Inefficient Government!! Efficient Corporates?? (Part II

Is Corporate Sector more efficient than the Government? On the face of it yes but then there is a lot of difference between a flat track bully and a batsman who can contribute on all type of tracks. The number of citizens that a corporate organisation serves is miniscule and mostly it is to a select audience. Here is an example of new life insurance policies issued in India during 2007-2008

LIC Rs.376,12,599 crores
Private operators Rs. 132,61,558
(These figures have been obtained from the IRDA website)

Deposits during 2007-2008 (RBI figures)
PSU Banks (combined) Rs.84000 crores
Foreign Banks Rs.6826 crores.
Other Scheduled Commercial Banks Rs.29351 crores

This is in a scenario where Government is no longer an employment provider and most of the jobs are created in the private sector. It implies that even employees of the corporate sector prefer the “inefficient” public sector.

It would be inappropriate to suggest that the inefficiency of a corporate does not affect the society at large; after all, they do have shareholders, customers and employees who are derived from the society at large. Inefficiency of a corporate does affect these people. Also the inefficiencies of a corporate can adversely affect a society at large just like it did in Bhopal thanks to Union Carbide.

Here are some of the specific instances of corporate inefficiencies which have been documented:
It was around last year, some miscreants had defamed Chatrapathi Shivaji on a popular networking site. Based on request from the authorities, Airtel provided the details of the concerned account. A software engineer in Bangalore was arrested and sent to jail. After the individual spent nearly 50 days in jail, it was admitted by the company that they had goofed up in providing ISP address to the authorities? Is this not an example of corporate inefficiency? Airtel being such a major advertiser, it is wrong on our parts to expect that the issue will be taken up by the media on a war footing.
Have we forgotten the IPO fiasco wherein a registrar did all sort of bumbling with the allotment of shares ONGC, Bank of Maharashtra and Power Trading Corporation in 2004? How many share holders had to suffer due to their mismanagement and yours truly was one among them?
What about worms and other delicacies being found in the products of a chocolate major? Certainly they were not sold under the tagline “Chocolate n far eastern mix”!
Despite their lofty ads mobile connections of private operators are more prone to signal drops than that of BSNLs. The amount deducted by BSNL even on your pre-paid account can be questioned under the RTI Act. Do you have such an option with the private mobile operators?
What about the auditors who were in charge of Global Trust Bank and Satyam? Do you put it down to inefficiency or something else?
What about pesticide contents being found in the products of soft drink majors and later the PR exercise that was undertaken to cover up the whole issue?
PSU Banks during 2007-2008 disbursed advances worth Rs.60189 cores whereas Other Scheduled Commercial Banks and Foreign Banks forwarded advances worth Rs.28294. PSU Banks Net NPA during 2007-2008 reduced to 0.77 from 0.92 during the previous year; in case of Other Scheduled Commercial Banks it increased 1.09 during 2007-2008 from 0.97 during the previous years and in case of Foreign Banks it increased to 0.78 during 2007-2008 from 0.73 during the previous year. Is it a fair argument to conclude that a banking system which increases its NPAs despite a lower credit base is not all that efficient?
Recently a software major shifted most of its bank deposits from a premier private sector bank to a public sector bank.

Here are some personal examples of how I was taken for a ride by The After Sales Service (ASS) of consumer durable companies:

During 2002 we purchased a two door refrigerator and one of the doors was not opening properly. The company in question advertises a lot and a top MNC. Despite numerous complaints to the ASS of this company this issue did not get resolved. I tried to obtain the email id of the top honchos of the company but there was no information about it because these persons feel that customer mails are a nuisance (as if they would get paid if there are no customers) and hence don’t make available their contact details on the company’s website. Finally, I read in a business newspaper about the name of the Head of ASS of this company and wrote a stinking letter to him about his company, their advertising campaigns and spoofed their ad slogans. Finally the refrigerator was replaced after a period of 9 months. If making a customer run around in circles and the top management not being reachable is efficiency, I don’t support this view?
My mobile number is from a private telecom operator and since the number is known to many people I cannot change it to BSNL until number portability comes into being . PLEASE BE REMINDED THAT IT IS THE PRIVATE TELECOM COMPANIES WHO ARE GETTING ALL THE JITTERS OF MOBILE NUMBER PORTABILITY. During June 2008, I was overcharged an amount of Rs.50/- for downloading a wallpaper. The supposed time when I have downloaded the wallpaper, I was flying to Delhi. I have sent n number of mails to the ASS of this company but of no avail. Even I sent many letters to the founder of this company who cries his throat hoarse about the need for privatization. Obviously he is not responsible for the ASS of his company and hence the issue is yet to be sorted out. One thing I should tell about the efficiency of this company, as soon as I send an email to the ASS department, I get an acknowledgement that the issue will be sorted out within 24 hours but never get a reply.

I am not trying to ridicule anybody here. What I am trying to say is the Government maybe inefficient but its spectrum is large. The Corporate Sector is not exactly the Eldorado of efficiency, there is large scale inefficiency there also and not every complaint against inefficiency gets addressed. Infact the Government has more channels to address inefficiency, if a citizen minds. It is wrong to say that inefficiency of a corporate does not affect the public at large. Also it is wrong to say that inefficient employees in a private company get instant justice. This concept does not work especially in Service departments of Consumer Durables.

How do you know an inefficient call centre employee has been removed from the job based on your complaint. Atleast in Government you get to know that the person is still there in his job. That is where the dichotomy of accountability in corporate sector lies.

THE REASON WHY CORPORATE IS ABLE TO MAINTAIN ITS EFFICIENCY IMAGE IS ONLY BECAUSE OF BETTER PR SKILLS. THE MEDIA WHICH DEPENDS ON ADVERTISEMENT FOR THEIR REVENUES WOULD ANTOGANISE THEM BY PUBLISHING ADVERSE DETAILS.

Next part I will focus on corruption in Government.