Family Owned Firms

A report by ratings agency Moodys and it’s Indian associate ICRA indicates that family owned firms that dominate the country’s business landscape face major challenges in grappling with issues regarding corporate governance including succession, board independence and transparency.

The survey covered 32 companies in 16 prominent family groups, covering a broad cross-section of Indian industry. The survey included companies belonging to the Tatas, the Ambanis, Godrej, Vedanta, Wipro, Essar, Bharti, TVS and the Muruguppa Group among others. Family-owned companies comprise 17 of the 30 Sensex stocks and have specific characteristics compared to other firms.

The survey acknowledged that these companies have responded well to the opportunities available in the fast-growing and liberalising economy of modern India.

In my experience, family owned organisations have been as well and sometimes even better managed than other types of organizations. However, to my mind, issues of succession is the bane of family owned enterprise. We have seen business families almost disintegrate due to issues of succession and ownership.

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Quotes on Coaching

• “Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself.”
  Chinese Proverb
• “You can’t stop the waves but you can learn to surf.”
  Joseph Goldstein
• “Coaching is a conversation, a dialogue, whereby the coach and the individual interact in a dynamic exchange to achieve goals, enhance performance and move the individual forward to greater success.” Zeus and Skiffington

See these and many more quotes on coaching with some wonderful accompanying pictures in Seapaddler, a site about sea kayaking.

Shocking Story of Indian POWs

Their search has been going on for 36 years. It is a matter of shock and shame that the Government of India has not done much to help the families of Indian defence personnel who were captured as Prisoners of War in the 1971 war. What makes it doubly tragic was that India was quick to release more than 90,000 Pakistani POWs after that same war which ended on December 16, 1971. Spare a thought for the families of the 54 missing Indian POWs. Just imagine that a generation has grown up not knowing where their fathers are. I found a detailed article on this tragic issue in India Together. There are so many of us from India who blog. Can we all have an item on this story on or before December 16, 2007 – 36 years after the war ended and the troubled times for these families began?

Indians Send Most Money Home

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The World Bank recently reported that India has displaced China and Mexico to be the country to receive the highest remittances in the world. Indians working abroad sent back over $ 25.7 billion (Rs.128,500 crores) in 2006 followed by Mexico with $24.7 billion, China with $ 22.5 and The Philippines with $ 14.9 billion. Interestingly, the money received by India through this route is roughly the same as the country’s total estimated annual expenditure on defence, or about five times the estimated expenditure on education in 2007-08. Total income tax and wealth tax collections in the country are less than the remittances received. And they are over three times the foreign direct investment in the country in 2006. Sheer numbers and relatively higher skill levels appear to be driving the growth in Indian remittances. The World Bank study estimates that the number of Indian immigrants is about 10 million. Mexico and Russia are the top immigrant sending countries with an estimated 11.5 immigrants each. The bulk of remittances are being sent not by highly skilled professionals like doctors or software engineers, but by more humdrum workers, wage employees and service providers. A study conducted by the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram, showed over 25% of households in Kerala have at least one person working abroad. With the rapid appreciation of the Indian rupee, immigrant workers abroad will have to earn and send much more in the coming years to maintain their families in India with the same standards of living.