Adversity brings out the best in people. And Corporate India was
no exception. In fact, despite the dotcom crash, the IT squeeze
and the global slowdown, followed by the telecom meltdown, India
has acquitted itself rather well.
In this year's study of 266 companies conducted by Business
India, 132 companies remained in the positive zone while 97
reported negative growth. In fact, 110 have reported lower profits
or slipped into the red and these include 30 heavyweights. 58 recorded
single-digit growth as against 37 last year and 40 managed more
than 20 percent growth with 6 companies leapfrogging by 100 percent!
What is more, there are 92 companies with a turnover of Rs1000 crore.
And, 8 companies have entered the list for the first time.
Industry wise, automobiles, banks, pharmaceuticals and IT industries
did well while steel, fertilisers, refineries, petrochemicals and
aluminium industries fared badly. But if you are looking for trends,
there are none. The market seems to be jumping from sector to sector.
Even globally, there is not a single sector that is positively up.
On the other hand, if you're looking for case studies, there are
a few that make interesting reading. Take Ranbaxy's transformation
into India's first truly transnational company. Bharti Tele-Ventures
makes a good case study of one industry where privatisation has
more than succeeded. ONGC could be the story of other top public
sector units, provided they manage to unlock their values. And Moschip,
a low-profile Hyderabad based semiconductor company, may be an underdog
today, but could be a winner tomorrow.
As compared with last years ranks, there have been no major upsets,
just a slight reshuffle with the two software giants, Wipro and
Infosys, bulldozing into the camp while nudging out VSNL. This upward
movement is mainly on account of a better ranking in market capitalisation
as compared to others. The top guns still continue to hold on to
their last year's rankings despite slipping in sales growth.
The four parameters on which the ranking was based are net sales,
NFA, market capitalisation and net profits. The aggregate in terms
of topline sales growth is merely 2.99 percent. This despite the
fact that almost two-thirds of the companies have put up a good
show in terms of higher profits at the operating level, indicating
clearly that there has been a major drive towards improving productivity
without any addition to the asset base.
SUPER
10 BILLBOARD
Rank 2002
Rank
2001
TOP 10
Net Sales 2001-02
PAT
2001-02
NFA
2001-02
Mcap
2001-02
1
5
ONGC
22,911
6,192
23,960
49,102
2
2
IOC
1,02177
2,885
23,980
16,255
3
8
RELIANCE
53,805
3,243
33,184
27,240
4
1
HLL
10,972
1,541
1,320
38,840
5
11
WIPRO
3,416
866
627
31,473
6
9
HPCL
39,633
788
6,789
6,334
7
6
BPCL
35,271
850
5,602
5,597
8
13
INFOSYS
2,604
808
718
23,169
9
4
ITC
5,059
1,190
2,980
16,049
10
10
GAIL
10,571
1,185
6,961
5,399
Staying lean and mean has been the new corporate mantra. To survive,
companies have had to scale up or perish. With chartbusters shedding
flab, downsizing, laying off, offering VRS, outsourcing work in
non-core areas and pruning advertising and promotion budgets, Corporate
India has managed to tide over the situation. All this, just to
keep themselves from slipping down the charts.
Tough times never last, but tough corporates will! Well done India
Inc!
