Employee focus

, chairman and CEO of the Chennai-based IT infrastructure solution provider Accel ICIM, is a worried man.

His company has an impressive topline (Rs 200 crore in 2002-2003) and switched from being a pure play systems integrator to an enterprise resource planning implementing company.

But Accel ICIM has a 17 per cent employee attrition rate. Panicker says that this is unacceptable: the industry average is 15 per cent.

So what is he doing about it? Among other things, an incentive scheme for all employees has been introduced, a change in job content is in the offing and salaries are being bumped up.

Panicker sent a note to all his employees to find out what each wants. He says some want more cash in hand and some want insurance and medical covers. The company is working at customising pay packages for each employee.

Panicker is a self-made businessman who started his career at Hindustan Computers Ltd (HCL) as a customer engineer. "The direct interaction with customers gave me a lot of insight into the hardware market," he says.

Panicker started Accel ICIM as a hardware service company. "To employ the best service people, we started a hardware training school called Accel School of Computer Technology in 1991. Today the name has changed to Accel IT Academy and produces 4,000 students a year," he says.

In 1998 software development was added to Accel ICIM's portfolio. In 2001, the company became the selling and implementation partner of J D Edwards' ERP solutions.

At 49 plus, as he puts it, he believes he still has a long innings to go "� and believes in closely supervised management.

"I am a transaction manager. Macro level management is good but it cannot be done without understanding the business at a micro level," he says. He makes it a point to visit his nine regional offices and some of his 40-odd service outposts across the country.

What does he do to relax? He reads business-oriented books (the book he's reading now: "Good to Great," by Jim Collins).

The engineer who studied at the Trivandrum College of Engineering (1976 batch) comes from Pattanakadu village in Kerala, 40 km from Ernakulam. "It is good to come from a village. You always have a home there to go back and relax," he says.

Panicker is, in fact, planning a two-week vacation at his village soon. And yes, he also vacations in Paris and the US. So will his employees now be sent for overseas vacations? Over to Panicker.