Saturday, January 17, 2009

Satyam, The Lie


It has been almost a month since the Satyam debacle was brought to light. And as expected the tremors of it are being felt on a very large scale. Infact I'd dare to say, a larger scale than anyone expected. Everyone knows what happened thereafter, so I would not go into the unnecessary details and bore the reader.


The Satyam incident puts a lot of things in perspective. For once, the entire hullabaloo about the booming IT industry is now gone! Almost vanished into thin air all of a sudden. And as if the Satyam crisis wasn't enough, there was more! Wipro announced a few days back that  it had been banned by the World Bank way back in 2007, and that the ban would be effective for around 4 years till 2011. This twin show of utter mismanagement by two of the most reputed brands in India, has undoubtedly pushed the IT sector more than a few notches backwards. Realising that the emerging crisis could get out of hand, Infosys, one of the most trusted trusted companies in India, released their financial info and information about where exactly it had its assets and liquidity. A nice move I'd say, but almost next to negligible when it comes to restoring the faith of consumers on the Indian IT sector.


Is the booming IT sector really a myth? Is the Indian growth story (which has IT as its major contributor) a myth as well? Is the entire Indian dream a lie? A whole lot of questions are pouring in right now.


If the fourth largest IT company of the country, Satyam (Oh! It was the fourth largest) comes up with a 7000 Crore Rupees fraud, what can we expect from the lesser known companies, who are not nearly as popular as Satyam, but has thousands of investors nonetheless! What about them?


I sincerely hope this is not the tip of the iceberg. Let's just hope the new Saytam directors put everything in order before the entire concept of a credible IT industry is lost.

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