Patience pays II

My wife, son and I moved to Mumbai and stayed in a hotel in Andheri. I was told that the apartment that the company was building in Kandivli would be ready in 15 days. Later, I found out that it wasn’t going to be ready for at least 3 months and we were struck in the hotel for 3 months. I was pushing hard to get the apartments ready as quickly as possible as my son started thinking that the hotel was our home. The hotel was walking distance from the office in SEEPZ and hence I was not dependent upon anyone to get to work. When I walked into the office the first day, I realized that I did not have any role to play in the organization. There were so many Vice Presidents and General Managers who were with the company for many years and the CEO and his deputy who is in charge of finance and accounts is well set. The CEO and Vice President of Finance are #1 and #2 in the company and they reluctantly make me in charge of accounting even though I had much better experience in Finance. I realized that they were not expecting me to move back to Mumbai and it was a decision made by the CEO in the US.



Things were tough at work with no one showing any sign of welcoming me into the team and mostly I was not invited to any of the meetings. I stayed on my own at work and taking responsibility for accounting and managing the staff in the accounting including the Finance Manager. The only support for me was the Vice President of Software Services who gave me a lot of encouragement and told me to be patient until the CEO from the US arrived in India. In the meantime, I was told the apartment was ready and I requested permission to go to Trivandrum to get my household stuff back. I was told not to worry about it as someone in Trivandrum would back everything and send it to Mumbai. Finally, our household materials arrived in 3 days and unfortunately, the elevator in the apartment was not functioning. We were the first one to move in the block consisting of 14 apartments and our apartment was in the 7th floor. My wife managed to put my son in the nearby school which was very good. I was told a new car would be booked for me in a few weeks and I was told to travel by auto rickshaw until then.



I was patient expecting the CEO from the US to arrive. One fine day, I received a call at 5 p.m. in the evening and to my surprise, it was a call from the CEO of the US parent. He told me to prepare a strategy document for expansion of the Indian operations and gave me the highlights of the plan. Within two days, I finished the strategic plan and sent it to him by fax. Within 7 days, while I was busy at work, VP of software services came running to me and asked me to rush to his office. He told me that CEO of US parent was going to call me with an important message.


I took the call behind the closed doors. The CEO of the US operation told me that VP of Software Services was going to be appointed as #1 for the Indian operation and I was going to be appointed as # 2 in the company. I asked what would happen to the existing #1 & #2 and he replied that they were going to be fired within the next 48 hours. He said he would be in India within the next 48 hours.



The next two days were really painful experience to me as I was told to fire the CEO of India operation, Vice President of Finance, Vice President of HR and Manager of Accounting. As promised the US CEO arrived within 48 hours and he appointed V.P. of Software Services and I as # 1 & # 2 and told us to appoint whoever we think appropriate to run other operations. I canceled the booking for a new car and decided to take the vehicle surrendered by the former V.P. of Finance as I did not want to waste money. When I started my review process on compliances, I was shocked that the company was not in compliance with many things. I asked the Company Secretary and Manager of Finance to work with me to find every compliance issue and we found that we needed 27 different approvals.

 

Dear Tuffyshri,

Thank you for your feedback and there is more to come until I join this story with Financial Reengineering I wrote before. After finishing the financial Reengineering, I felt I have nothing more to do and that was when I was transferred to the parent company in the US.

Viswa

 

Dear RGS,

Thank you for your response. The firing of people reminds me of a joke that I heard when I joined this software company. A CEO was fired and he gave his successor three important envelops and told him to open at the time of facing a crisis. The first crisis came and when opened, he read a note, "Blame it on me". The successor used that technique and survived the first crisis.

The second crisis came and he opened the envelop # 2. It suggested, "Blame it on your subordinates". He did and survived the second crisis. The third crisis came soon after and he was happy that he had one more envelop. When he opened it, he found a note that said, "Prepare your 3 envelopes."

Viswa