BOOK REVIEW

Reading room
A notable feature of 2010 has been the proliferating titles on corporate India, or
those written by Indian authors on business matters. A review of the best-selling
business books in India in 2010, courtesy Landmark book store
The Ambani saga

Ambani & Sons

Author: Hamish McDonald
Publisher: Roli Books
Pages: 396
Price: `395

From the author of The Polyester Prince, the unauthorised biography of

Dhirubhai Ambani, this book begins by drawing parallels with the character of
Gurukant Desai of the Bollywood movie Guru released in 2007. Ambani & Sons is not
just a rags-to-riches journey of the business tycoon or about the family feud between
his sons Mukesh and Anil that followed after his death in 2002. It is about the
complicated links between government and corporate houses. This the author does by
tracing the history of Reliance Industries from Dhirubhais early days in Aden to his
years as a dominant yarn trader to his entry into petrochemicals. Dhirubhais innate
skills at recollecting names and faces or his ability to maintain relations or his
capability to find loopholes in the law and use it to his advantage without doing
anything that was unlawful has been drawn out well for the readers.

The HCL turnaround story

Vineet Nayar joined HCL Technologies straight out of college in 1985 when the
company was in its infancy with sales of less than $10 million. Over the next quarter
century, the company along with HCL Infosystems, another group unit grew into
a $5-billion conglomerate. But there was a period of stagnation, between 2000 and
2005. Mr Nayar took control of the company about five years ago, when it was
struggling to keep pace with its bigger rivals. This book talks about the HCL CEOs
strategy of putting employees first, customers second, a concept which turned
conventional wisdom of putting customers first on its head. The companys
transformation won it international acclaim Bloomberg Businessweek named it one
of the top five emerging companies to watch, Fortune magazine said the company had
the worlds most modern management. And ultimate recognition came when the
Harvard Business School took up the HCL transformation as a case study.

Employees First, Customers Second

Author: Vineet Nayar
Publisher: Harvard Business
School Publishing
Pages: 199
Price: `595

Modern rendering of Arthashastra

Corporate Chanakya
Author: Radhakrishnan Pillai
Publisher: Jaico Publishing House
Pages: 318
Price: `275

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Radhakrishnan Pillai, the author of this guide for corporate success, is a

management consultant who designs various leadership programmes. Mr Pillai also has
an MA in Sanskrit and a doctorate in Arthashastra, the ancient Indian treatise on
statecraft, economic policy and military strategy. He studied the text at the Chinmaya
International Foundation in Kerala, before returning to Mumbai to launch a successful
business career. Corporate Chanakya includes 6,000 aphorisms, or sutras, translating
ancient Indian management wisdom in a modern format. The book, divided into three
sections leadership, management and training focuses on quotidian issues that a
manager has to deal with. The author dissects various themes, quotes Chanakya, the
author of the treatise, and gives a modern Indian interpretation. Corporate Chanakya
provides tips on topics such as organising and conducting effective meetings, managing
time, decision-making, finance, strategy and the responsibilities and power of a leader.

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Fascinating autobiography
This is not a how to book, asserts GR Gopinath right in the beginning of
his autobiography. Its everything but that. This is just a simple story of a poor
village boy, who after doing myriad things in life, built Indias largest airline.
For a lad who grew up in a distant village in Karnatakas Hassan district, and who
studied in a Kannada-medium village school till class VII, Mr Gopinath has indeed
travelled a long way. One of his major achievements is enabling millions of
ordinary Indians to enjoy the thrills of taking a flight, without having to strain their
budgets, by pioneering low-cost aviation. The captain he served the Indian
Army, even witnessing action in Bangladesh during the 1971 war, before quitting
to chart his own career is a raconteur who has scores of interesting anecdotes,
which he narrates in this fascinating autobiography. As another aviation maverick,
Simply Fly
Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Atlantic Airlines, says: Captain Gopis fascinating
Author: GR Gopinath
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers story of rags to riches, almost to rags again, makes wonderful reading for any young
Pages: 380
Price: `499
Indian setting out into business.

The saga of the Nano

With an epilogue by none other than Tata Sons Chairman Ratan Tata, Small
Wonder: The making of the Nano chronicles the behind-the-scenes activity in the
making of the car that redefined the automobile world. The book recounts how
Tata Motors employees put their heart and soul into making Mr Tatas dream of a
mode of safe and affordable mobility for middle-class Indians, a `1 lakh car, a
reality. Balancing the budget of `1 lakh with the cost of the expensive parts that
went into the car was a task that required innovative methods and technology from
the team. The triumphs and setbacks at various stages of the development of the
car is portrayed unvarnished through inputs from the employees involved in the
process. Minutely detailed, this is a book that will occupy a place in the shelves of
time because it chronicles a milestone in the history of the motoring world. As
Mr Tata says: This book also reaffirms the ethics and principles that sustain the
Tata group.

