'Employee management key for PSUs'

A state-owned company can do well if it manages employees well and has strong focus on customers, said V Krishnamurthy, who is known as the turnaround man of the public sector.
He prescribed five medicines for state-run firms to prosper and thrive and topping the suggestions is employee management.
Other suggestions are time-bound delivery, production and productivity and communication.
Talking to PTI ahead of the release of his memoir, 'At the Helm', a narration of his experiences in BHEL, SAIL and Maruti, he said: "My belief is that if we were to solve our problems, it has to be solved through our own people. You may have a lot of investment, you may bring in new machines, you can even buy technology from foreign countries, but unless we motivate our own people, nothing can be done."

Today's problems are different from those during his days. The medicines prescribed are not common panaceas, but are preferred.
"All the changes were made in SAIL, BHEL and Maruti were with the help of the people in these respective organisations. We did not bring in foreign organisations, we did not bring in any help," he added.

Focusing on customer orientation, he said all the three organisations responded tremendously to the need and focused on the need without buckling under political pressure.
Citing the example of Maruti, he said, "We never allowed the government to decide which car to be produced. We went through market survey and established exactly what is the need of the people, much against the desire of the political class of that point of time."

On time-bound delivery, which was not in the scheme of things in SAIL during his time, Krishnamurthy thought otherwise and introduced a concept where if delivery was not done on time, the company would pay penalty, which was unheard of then.
"We would not have succeed in all these organisations until we are technologically ahead of the competition. That is why I laid emphasis on in-house Research and Development (R&D).They never concentrated on this front earlier," he said.
He said a company should produce products in a cost effective manner and there should not be any compromise with quality.
Internal and external communication needs to be transparent, he said.