India's best managed company: (From left) Microsoft's Rajiv Kaul, RIL's Chairman Mukesh Ambani, FM Jaswant Singh, RIL's Vice Chairman Anil Ambani, and India Today Group's Editorial Director Prabhu Chawla

India's best managed company: Reliance it is (From left) Microsoft's Rajiv Kaul, RIL's Chairman Mukesh Ambani, FM Jaswant Singh, RIL's Vice Chairman Anil Ambani, and India Today Group's Editorial Director Prabhu Chawla in the end, there weren't enough tables at the ballroom of the Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai. On the evening of June 9, India Inc. turned out in numbers to celebrate excellence. The occasion was the awards ceremony of the first Business Today Best Managed Company in India study. Present were representatives from the 16 finalist companies. The brothers Ambani from Reliance, Nandan Nilekani of Infosys, Dr. Reddy's Anji Reddy, Sun Pharma's Dilip Shanghvi, Cadbury India's Bharat Puri, Moser Baer's Deepak Puri, Gujarat Ambuja's Narottam Sekhsaria making a rare public appearance, Asian Paints' Ashwin Dani, Britannia's Nikhil Sen, TVS Motor's C.P. Raman, HPCL's M.B. Lal, pleased to represent the only PSU receiving an award, and ICICI Bank's Kalpana Morparia. Dealmeisters Ashok Wadhwa of Ambit and Nimesh Kampani of J.M. Morgan were there to cheer the winners, as were ONGC's Subir Raha, Bharti's Sunil Mittal, KPMG's Ian Gomes, Bank of America's Vishwavir Ahuja, Mudra's Madhukar Kamath, Bajaj Electricals' Shekhar Bajaj, Boston Consulting Group's Arun Maira, and Duncans' G.P. Goenka.

Snapshots From Business Today Best Managed Company Awards Night in Mumbai
The evening speakers: (From left) FM Jaswant Singh, Microsoft India's MD Rajiv Kaul, India Today Group's Editorial Director Prabhu Chawla, and A.T. Kearney's Chairman C. Srinivasan

Much back-slapping was in evidence as 15 of the finalists made their way to the stage to receive awards from India's Finance Minister Jaswant Singh (assisted, in turn, by event knowledge partner A.T. Kearney's Chairman Chandra Srinivasan, Business Today's Editor Sanjoy Narayan, and Business Today's Publisher Ashish Bagga). Then, it was time to announce and honour the winner, Reliance Industries. Chairman Mukesh and Vice Chairman Anil Ambani received the award from the Finance Minister, event presenter Microsoft's Managing Director Rajiv Kaul, and India Today Group Editorial Director Prabhu Chawla. Accepting the award, Mukesh dedicated it to his father, the late Dhirubhai Ambani. A visibly emotional Anil held the award up as he exclaimed, ''Papa, this is for you.''

Among The Audience
The FM makes a point to Mukesh Ambani as Prabhu Chawla looks on	BankAm's Vishwaveer Ahuja (L) and A.T. Kearney's C. Srinivasan (R) mingle
HLL Chairman M.S. Banga (L), Bajaj Electricals' CEO Shekhar Bajaj (second from right) with Tina Ambani	RIL's Anil Ambani, Equus' Suhel Seth and Duncan's G.P. Goenka share a laugh

Earlier, in his keynote address, FM Jaswant Singh had expressed his desire to see more Indian companies figuring among the ranks of the best-managed and promised India Inc. all support from the government in its quest for global competitiveness. We hope to see more winners next year.

The Future Gazers: (From left) ONGC's CMD Subir Raha, Bharti Enterprise CEO Sunil Mittal, RIL Vice Chairman Anil Ambani, BT's Editor Sanjoy Narayan, HLL Chairman M.S. Banga, A.T. Kearney Chairman C. Srinivasan, & BCG Chairman Arun Maira

BT Brainstorming

India Inc.'s finest on management.

The New Paradigm: What They Said...

The 21st century corporation, said Anil Ambani, would still need to dream big and command the loyalty of people who could turn it into reality. Indeed, as M.S. Banga said, the New Paradigm needs leadership that's about envisioning and making breakthroughs, not about 'administration' as understood in terms of hierarchical control. But, in the context of modern day uncertainty, it also needs "external orientation" in general and multiple sensors-to make one's way around in darkness-in particular.

"Dream big, get others to buy into the dream, and find people to execute that dream" Anil Ambani, vice-chairman, Reliance Industries Ltd	"What's the key watchword as we transit into the 21st century? It is uncertainty" M.S. Banga, CMD, Hindustan Lever	"You have power because of the alliances, partnerships, skills and tech you can bring" C. Srinivasan, Chairman, A.T. Kearney	"If you can master IT for the customer's benefit, you can create the differentiation" Sunil Mittal, CEO, Bharti Enterprises	"Globalisation means that we talk rupees and dollars and euros, and how they interact" Subir Raha, CMD, ONGC	"We get blind spots and don't realise there are some things that we don't know" Arun Maira, CEO, Boston Consulting Group

Chandra Srinivasan emphasised the need to orchestrate diverse resources, even co-opting customers, perhaps even in organisational redesign. Sunil Mittal urged businesses to institutionalise leadership to reduce dependence on individuals, and to leverage it for customer orientation. Subir Raha pondered the challenge of maintaining 'personal touch' in a tech-wired environment. And Arun Maira drew attention to the dangers of not knowing "what we don't know". Any solutions? Among the answers: honesty, an open learning culture and hiring smarter people.

Transparency Tools: What They Said...

Transparency Troubadours: (From left) A.T. Kearney's VP Devinder Chawla, Infosys CEO Nandan Nilekani, BT's Deputy Editor R. Sukumar, Karnataka Government's IT & BT Secretary Vivek Kulkarni

Information technology is a transparency tool, said Rajiv Kaul, by virtue of being a "common denominator" in virtually everything to do with knowledge management and harnessing human potential. It's highly effective, so long as common standards are established. The possibilities are vast, said Vivek Kulkarni, citing instances of it-enabled transparency in government, from meritocratic engineering college admissions to the real-time accounting of public funds.

That it permits greater transparency is beyond question, said Nandan Nilekani, but the challenge still is to turn corporations transparent from the perspective of shareholders and other external regulatory bodies. Here, ethics play a large role. Mere it usage is not enough, given that "Enron was one of the world's most sophisticated users of it". Still, added Devinder Chawla, transparency in the very act of information aggregation and dissemination can do wonders for business effectiveness.

But could it transform businesses that operate as information hierarchies? "Well, I think there's no question that it tends to flatten hierarchies and destabilise the controls that a manager may have over information," said Nilekani, extolling the virtues of widely accessible single-view data. Kaul, meanwhile, laid emphasis on the disintermediation effect of it-and the immediacy of information rather than mere access to it.

"Technologies being developed will revolutionise the way we access and share information" Rajiv Kaul, Managing Director, Microsoft India	"Governments are more transparent than corporates. People can change them if they want to" Vivek Kulkarni, Secretary (IT and Biotech), Government of Karnataka	"Without the moral fibre to ensure that tech is used effectively, tech won't solve the problem" Nandan Nilekani, CEO, Infosys Technologies	"We do realize at times, there has to be some kind of restricted sharing of information'' Devinder Chawla, Vice President, A.T. Kearney

What about information overload? And can everyone really have access to all information? Nilekani brought back the issue of standards, and the need for clarity on what is confidential and what not. As for entrusting people with ever-more gigabytes, "The public is ready for more information", said Kulkarni.