Small Wonder: The making of the Nano

Author: Philip Chacko, Christabelle
Noronha and Sujata Agrawal
Publisher: Westland
Pages: 149
Price: `295

The Tata brand story

Tata: The Evolution of

a Corporate Brand
Author: Morgen Witzel
Publisher: Portfolio, Penguin
Books India
Pages: 224
Price: `599

This is a book about the Tata corporate brand what it is, how it has evolved,
how it functions and what the perception of others might be. Morgen Witzel, an
honorary senior fellow at the University of Exeter Business School and a senior
consultant with the Winthrop Group of business historians, has authored 15 books
on business and management. He is also a regular contributor to the Financial
Times. Mr Witzel believes that given the growing size and international reach of the
group in 2009, 65 per cent of its revenues were from outside India it is only
natural for people both within India and outside to want to know more about
the group, its brand and what that brand stands for. The author digs into the heart
of the Tata group, describes its origins, how its reputation and image evolved and
how the group worked to transform that image into a powerful and valuable brand.
One thing that the Tata group has done very well, over the past decade
at least, is maintain the alignment between its values, its actions and stakeholder
perceptions, the author notes. That, according to corporate branding
experts, is the key to success.

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Leadership conversations
Blake Davis, the fictional hero in Robin Sharmas The Leader Who Had No Title,
gets his tips on leadership from his mentor, Tommy Flinn. Blake enlists in the army and
sees action in Iraq, where many of his friends are killed. But this is not a book on the
war in Iraq, so that phase of Blakes life is dealt with in just a few paragraphs. The
interesting part of the story begins when the narrator, now working at a bookstore in
SoHo, comes across a most curious stranger... and the lessons he taught me in our all
too brief time together shattered the limitations Id been clinging to exposing me to a
whole new way of working and a completely new way of being. Tommy engages Blake
in four leadership conversations, which among other things, teach him how to work
with and influence people like a superstar, regardless of ones position.

The Leader Who Had No Title

Author: Robin Sharma
Publisher: Jaico Publishing House
Pages: 204
Price: `195

Drawing the right lessons

Prof Raghuram G Rajan, who has taught banking and finance at the University
of Chicago for over two decades, was one of the few economists who had warned of
the global financial crisis at least two years before it unfolded in 2007. Forecasting at
that time did not require tremendous prescience, the professor of finance who
was also the chief economist at the International Monetary Fund from 2003 to 2007
writes in Fault Lines, which analyses the global crisis. All I did was connect the
dots using theoretical frameworks that my colleagues and I had developed.
I exaggerate only a bit when I say I felt like an early Christian who had wandered
Fault Lines
into a convention of half-starved lions. Fault Lines outlines the difficult choices the
Author: Raghuram G Rajan
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers world needs to make, however, it does not portray a gloomy scenario for the future
Pages: 275
Price: `499
and sees powerful reasons for hope today.

An unusual tutorial
This is a must-read for business leaders, wannabe business leaders and anyone
interested in running an organisation, business or otherwise, successfully.
R Gopalakrishnan has been a professional manager for 43 years 31 with Hindustan
Lever and 12 with the Tatas and has worked both in India and abroad. In this book,
Mr Gopalakrishnan explores the three worlds of the manager the inner world, the
world of relationships and the world of getting things done. Packed with anecdotes and
examples from global businesses, the author weaves a fascinating tale and conveys it in a
non-didactic fashion. At the end of most chapters, the author provides crisp key
messages, summing up the lessons. The book also provides insights from the lives of great
transformers through the ages.

When the Penny Drops: Learning What

is not Taught
Author: R Gopalakrishnan
Publisher: Portfolio, Penguin Group
Pages: 181
Price: `399

Sell well

You Can Sell

Author: Shiv Khera
Publisher: Rupa & Co
Pages: 302
Price: `195

Shiv Khera, author of the best-seller You Can Win, has come out with a useful
volume that gives interesting tips to would-be salespersons and even veterans on how to
become good and professional sales people. The author discusses time-tested and proven
principles he makes a distinction between principles and tactics; tactics are
manipulative, he notes, whereas principles are based on integrity, respect and
responsibility. In an era when many sales professionals including tele-marketers
churn out razzmatazz about their products, but have no time to listen to the potential
buyer, Shiv Khera emphasises on the importance of concepts such as the power of silence
and the power of listening. The author also focuses on the Psychology of selling, Rules
for letter writing, and Why sales people fail, besides devoting a chapter to Ethics.

These books are available at Landmark stores and at www.landmarkonthenet.com

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