We celebrate the success of Indian CEOs who have made it big in international companies. Apart from business managers, kudos and encomiums are also due to academics, doctors and scientists, who have deservedly begun to achieve international recognition. While the leaders have great merit, we cannot overlook the meritocracy in those countries that encourages great talent to flower.
So far as management is concerned, I have a deep interest partly because of my professional background and partly because of my passionate belief that talent and management excellence are the most important ingredients to synthesise SHE—sustainable, honest, and enlightened—enterprises. SHE companies are crucial for the advancement of our nation. Every nation has developed by building great enterprises. The track record of talent management among many companies, both established and startup, suggests that India can do better. Just six generations ago, there was no concept of an Indian manager. This column explores a brief history of the factors that led to the establishment and growth of Indian management talent.
Circa 1800, India was among the richest nations in the world in terms of GDP, which is why the Dutch, the English and the French were all eager to trade with India. Recall what led to colonisation. Textiles, spices, ivory and agricultural commodities were all hugely valuable trading items. The industrial revolution in England led to employment generation in mining, manufacturing, railways, postal system, etc. Apart from workers, the tribe of managers started to develop. In their interests, the British colonialists introduced infrastructural activities in their most prized colony. In the initial decades, experienced British workers and technicians worked as supervisors or managers in India. The activity reserved for the natives in India, West Indies, Guyana, Fiji or African colonies was unskilled labour.
Historians credit Dadabhai Naoroji for mooting and advocating that ‘natives’ had to be trained and deployed on the administrative challenges of a complex country like India. As a British parliamentarian, Naoroji lobbied for the Indian Civil Service (ICS) cadre to admit suitable Indians. His mission met with initial success when Indians were allowed to sit for the ICS exam, but the exam was conducted only in London. He then pushed for the ICS entrance exam to be held in India, concurrent with the exam in London. Several years later, ICS exams started being held concurrently. In this manner, Indians were groomed to be ICS officers in India.
Meanwhile, railways and postal services were being established in India. Progressively, Indians entered the defence forces as juniors. Private entrepreneurs took to modern industry, particularly in the domains of textiles, jute, coal, steel and tea, to name a few. All such activities required administrative and management talent. Indians joined as junior staff members, and a few grew into junior managerial roles. This was largely true right into the 1930s.
International companies also began to develop the Indian market for their products. BAT, the original promoter of what we know today as ITC, started to set up the distribution of cigarettes throughout India. Unilever began manufacturing its globally famous Sunlight and Lifebuoy soaps and exported products to India from the 1880s. Thereafter, Unilever set up local manufacturing in the 1930s. To make, distribute and sell, initially, young British managers were deputed to appoint wholesalers in towns all over India, drawing from local trading communities. A senior Unilever officer called Andrew Knox, then chairman of what was called the overseas committee, wrote a report in the early 1930s. This report now lies in the Unilever archives. In it, Knox recorded that Unilever should “Indianize” the management to develop the Indian market. Either he was clairvoyant or just a shrewd observer, for that is exactly what the global company started to do soon after. The first Indian “covenanted manager” to be recruited was Prakash Tandon in 1937.
Among international companies, Unilever has identified and developed Indian managers since the mid-1930s. They did it so well that after several decades, HUL-recruited Indians occupy top positions in the global corporation. Arguably, Unilever has been the most successful among all companies in talent development. During the last few decades, at any point in time, the Indian subsidiary had about 150–200 managers on secondment to other geographies in which Unilever operated. The author benefitted from such a secondment when he was posted to head the Unilever subsidiary in the Arabian Peninsula several decades ago.
Dadabhai Naoroji’s pursuit of recruiting Indians into the civil service resulted in Satyendranath Tagore, brother of the illustrious poet, joining the ICS in 1864. For the army, it was a momentous occasion when in 1949, Gen K M Cariappa was appointed as the first Indian to head the Indian Army. J M Lall became the first Indian CEO of Imperial Chemical Industries in 1959. When Prakash Tandon became the first Indian chairman of Hindustan Lever in 1961, it was a tribute to Andrew Knox’s vision, and was notable for business management.
It was not only the international companies who started to take such deliberate steps. Indian entrepreneurs began to develop their ambitions. Textile mills came up in Bombay and Ahmedabad. Jute mills were set up in undivided Bengal. Tea plantations and factories were established in Assam, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Tata set up the first steel plant and hydroelectric power stations. They recruited foreigners for technical help, or trained their human resources. These entrepreneurs were focused on developing Indian managerial talent.
As can be seen from this brief review, talent management has been a complex and long journey, demanding great persistence and patience. Talent management represents the “infinite game”, to borrow Simon Sinek’s term.
R Gopalakrishnan
Author and business commentator. His fifty-year professional career was in HUL and Tata