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Satyam workers express support for the company

Satyam workers express support for the company last week after the resignation of Ramalinga Raju (Photo : Mahesh Kumar)

The best advice Ramalinga Raju ever received came from his father. “If something takes three months to complete, ask yourself if it can be done in a week without compromising on the outcome or quality,” he once told him over dinner.

Young Raju heeded these wise words on founding Satyam Computer Services in 1987. By stripping cost and complication from the IT systems of blue-chip customers, including Unilever and Sony, it grew to become India’s fourth-largest outsourcing company, employing 53,000 people.

But last week it became clear that Raju had extended the mantra of short-cutting to his accounts, dealing a hefty blow to the reputation of his industry as well as his country.

He shocked corporate India by confessing to having cooked the books at Satyam for years. In a fraud already labelled as India’s Enron, Raju inflated the reported cash and bank balances of the company — whose name means trust in Sanskrit — by $1 billion (£660m), while overstating revenues and understating liabilities. As the company grew, the gap between fact and fiction widened.

“It was like riding a tiger, not knowing how to get off without being eaten,” the 54-year-old wrote in his resignation letter. This weekend he is being held in custody, leaving a trail of destruction and unanswered questions behind him.

Source / courtesy: TimesOnline

 

WRITING IS ON THE WALL: Satyam employees write slogans supporting Raju in one of Hyderabad campuses.