This year, when business today and A.T. Kearney set out to identify panellists for the best managed company exercise, we decided to pick only people who were: a. eminent enough for lay readers to know, if only from the positions they hold; b. endowed with an in-depth knowledge of business even if they did not know specifics about the companies they were judging; and c. neutral (that is, they did not hold down any corporate posts). Since it would be difficult to get the few people who satisfied all criteria together in one place at one time, we decided to do this remotely. A detailed report, put together by A.T. Kearney, and containing information on the 13 companies as well as the six we thought they could rate, was sent to the panellists. Then, their feedback on the process and on the candidates was sought. The individual choices of the judges (which will not be publicised) were used to arrive at India's Best Managed Company. The panellists:

Kiran Karnik
President/Nasscom

Personally, I am pleased to see the emphasis given to the social perspective and also to innovation. These are important dimensions that are sometimes ignored in assessments that focus excessively on performance in the market place. The human capital aspect, in conjunction with innovation, also ensures a longer-term perspective of the company's prospects.

Jairam Ramesh
Rajya Sabha MP and Secretary/ All India Congress Committee's Economic Affairs Cell

One attribute of a well-managed company is that it should not evoke questions in the mind of the public. Each of the companies in this list have their pluses and minuses.

G. Raghuram
Professor/IIM-A

Tata Power and L&T have performed well in the core sector (not always easy), Ranbaxy has built an international pharma business against all odds, Wipro and Infosys have great internal processes, and ICICI's K.V. Kamath believes in champions (creating an empowered workforce). I would like to see next year's study factor in Corporate Social Responsibility and export performance.

G.N. Bajpai
Former Chairman/SEBI

I particularly liked the stress on learning and growth. At any given point in time, a company may be doing well, but once it stops learning further from the environment, it stagnates.

THE SCORING

Panellists ranked companies from 1 to 6. companies they ranked 1 were given 10 points; those they assigned 6, 0 points, and other ranks in between proportionate scores. The six last-round companies were also ranked on the basis of A.T. Kearney's assessment of their standing in the value building growth matrix, the questionnaire they filled in, and the in-depth interview with the senior management team. Scores were again assigned from 10 (for the company ranked 1) to 0 (for the company ranked 6). The five scores (one objective and the four assigned by judges) were totalled to arrive at the best managed company.