'Independence is more a state of mind than anything else'

Good governance can be as strong a differentiator as good strategy

Living as we do in the post-Enron era, it doesn’t look like too long ago when the global energy giant went belly up, causing tsunamis in the accounting profession and the regulatory mechanisms. While Enron and WorldCom were watershed events caused by large-scale failure of business ethics, the ongoing sub-prime crisis seems to be a master class in failure of risk management, feels Mr Ramesh Venkataraman, Managing Director, Asia-Pacific, CurAlea ( http://www.curalea.com/ ), an international management consulting firm specialising in the areas of corporate governance, business ethics and risk management.
“How would you explain large global banks and investment firms not having anticipated the risks, when they should have been aware that mortgage lenders were chasing borrowers with lending practices that were too aggressive to be sustainable?” he asks during a recent lunch-hour interaction at Business Line.

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'Corporate profit outlook in the US is bleak'

How much will US recession cost India?

The question is no longer about whether the US financial woes will impact Indian companies. The anxiety is to know the extent to which our economy is vulnerable when the US sneezes.
But wait. Are we talking about a ‘fear’ of US recession? We were, but now the fears have been ‘borne out,’ says Dr Shanto Ghosh, Principal Economist, Deloitte Haskins & Sells, Bangalore.
“The International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently released its World Economic Outlook, which is widely regarded as the most authoritative report on the world economy,” he adds, during a recent e-mail interaction with Business Line.

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'Risk is inherent in all business activities and operations'

Do our companies understand financial risk?

India Inc. is going global. They are acquiring much larger competitors, aggressively entering new markets and exploring various financial tools. But the moot question is whether they can manage the risks that emanate from such moves.
Intense global competition and rapid growth are forcing Indian firms to examine corporate enterprise risk management (ERM) elsewhere, especially in Europe, Australia and North America, where the process is more mature, concludes a report by The Conference Board ( http://www.conference-board.org/ ), a non-partisan and not-for-profit business membership and research organisation.

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'Maintaining and renewing a young fleet of aircraft is the first thing we do to trim costs'

Today the airline pricing system is a black box to the passenger

Singapore Airlines (SIA) is one of the vital cogs of the Singapore economy, says Mr Bharath Mahadevan, Manager Southern India, SIA, Chennai. “Being a country with no natural resources, Singapore had to position itself as a regional hub to survive,” he recounts.
Today, Singapore is a regional financial hub as well as one of the biggest aviation hubs in the region, and the Singapore port handles a large volume of container movements every day. Tourism is also one of the main contributors to the Singapore GDP (gross domestic product). “Singapore needed an airline that could turn this hub vision into a reality,” reasons Mr Mahadevan, in a recent e-mail interaction with Business Line.

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'The 2010 target'

Ideas are like pizza dough

Ask Yogi Berra about pizza, and he’d tell you better cut the pizza in four pieces because he’s ‘not hungry enough to eat six.’ If you have appetite for more quotes about pizza, here is Anna Quindlen’s — that ideas are like pizza dough, made to be tossed around. And, this, from Kevin James: “There’s no better feeling in the world than a warm pizza box on your lap.”

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