Go Kiss World by Subroto Bagchi

Author:Subroto Bagchi [Penguin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9788184750003
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2010-05-01T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

The Journey Is the Reward

It is interesting how quickly seasons change in the corporate world. What was a priority yesterday may not be a priority today and your past glory is only as relevant as the current war.

My professional life at Wipro suddenly became uncertain when my boss B.V. Venkatesh decided to leave. His successor was unsure what to do with me. As luck would have it, I got hand-picked to work on a joint venture between Wipro and GE Medical Systems. I soon became part of a small team that helped get the joint venture, Wipro GE Medical Systems, off the ground and thereafter I became the marketing manager there. It took me into a different world altogether. I had never worked closely with a large multinational company. There was the additional complexity of integrating GE’s sputtering India-based existing joint venture. Being in the middle of it all, I tried to love the people, the place and the products I was supposed to introduce into the market. However, somewhere deep inside me, I did not feel comfortable enough. I believe the reason is because temperamentally I am not suited to work in a joint venture: it entails being able to deal with a certain ambivalence and conflict of identity, and I am not comfortable with this. Most joint ventures are marriages of convenience; they can also just be an escort service and both sides are aware of that reality. Senior managers in a joint venture need to deal with surreal and sometimes very direct power plays. I am not particularly good at that sort of thing. Nor was I ready to settle down in a structured job as a middle-level manager that the Wipro GE position really required me to be. Having worked in a start-up like Project.21, I was unfit for a role that was largely implementational in nature. Fortunately for me, my journey was once again to take an unexpected turn.

This bend in my journey probably started when I had an argument with Ram Agarwal, a man three levels senior to me, within the first couple of months of joining Wipro’s hardware business in 1988. Ram ran Wipro’s printer business and was widely respected as an intrapreneur par excellence. The same factory that shipped computers also shipped printers to Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs). With tight production, there would be an occasional conflict between OEM and Wipro’s captive needs. Ensuring supplies reached the OEMs was Ram’s responsibility. The manager in the factory who reported to me thus had to meet Ram’s requirements as well. Once, Ram was very unhappy for some reason and shot off a very strong mail to the manager with copies to me and the factory’s general manager. Around this very time, I was trying to boost my manager’s flagging self-confidence and saw Ram’s action as undoing my efforts. My understanding of the situation was that Ram should have spoken to me first about his misgivings before indicting one of my reportees.

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