 |
ANIL & MUKESH AMBANI
Compared to some other groups, brothers Mukesh and Anil manage
fewer companies. But in terms of sheer activity, there's no
one to beat them |
As an executive duo, N.R. Narayana Murthy
and Nandan M. Nilekani must seem unique. There's no other pair,
either in the tech circles or outside of it, that gets mentioned
or talked about in the same breath as this one does. At Microsoft,
it's about Bill Gates; at Intel, it's about, er (who, Craig Barrett
or Paul Otellini?), one doesn't quite know. And at the Tatas,
Birlas, Ambanis or Wipro, there's always one name that comes to
mind ahead of others.
So, what makes Murthy and Nilekani the most written about corporate
honchos? It's possibly the clear (or clever?) positioning that
the two enjoy with respect to their company and industry. Nilekani
is perceived as the poster boy of Indian it (thanks to, no mean
extent, New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman-of The World
is Flat Fame), while Murthy is the eminence grise, whose opinion
is sought on just about everything from governance to poverty
to education. In fact, Murthy swaps places with Arcelor-Mittal's
Lakshmi Niwas Mittal this year (see The Top 25).
But one name that didn't figure at all on our last year's list,
but storms in this year at #8 is Indra Nooyi, CEO and Chairman-designate,
PepsiCo. That should surprise no one. Nooyi made waves last year
when she became the first woman CEO in the history of PepsiCo,
and a woman of Indian origin at that. What's also heartening about
this year's top personalities list is that there are four women
in the top 25, compared to just one last year (Biocon's Kiran
Mazumdar-Shaw had that distinction). No one can blame the media
for not doing its bit to shatter the glass ceiling in the corporate
world.
 |
| K.V. Kamath-led ICICI Group
is the only pure financial services group to feature on our
list of top 10 groups, and ICICI Bank the only bank on our
overall list of top 25 companies |
Front Page Heroes
Companies of Anil and Mukesh Ambani hogged Page
One, but surprisingly two state-owned telcos weren't too far below
the fold.
Companies covet it as much as reporters:
space on Page One, or the cover of a magazine such as this one.
It's this space that tells one news from another, one company from
another, and one reporter from another. So, who got the most Page
One mentions last year? Predictably, these were the companies owned
by brothers Anil and Mukesh Ambani. What was not so predictable
was the emergence of BSNL and MTNL as #4 and #5 companies, respectively.
One reason was, of course, the mammoth tender that BSNL floated
for adding 45.5 million lines at a cost of $5 billion (Rs 22,000
crore). The other reason was the spat between BSNL and MTNL over
the national long-distance arrangement that the former had with
the latter. Eventually, MTNL not only did launch its own NLD service
between Delhi and Mumbai, but also offered calls between the two
cities at local rates.
Two other groups not used to getting space on Page One of national
dailies ended up under the arc lights as well. We are talking
of GMR and GVK. And you know the reason. These two southern groups
surprised everyone early last year by winning the bids for modernisation
of airports at Delhi and Mumbai.
The
Top Groups
ICICI Group stormed into the top league,
right behind the Tatas and the Mukesh Ambani Group.
In terms of coverage, there are
two groups that have steadily lost in the BT-Cirrus study of biggest
newsmakers. These are the Aditya Birla Group and the (Rahul) Bajaj
Group. While the former didn't figure on our list of top five
last year, the latter barely made it at #5. This year again, the
Bajajs have just made it-but on an expanded list of top 10; sadly,
the Birlas haven't made it again.
The Tatas and the Reliance Group continued to be the #1 and
#2 groups, respectively, but there was a surprise #3 this year-the
K.V. Kamath-led ICICI Group, which includes everything from ICICI
Bank to ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Co. to ICICI Venture to
ICICI OneSource (now called Firstsource). At ICICI Bank, its efforts
at creating beachheads overseas continued to attract media attention
(Sri Lanka, Russia, Belgium, and Malaysia were some countries
where it opened branches last year), while the Shikha Sharma-led
ICICI Prudential got into a bit of a tussle with Bajaj Allianz
over industry leadership. The latter claimed to be #1 in terms
of received premium, but the former said it was the top dog in
terms of annualised premium. In fact, the ICICI Group isn't just
the only financial services group in the top 10, but also ICICI
Bank is the only bank to make it to the overall top 20 list. That's
quite an achievement.
Lakshmi Niwas Mittal's LNM Group also grabbed a lot of headlines
for the stunning Arcelor deal. First rebuffed by the Anglo-Dutch
steel major, Mittal's steel company went on to sweep shareholders
off their feet with a sweetened offer, making Arcelor-Mittal the
largest steel company in the world. Y.C. Deveshwar's cigarettes-to-hotels-to-paper-apparel
group, ITC, came right behind LNM, followed by Bharti Enterprises
and Anand Mahindra's Mahindra Group. The dapper Mahindra, of course,
had everything going his way last year, including the deal with
Renault to make cars in India, and Tech Mahindra's IPO.
The
Top Ministers
Surprise, It's not Finance Minister
P. Chidambaram, but Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav who gets
more of media.
Last year, it wasn't just the Indian railways that turned around.
Its political master, Lalu Prasad Yadav, emerged as a turnaround
artist and a management guru, too. Perhaps, that's why, Yadav
beat his Cabinet colleague and Finance Minister P. Chidambaram-who
ought to win hands down if only the business media were to be
considered-to emerge as the most written about Union minister
in charge of an economic ministry. This is a new category that
the BT-Cirrus study considers this year, therefore, there are
no comparisons available from the previous studies.
There's a simple reason why the popular media (excluding the
pink dailies and business magazines) loves Yadav. He makes for
entertaining copy. So, be it his run-ins with Bihar Chief Minister
and his political rival Nitish Kumar or his vocal support to controversial
yoga guru, Baba Ram Dev, or simply a matter of vacating his official
bungalow in Patna, Yadav knows how to work the media to his advantage.
Information and Broadcasting Minister, Priyaranjan Das Munshi
got plenty of media exposure too, but mostly for the wrong reasons.
For example, after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh clarified his
statement on Muslims having the first right on resources of India
(he meant to say all minorities), Munshi stepped in to say that
the clarification was uncalled for. He also banned Arab channels,
and stopped the screening of the movie The Da Vinci Code. Since
then, he has gotten into more controversies, including the banning
of AXN channel early this year (this, however, doesn't reflect
on his score, since the study only looks at 2006 reports).
In contrast, Union Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel got
relatively less visibility, but his quality of exposure was vastly
better than Munshi's. Dayanidhi Maran, Union Minister of Communications
& it, did even better, notching up a QoE of 130. Next year,
when BT-Cirrus conducts its fifth study, it will be interesting
to see how fortunes have changed for India's top economic ministers.
|
