Ajit Balakrishnan’s article “Away with the Org Chart” (July 14) was a brilliant piece of innovative thinking. But so was utopia. The pyramidal Organisation Chart will never be consigned to the waste basket as long as family-owned businesses continue to dominate the Indian private sector. For all their attempts to carve new identities, family-owned businesses continue to parachute hereditary beneficiaries to the top box, if not the box directly below.
Culturally, the power of inheritance is so deeply ingrained in the Indian social and business environment that the imminent demise of the Organisation Chart is highly exaggerated. When was the last time a majority owner retired in India Inc without passing on the baton of legacy to kith and kin? It is, therefore, hardly surprising that the author cites web industries, academic institutions and research labs as examples where the “network effect are starting to be uncovered”.
To evolve a business environment of meritocracy, it is indisputable that the Organisation Chart should be done away with. But the threat of disruption to a family’s ownership-management status quo is so severe that it is not going to happen in the near future.
Ajoy K Das, on email
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