The Hindu Business Line : Proof that private enterprise has to show

Is it democracy that holds India back? No, it is what holds India together, says R. Gopalakrishnan, Executive Director of Tata Sons Ltd, in one of essays included in India's Time Has Come, a Golden Jubilee publication of MMA or the Madras Management Association (www.mmachennai.org).

"If we, in private enterprise, are to play our legitimate role in the decade to come, it is clear to me that we must prove to the Government, to Parliament and to the public in general that we deserve to be trusted with greater freedom of action and opportunities than are at present allowed to us," is a quote of J. R. D. Tata from his July 1969 address at the MMA, cited by A. Sivasailam, Chairman of Amalgamations Group, in his essay.

"If India continues to grow at the rate at which it is growing in IT and BPO services — around 34 per cent for the next 15 years — we would hit a target of one trillion dollars of exports," predicts B. Ramalinga Raju, Chairman of Satyam Computer Services Ltd.

Geet Sethi, the billiards icon, suggests a cautious tweaking to the theme, to `India's time is coming.' Why so? Because "Talking about India's time has come, suggests we have arrived, that we are the leaders, the number one. There is a huge gap between potential and actually realising it." Arun Shourie too alerts likewise: "History should warn us against making facile assumptions; for many countries, the time came and passed them by."

Good read.

MIS was always there

Why MIS? To support business processes and operations, decision-making, and strategies, writes D. P. Goyal in the second edition of Management Information Systems: Managerial Perspectives from Macmillan (www.macmillanindia.com). MIS has been in use since the start of the first business organisation, says the author. Only, in those days, MIS remained `manual, very simple, and unrecognised', unlike today, when it has `a well-designed computer-based infrastructure'.

Useful starter material.

Tailpiece

"The bank sanctioned the loan after seeing our cash-flow forecast!"

"Who prepared it?"

"Our new consultant from the weather department."

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D. Murali