India Inc.'s New Year resolutions
December evokes memories of our teenage years, when we busily scribbled down resolutions for the New Year, in a newly acquired diary. Though many of these resolutions were already broken in the year gone by, they were renewed with hope once again. Others were fresh, as life posed new questions to us. As we at Business Today entered December, some of us grabbed one of the many new diaries tossed our way and started jotting down resolutions that we thought corporate India should adopt in the New Year. We asked around—we spoke to consultants and corporate honchos—we applied our thoughts and worked out a list of 10 resolutions. There were some that met with unanimous approval—especially the ones on company finances and on managing the downturn. Naturally, the recession in the US and Europe and its impact on India have been weighing heavily on India Inc. Everyone wants to survive the tough times ahead and prescriptions aren’t easy to come by. Therefore, reevaluating processes and tightening the belts are the new mantras.
Resolutions have a bit of a fairy tale quality about them. There is always something idealistic about drawing up a list of things one wants to do in the New Year, and we decided to introduce those elements into our list. The response from the corporate big guns was a unanimous “yes”. “Yes, these idealistic resolutions must be on the agenda and, yes, promoting inclusive growth should be the first resolution for corporate India,” said Sunil Chandiramani, National Director for Advisory Services at Ernst & Young. “It is in the interest of Indian businesses to promote inclusive growth in India. It will mean a larger demand base as a result of widely distributed expendable incomes and will help businesses in the long run,” he adds.
Our list also has a unique resolution— fighting terror. While no one is sure what businesses can do about this, there are plenty of suggestions floating around, and companies are reluctant to drop this item from the agenda. We at BT feel that India Inc. should remain committed to finding an answer to this question. Is this an exhaustive list? By no means. New Year resolutions are never supposed to be. However, we just hope some of these will prove to be more than just pious intentions.
