Overcoming mere projections-too political to be true

Contrary to what might have been expected by the key players, the news of the HP and Compaq merger invited rather harsh criticism. Suddenly people were talking very negatively about the two organizations. Comments like 'two losers do not make a winner' were certainly not expected!

It was kind of déjà vu for me. I had earlier discussed the possible implications of the Compaq-Digital merger in this very column. Cultural compatibility issues are critical in such mega-mergers and can potentially wreck the combine if not handled with extreme caution and care.

So what are we to take away from this? Did Digital not do for Compaq what was expected? Are we to believe now that Compaq will deliver the results for HP? (With 15,000 jobs at stake wonder who is concentrating on work!) Well, I will reserve my comments for the moment. I have already expressed them earlier in this column and the events post that have only lent credence to what I said then.

What is to be expected next? Maybe an IBM takeover of HP in two years time! Well, well, well.... I seem to be stepping on dangerous territory! This business of projections is not really my forte. For that matter, god knows whose forte it is! Most projections have come a cropper in the recent past.

Those who have made it their business to project, of course have no choice. They need to keep on making projection after projection to earn their livelihood. The good part about this business of making projections is that it is like the politician's promise! A politician lives from promise to promise. The moment he makes a new promise, the old one is relegated to the recycle bin! (In fact, he makes sure that even the recycle bin is emptied regularly, lest some nosey media guys retrieve it and cause avoidable embarrassment! Come to think of it, politicians just might make good system administrators in our IT industry!)

And so it is that our friends at McKinsey have come out with yet another projection of sorts. (Remember their earlier one - the NASSCOM - McKinsey report on the IT enabled services?) This latest one is on the growth possibilities of the Indian economy-at a whopping 10 percent. At a time when the economy is actually registering negative growth and not even managing the 6 percent mark, this announcement seems a far cry!

Whatever be the merit of the report, McKinsey certainly seems to know how to market itself! The kind of shock waves (if I can call it that) they manage to send around with each report, ensures that everyone at least reaches 'awareness levels' about their work. (The TV media anyway works overtime to find stories to fill its 24x7 agenda!)

But I am not sure if McKinsey has considered the possible backlash of such reports. After all HP too must have thought that it would create waves with the news of its acquisition of Compaq. Well, it did but in a very negative fashion.

Look at it this way. By stating that the economy can grow at ten percent, when it is tottering at around five percent, McKinsey might just stir a hornet's nest. The media is already working overtime. This report will create a tremendous pressure on the government to explore all possibilities to make the ten percent growth happen. Since most of the problems with the government are at the implementation level, chances are that it will not be able to achieve any significant results anyway. That will further highlight the government's inadequacies. (Do you see the spot in which McKinsey has managed to put the government in?)

I am sure that there would be some merit in what McKinsey has proposed. Even if many of its recommendations are declared impractical, there are bound to be some that can be implemented to good effect. The question is, do we have the will and inclination to hunt out solutions and implement them sincerely? Even if there is one good suggestion in the whole report it must be taken forward in all earnestness.

Of course, that means that those at the helm of affairs must find quality time to go through the report and understand it in depth. (Wonder if that will be possible with a government that seems to be always busy trying to keep its flock together!) More likely than not, a couple of weak points will be quickly discovered and the entire report will be lambasted as not amenable to implementation. We will have lost another opportunity to make a paradigm shift to put the economy in high gear. (Hope nobody accuses me of being a McKinsey spokesperson. I seem to have come out rather strongly for them. That too when I haven't even gone through this report! See, how a bad track record of one party can make you blind to the other party's possible shortcomings. Anti-incumbency factors really seem to work. Elections or no elections!)

At the end of it all, the ability to spot those few things that can make all the difference comes rare. If only people could work towards that, and then follow it up with those several small things that contribute to the larger objective, we would progress much faster. As individuals, as organizations, and as nations we need to appreciate this basic truth. But that requires courage to accept realities in the first place. It may be difficult for the government to do that for political reasons. But HP and Compaq should know better. Unless, of course, they too have a hidden agenda! (After all, politics exists in organizations too! Is not it?)

Sumit Sharma is VP, Microland and the author of the book titled `The Corporate Circus'. The views expressed in this article are of the author's and not of the Microland