startling resurgence of an aggressive brand of nationalism.

Strangely doctored love: Where does it lead?

If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try a djinn. As in 'spirit', of course, except that we're not talking about Johnnie Walker Black Label, which spent the year exhorting us to keep walking. Nor about ac Black, which was trying to redefine the limits of intoxicated possibility. No, these brands don't qualify.

For India, it was the year of now-on-now-off privatisation, and of the now-on-now-off nationalism-socialism relationship at the Centre...which was expected to rupture. Did it? No such luck. Of late, though, nationalism certainly seems to have gained ideological dominance. And a particular brand of it, conceived back in the 1920s (and uncorked many decades later), has certainly achieved top-of-the-mind prominence at the zeitgeist hustings for 2002. So, should this eight-lettered occupant of mass mindspace be awarded the year's spirit-of-the-year title? Oh well...as people'll have it. Such is the attraction to all things vapourised.

-Aresh Shirali