Successful companies will weather global meltdown

Bangalore: Strong, successful companies would weather the current global meltdown and emerge stronger, while inept or weak firms would be wailing and asking for bailouts, Wipro chairman Azim Premji said here Tuesday.

"The global economy is set for restructuring in the wake of financial meltdown and recession. The crisis is set to intensify in coming months. Successful companies will come out much stronger in two years, but inept ones will be crying, blaming others and asking government for aid," Premji told about 1,000 delegates at a technology conference here.

Addressing at the TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) summit 2008, Premji advised enterprises to take advantage of the present crisis to spring clean their organisations, which had become complacent through excessive success.

"This is a huge opportunity to really spring clean. If organisations do that right, I can assure you they will emerge stronger two years from now, will have significant market share and will be better armed to be successful in market place," Premji asserted.

Exhorting budding entrepreneurs, including many from the Silicon Valley of the US to pursue their dreams and ideas with passion, the IT czar said risks and failures in the process were worth taking as they teach many a lesson to learn and succeed in the long run.

"Entrepreneurship should be a life-long passion, inspiring us to face the challenges en-route. Though money and profits are no less important, it is the ethical values such as integrity, honesty, transparency, commitment and humility that we imbibe in the process," Premji said.

Recalling his own trials and tribulations in pursuit of building a global organisation (Wipro), Premji said entrepreneurs should have foresight to find business opportunities and visualise what kind of products or services would be able to sustain their enterprises.

The three-day summit is being organised by the city chapter of TiE, the non-profit organisation for entrepreneurs, which has about 12,600 members across 11 countries.

City chapter president and Microland founder Pradeep Kar spoke of private entrepreneurship accelerating industrial growth in India and the transition of India Inc. into this space from the Nehruvian business model from the nineties when the economy was opened up.

TiE also released a report on the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Source: IANS