An Ode to the IT Industry

Not everything that Dataquest does is cause for celebration! But with the
DQ-IDC India Best IT Employers’ Survey 2002, we managed to hit the jackpot
alright, and bake a cake, eat it, and still have another left in the fridge for
afters. Sure, some of that cake ended up on our face as well, in the form of
some tough talking by companies that didn’t agree with the final rankings. But
the celebrations at the campuses of those that did make it to the rankings, more
than made up for it.

The good cheer and bonhomie flowed from many cities and companies, but the
first to revert to Dataquest was Infosys Technologies–it generally always is
Infy that responds fastest to any communication. In a message that expressed his
feelings clearly, managing director and CEO Nandan Nilekani wrote–"Thank
you! This is wonderful news! This is a very prestigious survey for us!".
More than the words, it was where they came from and who from, that made the day
for TEAM DQ, and Sarita Rani, the author who wrote the final report. Also going
Sarita’s way was a mail from Amit Dua, business development manager (banking
business unit) at Infosys, Europe. "Fantastic! Author Sarita Rani seems to
have quite an insight into the subject. Good show." Good show from Infosys
too, which reaffirmed its habit of topping every HR survey that anyone conducts
in the country.

The company that really took our hearts, however, was Cadence Design Systems.
Ranked #2 this time, Cadence and its chief Jaswinder Ahuja went on a total
partying and celebration binge, and included Dataquest and IDC India in the
guest list. Since it was "our employees that made it possible for us to get
there, we are throwing a party for them," Ahuja announced, and invited DQ
to join in. And what a party–four hours of extreme partying, balloons and
banners all around the Noida campus (including one that welcomed Dataquest and
IDC India), a whistling competition, free-flowing beer, chicken tikka, paneer
masala and stalls galore. Plus employees cheering and singing songs around
campus. A heady sight, and a heart-warming feeling, to have been part of the
celebrations. We shall treasure the black Cadence T-shirt that was the give-away
for a long time.

Now, a bit on the company with style and class–Cognizant Technology
Solutions. As it fell in the rankings, its writeup got a tough heading from the
DQ edit desk, but not even the whisper of a complaint came from them–only a
thank you mail, praising the writeup and the complete report. Clearly, Cognizant
didn’t have the "best organizational culture" among all surveyed
companies for nothing.

Philips Software chief executive officer Bob Hoekstra also wrote in, in
response to the survey report. "It was a pleasure to participate in the
survey and even more to see the result. I haven’t studied the report in
detail, but have seen that your previous survey, and this one, have totally
different conclusions. And what’s surprising is a big swing within Philips’
employees. This sounds too large to be true. How large was the sample of
employees taken from our company?" A very astute observation, one that TEAM
DQ members in Bangalore are addressing even as this piece is being written.

A great letter also came in from Wipro (Pratik Kumar), which jumped in the
rankings–"Must compliment you and your team on a very professional job.
Your survey was insightful and for organization like ours, very action-oriented
as well." Wipro Tech chief Vivek Paul handed out some valuable advice, one
which we have already started implementing in other stories–"On content,
more could have been said about the specific actions being taken to make
companies more employee-friendly. That takes the tenor of the article from one
of giving an evaluative grade to best practice sharing. All the best."

There were many others who were pleasant, and some who weren’t–but every
single mail was a cause for great cheer in DQ’s offices. Nothing means more to
a publication than the responses it receives from its readers. And each letter,
good or bad, is succor to the writer–remember, he/she can never see the
reader, and can only hope that the writeup is up to notch. Thank you, IT
industry and other readers. Keep writing in, even with brickbats!

Rajeev Narayan