Books

Marvellous compendium

The High Performance Entrepreneur by Subroto Bagchi; Penguin Books; Rs.395; 244 pp

So determined were the Soviet-inspired architects of licence-permit-quota raj who dominated the Indian economy for the past half century to stamp out private industry and trade, that many within the small minority of liberals despaired that the native spirit of enterprise which had made ancient India the world’s wealthiest subcontinent right up to the 17th century, was extinguished forever. But a series of fortuitous events abroad and in India prompted an eleventh hour jettisoning of the centrally-planned, Soviet/communist inspired development model which has perhaps saved India’s bacon.

First, following its disastrous invasion of Afghanistan the Soviet Union — arguably the largest post World War II empire — built on faulty Marxist gobbledegook economics, imploded with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. A year later with the Soviet Union out of the picture and nobody worldwide including Indians, willing to purchase the shoddy goods of India’s public sector enterprises, India’s trade gap widened so precipitously that the then interim coalition government at the Centre was obliged to pledge India’s gold reserves to the IMF and World Bank to keep its import credit lines open.

Following a general election in which a Congress party led alliance secured a wafer thin majority, one of the first acts of the newly-elected Narasimha Rao government was to give free rein to finance minister Dr. Manmohan Singh to implicitly reject the Soviet economic development model. In the historic Union budget of July 1991, Singh decreed comprehensive economic liberalisation and deregulation of the Indian economy.

Since then although several coalition governments have been voted in and out of office in New Delhi, all of them have continued to adhere to the path of economic liberalisation and deregulation, with no political party of consequence advocating a return to the bad old days of pervasive licence-permit-quota raj.

The political consensus in favour of liberal economic reforms is hardly surprising. Since the promulgation of the historic Union budget of 1991 and continuation of economic liberalisation and deregulation, GDP growth has been rising year on year with the annual growth rate of the Indian economy almost tripling to 9.2 percent in fiscal 2006-07. Perhaps even more important, the country’s dormant entrepreneurial energy has been revived and hundreds of thousands of determined, can-do entrepreneurs countrywide are beginning to promote their own start-up enterprises.

This new tribe of young entrepreneurs would derive considerable benefit by reading The High Performance Entrepreneur by Subroto Bagchi, co-founder and chief operating officer of the Bangalore-based MindTree Consulting Ltd (revenue: Rs.616 crore; no. of employees: 4,000 in fiscal 2005-06). Promoted in 1999 by former top-rung managers of Wipro Infotech, this new IT enabled consulting company has stormed into the ranks of India’s top-notch, globally respected IT companies such as TCS, Infosys, Wipro and Satyam among others. Currently its highly-fancied equity share is quoted at Rs.932 per share on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

At one level this is a corporate biography narrating the growth and establishment of MindTree. It recounts the trials, tribulations and growth pains of this fast-track company which was promoted by several high-performing individuals who were cabined, cribbed and confined within Wipro ruled by the reclusive, Bangalore-based multi-billionaire Azim Premji with a tight-fisted — and reportedly whimsical — hand. But along the way and in the process of establishing MindTree as a serious player in the highly competitive fraternity of IT-driven consultancy companies, Bagchi learned some valuable lessons about the perils and pitfalls of entrepreneurship in a business environment in which ideology driven champions of licence-permit raj are still fighting a determined rearguard action.

These lessons laced with anecdotes and case histories, are generously shared with the reader. Starting with when one should heed the inner voice which prompts you to go solo, this illuminating book inter alia provides advice on choosing a team, writing a mission statement and business plan, picking the right investor, retaining people, managing money, building a corporate brand, learning to manage adversity and going public, ending with a chapter titled ‘Lessons in entrepreneurship from the IT industry’. Moreover this corporate biography-cum-instructional manual is written in an unpretentious style to alert aspiring entrepreneurs of the pitfalls they are likely to encounter on the slushy road to business success and how to negotiate them. Certainly if your reviewer would have had the benefit of reading this work prior to launching this publication, a better job would have been done.

Perhaps the only drawback of this instructive guide to successful entrepreneurship is that it glosses over the huge difficulty of raising start-up and working capital within a capital-deficient economy. "In today’s world, there is more money chasing a few good ideas than the other way around. So if you truly have a good idea and a team in place that will sweat it out, there is no dearth of capital," writes Bagchi. One wonders: hasn’t he heard of public sector banks run by pathologically risk-averse clerks who never deviate from the rule book (except for politicians and the well-connected)? Or of foreign banks obsessed with chasing only big bucks? Or of self-styled venture capitalists driven by the herd mentality? It was undoubtedly the herd mentality of VCs and bankers for whom the IT industry can now do no wrong, which made raising capital a minor matter for MindTree. In all other sectors of the economy, neta-babu stranglehold of the banking system, and poor project assessment skills of timorous venture capitalists are major impediments to millions of projects of great pith and potential getting off the ground.

