Business

Unlike in Sri Lanka, Price Waterhouse was traditionally strong in united Bengal largely because the India headquarters of the firm was in Calcutta. After partition, the Eastern part of Bengal became East Pakistan. R. Rahman, who used to work for Price Waterhouse, with his two friends Saifur Rahman and Aminul Haq formed Rahman, Rahman &…

In September of 2011, I received a call from my friend from school Kaushik Basu. Kaushik was then the Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India based in Delhi. He said that his famous economist friend from New York, Joseph Stiglitz would be in Calcutta with his wife Anya Schiffrin and would I host…

Moveable Feast # 23 : Building the SAP practice in PwC India Roopen Roy In the mid-1990’s, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) was beginning its unstoppable campaign of conquests in the corporate world. Germans were known for their manufacturing prowess but not for the excellence of their software products. Yet, a German company called Systemanalyse und…

In 2002, the Kerala Government appointed PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), as consultants to help organize the first Global Investors Meet (GIM) in Kochi in January 18 and 19th 2003. The idea was the brain-child of a dynamic bureaucrat Shri Jiji Thomson who was then the Managing Director of Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation (KSIDC). PwC was requested…

Great Eastern Hotel, an icon in Calcutta, was called the Jewel of the East. It opened for business in 1840. It was originally called the Auckland Hotel—named after George Eden, 1st Earl of Auckland, then the Governor General of India who lived literally next door. The owner of the hotel was David Wilson. One more…

The two firms, Price Waterhouse and Lovelock & Lewes, which merged to form PwC India were born nearly 140 years ago in Calcutta. Both had a timid and mild ‘bhadralok’ culture. There was no cut-throat competition. Succession of the CEO and the leadership team were planned well ahead. There was no tradition of contested elections…

In the spring of 2007, I went to study the Advanced Management Program (AMP) at Harvard Business School (HBS) in Boston. There I met Danny Halutz. I used to wake up pretty early. Before breakfast, Danny, my Living Group member Yudi (who was also from Israel) and I used to walk to Harvard Square and…

Sri Lanka is a small country with barely 20 million people. Its per capita GDP is in excess of $11,000 (on a PPP basis) which is higher than India’s per capita GDP of $6,600. It thrives on tourism, tea, textiles, gems and jewellery, spices, sea-food, shipping and IT services. It has a GDP pushing $250…

Raving Dave: the software industry’s eternal teenager Around 1997, PeopleSoft was the hottest Human Resources Management System (HRMS) on the planet. SAP HR had not yet established itself in the global market. Many of our clients were implementing SAP as an enterprise solution but buying PeopleSoft for their HR application. Apart from its HRMS, PeopleSoft….

In 1998 the public accounting world was shaken by the news of a merger of two global firms Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand. The firms were of similar size. Price Waterhouse had more blue chip clients and a larger global consulting practice but their global footprints were similar. Whenever there is a merger between…