Jack Welch - Bharat Ratna
This is again an article published on Linked In on 12th March and being shared here
Every manager worth his name would have heard of Jack Welch the legendary CEO of General Electric & the manager of all managers globally. His contribution to Indian economy I think is not well appreciated & when you consider that the Govt has never conferred on him a Padma award (I am open to be corrected) it’s the biggest travesty of justice in my opinion. His faith in India has been far beyond that of Indians themselves. He recognized India's potential far before anybody else in the world & leveraged it thus opening up multi billion dollar businesses for India globally. His faith in India has been far beyond most global technology companies especially in the manufacturing sector.
Code named the Birmingham project (If I remember correctly and in the ‘80s/90’s) he leveraged the time difference between India/USA much before the country woke up to something called Information Technology. He established a team in India directly linked to American servers & during the Indian daytime, Indians worked on projects & by Indian evening time handed over the work to their American counterparts to continue the work. He thus managed to get a 24 hr work cycle, literally reducing project timelines by more than 50% and am sure that the money they saved was humungous. GE also leveraged the technology capabilities in such a way that the foundation work was done in India by less qualified or less experienced technologists and their American counterparts did the high end work. GE thus ensured that each manpower did work that justified their value positioning.
He in my humble opinion started the InfoTech revolution in India with outsourcing back office work. if FC Kohli is called the father of Indian information technology/ software industry then I would stick my neck out and say that Jack Welch is the Godfather of the Indian InfoTech/Software industry. He was the first to kick start the business process outsourcing activities in India and created lakhs of jobs in the Gurgaon area. I would actually stick my neck out & say the Indian InfoTech/ Software revolution was kick started by General Electric and unless I am mistaken Infosys when it began had more than 50% of its revenues/profits coming from GE.
His contribution to Indian manufacturing is beyond all appreciation. He started GE Healthcare in India manufacturing high technology diagnostic equipment which was exported globally from India. Highly sophisticated machines for CAT scan, for mammography were manufactured in India and exported globally. These machines used lightweight carbon fibre and this inspite of and in the face of American technology sanctions.
Even today GE Electric and a host of other GE companies in high technology sectors like Aerospace, Power, Renewable, Transportation and such operate big in India and many GE global manufacturing units source substantial items, components from SME units in India thus encouraging manufacturing activity. That GE demands high quality, performance, low cost is a given but that is better than India being ignored and folks rushing to China.
His crowning glory was when GE opened the Jack Welch technology centre which was only one of just 3 globally when started in 2000 ahead of China. Today just 2 exist - in USA & India - & all others shut down. The technology centre in India boasts of covering all business units of GE & they have a long list of IP established out of India. How many companies can boast of such a support for India when you consider that the global flavour for decades has been China.
His passion and commitment to India can be seen in this interview from 2015 from a conference in California, USA which is worth watching.
As a manager Jack Welch who said that his successor must flip the company over was far ahead of his times & it makes me laugh when writers decode him from what they know in 2020 about his work in 80's & 90's. It’s true that Jack Welch grew GE to a point where the company dropped a few balls because he had so many in the air. This is not a defence of Jack Welch but to say that life is about success and failure and unless failure was deliberate or for reasons that was obvious to everybody at the time the decision was taken, not in hindsight.
Political correctness and instant judgement via social media as demanded today did not exist in his days - if not god knows if a company such as GE would have ever happened. Dealing with various folks in GE for over a decade I then used to be amused when even the fresh graduate would refer to him as Jack. Much later did I realise the connect he had with even the lowest in the hierarchy even he had never met the person. Attending a GE event, I was pleasantly surprised as I saw all the global lady staff wearing sarees. Now this one can cynically say was just a "statement" but when I commented thus I was told that it was not a show being put on but a culture in which global visitors were asked to blend, experience the local life especially if they need to work with them every day.
The concept of outsourced call centres was again a GE initiative when they leveraged India humungously at a time when India was still a fledgling growing economy. The confidence, leap of faith that Jack Welch and GE had in India then in 1990 is still far beyond what many global corporations have even today. I remember hearing folks at GE say way back then - 1998 or so - that protecting IP in India was far easier than China. One senior manager as I chased him for some big business famously told me - what robots can do, the Chinese can do better, cheaper, what requires brains & judgement only Indians can do & so all you will get are the small volume, tough, engineering jobs. Well true to his words we only ended up getting only the tough jobs while my manufacturing colleagues seethed at what they felt was my incompetence in getting the real big orders.
As I sign off a small anecdote that still makes me smile every time, I think of it. My 1st visit to USA in 2000 & on my birthday I was asked to meet the founder Chairman (the most unique person I have ever met in my life) of my then employer who spent some time talking & then said he will need to rush for a meeting with Jack/Jeff & was very apologetic at not being able to spend more time with me & how he could not miss the meeting because Jack was keen on the meeting etc etc. I naturally assumed that it must be some colleague and some meeting & was amused at his humility with me.
After he left, speaking to his secretary she said - Jeff Immelt was going to take over as CEO of GE & Jack Welch wanted to introduce him to the Chairman because when Jack started his career as a sales person in the plastics industry he used to sell raw material to this Chairman & his company.
Just remember one thing when judging Jack Welch - A genius is always unique, nonconforming, stirs the pot, politically incorrect, rushes in where even devil's fear to tread, have warts & judging them by the norms of our humdrum existence is unfair & to judge Jack Welch for 1980-2001 from what we know in 2020 is blasphemy. I think the best news would be that the Government of India even now confer upon him the Bharat Ratna or at least the Padma Vibhushan. He deserves it.
To sign off I share a few words of what he spoke about India in the 2015 interview linked above – India is my invention, I thought I will get low cost but what I got was brain power and high intellect, I am a India salesperson. Show me even in 2020 how many global company CEO’s, heck, even Indian company CEO’s who speak with such passion, conviction, positivity about India. If this doesn’t make Jack Welch a hero for India, nothing will.
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