Be that as it may, except for this somewhat surprising blind spot, High Performance Entrepreneur is a marvellous compendium of wisdom and perspicacity. Indeed it’s mandatory reading for brave hearts who, forsaking the comforts of paid employment, take to the slippery path of entrepreneurship. Despite ritual noises being made about liberalisation, licence-permit-quota raj isn’t over. Therefore even bold and resolute entrepreneurs — may their tribe increase — need all the help they can get.

Inspiring biography

Olympic Captain Dilip Tirkey by K. Arumugam; Field Hockey Publications; Rs.120; 144 pp

In every sport, there is invariably a community on the fringes whose existence is seldom acknowledged. This community is peopled by coaches, linesmen, markers, statisticians, umpires, and sportswriters. They gain little by way of money from their chosen sport; most of them are in it for the love of the game. While sportsmen move on — either to bigger leagues, or to a different profession — it is this peripheral community which keeps the sport alive at the grassroots.

K. Arumugam is an exemplary representative of this community in field hockey. A former deputy director of the Central Groundwater Board, he is well known in hockey circles for his passionate following of the game that has seen him spend vast amounts of his savings for the good of the sport. In a society that rewards only cricket players, Arumugam has spent a lifetime chronicling and writing about hockey and its great stars. In 1995 he published Indian hockey’s first yearbook — a job that should have been done by the national federation. The yearbook also turned out to be a first-of-its-kind worldwide. Apart from its six editions, Arumugam has authored a biography of flamboyant hockey star Dhanraj Pillay, and co-authored Great Indian Olympians and Golden Boot.

Olympic Captain Dilip Tirkey is the biography of one of the world’s finest defenders and penalty corner specialists. Like the famous Paolo Maldini in football, Tirkey seems to instinctively anticipate every attack plan, which he moves to cut off without fuss. While all international players must necessarily be blessed with skill, Tirkey is endowed with a special ability to ‘read’ the game better than most of his contemporaries. Not surprisingly since he made his debut, he has represented India in 300 internationals, donning the India jersey continuously in the years 1996-2003 — a record unequalled by any other player.

Tirkey’s is an inspiring story. Born in Sundargarh district of Orissa, the second of a tribal peasant’s four sons and a daughter, Tirkey took to hockey like others in his village of Saunamara, which is a traditional supply source of this field game, once upon a time the national game of India.

Although there is widespread criticism of government officials charged with developing sports and athletic talent, some government schemes do work. Tirkey is a beneficiary of a government talent-spotting scheme, and was one of the 24 players selected out of the 240 who turned up for a talent spotting trial. From then on, there was no stopping Tirkey’s consistent rise to the pinnacle of Indian hockey, all the way to becoming the first tribal captain of independent India’s hockey team.

A faithful chronicler of the exploits of India’s field hockey stars and matches, Arumugam painstakingly details all the important matches and tournaments in Tirkey’s career. From his prodigious performances at the junior level, through a silver medal-performance in his first international tournament as a 17-year-old, to consolidation of his position as one of the best defenders in the game, the story is meticulously detailed.

The year 2003 was the best for Indian hockey in recent times, for the India XI won four of the six international tournaments it played. Tirkey was a crucial member of that team and was conferred the Arjuna Award and Padma Shri, in acknowledgement of having matured into perhaps the game’s best defender worldwide.

Tirkey’s star status in Indian hockey has inspired others in the neglected tribal hamlets of Orissa to take to this sport, and considerable tribal talent makes up the national team. Players like William Xalco, Prabhodh Tirkey and Bimal Lakra have all followed in Dilip’s wake, and it was fitting that a team from Orissa — Orissa Steelers — won the high-profile Premier Hockey League last month (March).

While the author’s passion for the subject and the sport are clearly discernible, the book could have done with better editing. Unfortunately there are numerous grammatical and spelling errors. Moreover Arumugam lacks story-telling ability, and the volume is more of a faithful chronicle of Dilip Tirkey’s life and career than the compelling story of a tribal boy who overcame formidable odds to rise to the very top of Indian — and world — hockey.

Dev S Sukumar