'Corporate romance is often tinted with hard realities of cycles'

For the first time in a decade, off-site meetings are being replaced by on-site meetings, guest houses are replacing hotel stays, normal carriers are being replaced with low-cost carriers, and travel is being substituted with video conferences.

Over 90 per cent of the employees working in the corporate sector today have grown up their entire corporate lives on the India vitamin pill. The pill has been administered day in and day out for 10 years at a stretch and their entire lives have been fortified with it. Today’s junior management have, in fact, been on a higher dosage, and that too, from the time they’ve been in high school. This pill has given visions of everlasting growth, ever-growing career opportunities and ever-increasing salaries. With the economy growing at full tilt, this has been amply reinforced.

Someone forgot to add a disclaimer — that there could be cycles, too. And during some phases of cycles, employees could expect slower growth. Employees are getting to experience a term called “slowdown” and at first brush, it doesn’t feel very good. Nor is it easy to comprehend, for they haven’t heard of such a term. That’s not all, perhaps for the first time in a decade, off-site meetings are being replaced by on-site meetings, guest houses are replacing hotel stays, normal carriers are being replaced with low-cost ones, and travel is being substituted with video conferences. It’s not as if these employees can’t cope with this, it’s just that they never knew this side of the cycle.

It’s not as if the corporate sector was profligate either. The happy environment dictated planting flag posts on opportunities as quickly as possible, in order to snap M&A opportunities before your competitors did, to expand geographies and to introduce product variants. Consultants advised you to cover every customer segment before your competitors did. Ad agencies advised 360 degrees coverage—leave no segment untapped. Capital wasn’t an issue: in fact it was gushing in.

Now, reams of paper, speeches and international gurus are dedicated to helping organisations go through this phase. They say that organisations will emerge trimmer and more efficient. It’s absolutely true, but it’s also obvious. In my view the real value is: you go through this phase, and you’ll begin to appreciate the value of resources. This may be a more sober realisation and well worth it.

Fanciful romantic dreams of corporate life in India still exist in many young minds. But corporate romance is often tinted with hard realities of cycles—and that may not be a bad realisation either.

History has shown that such times do not last forever. That India is on a growth path has been stated by one and all; but it is important to note that this view is derived not from hope but cyclical realities. India has not seen such a golden run in centuries. This is a country of opportunities because we are a land of entrepreneurs, and entrepreneurs are job creators and wealth generators. Entrepreneurs are survivors. An expanding economy will create more jobs; and expansion even at 7 per cent on a trillion-dollar economy is still a lot of growth. The cycle will turn, for every time in history people thought they were looking down the barrel, the cycle turned.

It’s spring when you can plant your foot on twelve daisies. When the cycle turns again, the daisies will show up in the form of more jobs, new horizons, and increased industrial output.

(The author is Executive Director-ICICI Bank)