The Proverbial Sword is always Hanging...

Avinash Gaur passed out from St. Xaviers, Jaipur in 1961. He graduated in Chemical Engineering from Banaras Hindu University in 1967 and completed his post graduation in the same subject from University of Washington, Seattle, USA in 1970. After 37 years of service in private industry, Avinash retired as Whole Time Director in 2004.

Invariably management draws a list of values and principles for the organisation. However, one wonders as to how many of them follow it strictly.

I was fortunate enough to be part of an organisation that strongly believed in them and also demonstrated their intent. One such incident happened in the early stages of the implementation of the project.

Insurance coverage for men, material is a must. The sums involved are huge. The, then, Finance Manager fell for idea. He appointed an Insurance company that in turn appointed his wife as an agent. In other words he was receiving commission on all the premiums that were being paid by the company.

Somehow, the management came to know of the “sweet deal". One day the Finance Manager came to the office to find his office door locked. He asked the peon for the key. The peon informed him that the key was with the Executive director. When he went for the key he was presented with the resignation letter. He had no option but to sign it.

***

Similarly, another incident took place almost twenty years later. The business team of the product that I was handling had introduced a trophy to be presented to the best regional team. This was done to promote healthy competition amongst the regional teams thereby improving on sales also. One particular region had won the trophy for two consecutive years. The regional head was subsequently transferred.

The new regional head was finding that the sales in his region were not on expected lines. The sales were not showing any improvement on the previous year's sales. He came up with an idea. He would in connivance with the customer bill the material to the said customer but keep the stock in company's Godown. After sometime the customer would on some pretext or the other regarding quality would not make the payment. Hence, the sale would have taken place but payment showed as outstanding. For all practical purposes the Head Office would assume that the sale had taken place.

However, our friend did not anticipate a visit by the audit team. The audit department reported directly to the Chief Executive Officer. The discrepancy was noted by the audit team and reported to the CEO. As expected, I got a call from the CEO to explain the discrepancy. Since, I was unaware of the said operation, I agreed to investigate and report back to him. A week later I confirmed that what the audit team had reported was indeed true.

Not satisfied, CEO constituted a team to find out as to who all were involved. I later came to know that I was also under the radar.

The investigating team reported that it was only the regional manager who was responsible. As expected I was directed to give marching orders to the regional manager.

JAISI KARNI VAISI BHARANI