No one in corporate world would have dreamt about first week of 2009 would be so horrible. Indian IT industry was stunned by SATYAM chairman Ramalinga Raju’s resignation on Wednesday 7th January 2009, from the post admitting to INR 7000 crore scam by inflating the company profits which was never existed in reality. Raju also claimed to cook up the financial records from past several years showing profit and failed MAYTAS takeover bid was the last attempt to set the things right in India’s fourth largest IT Company serving more than 185 fortune 500 companies worldwide. SATYAM was listed company in BSE, NIFTY and NYSE.
Complete Coverage in Times of India online
Complete text of Ramalinga Raju Resignation letter to Board and SEBI.
SATYAM headquartered in Hyderabad was one of the reputed companies with presence in more than 60 countries worldwide. SATYAM has also major presence in engineering services and consultancy. They have impressive client list, some of which include Bombardier Aerospace, Airbus, Boeing, GE, Caterpillar, Falcon, Oceaneering Inc and so on. Apart SATYAM subsidiary SATYAM Venture Engineering serves few of the well known automotive giants in Europe and Japan.
I worked for SATYAM during Feb thru April 2007 as Senior Analysis Engineer (Level 4) in Hyderbad. I was put up in SATYAM Technology Center campus in Bahudurpalli, which is located approximately 22 kms from city.
I had a mixed experience in Satyam. On one hand I had made few good friends out and learned many things technically, but I had a bad experience on how the things are managed there, especially from the people in middle level management. SATYAM has got many people across different verticals who are just there in company from long time doing nothing.
The day I joined at SATYAM (19th February 2007), I was told repeatedly by the SATYAM staffer who was verifying the certificates that in case the credentials submitted are not genuine then I may be asked to leave anytime. The things did not simply stop there. When I was introduced to my reporting manager (SK – Level 7) and one more senior fellow (SP – Technical manager CAE Level Eight) in our engineering services group, they also repeated these things about sacking the employees. Thing is all of my certificates were genuine, but it gave an impression of uncertain future in Satyam. They were giving examples of how people were sacked on producing fake bills, LTA claims and so on. Really crap isn’t it ?
I have heard and also come across many organizations where people are taken into organization by making them feel good and confident about the company on first day at office. But in SATYAM I felt it exactly opposite.
Job wise, the kind of work we were doing was pretty good technically. As a culture, in SATYAM the managers there make sure that they give 12 hours work in 8 hour shift. I guess each manager is trained in that way before he takes up the charge. And especially when I joined, there were some escalations and we used to work from morning 9 to midnight. Even on weekends and holidays as well. I found absolutely no time to search for a house as the pressure was high at that time. I requested my manager who was aware of my situation to either extend my hotel stay from 15 days to a month or allot me some dorm in the campus for some time. But he simply kept on dragging the things. Speaking about the manager SK, who was had very little know how of technical stuff was more suited for regional politics and language bias. He always used to start meeting in local language and end the meeting it in same language. People at manager level, who were there in SATYAM from a very long time always used to talk about SATYAM values and culture, about which the country is getting to know now.
As in case of any other company, the HR show lots stuff as CTC and talk as if their company best, but usually salary wise there will be many deductions as well. Variable pay is one thing which no one knows how they calculate. Apart the recruitment guy also told me about getting a shift allowance of 4-5k per month which none of us in the team got for couple of months. Later I got to know the shift allowance is being held every 2 months citing some disciplinary reason like incoming time delay or even the time sheet defaulting. (Guess this money is also being siphoned away in some way). To add to this, there was no word from HR regarding the notice period reimbursement or relocation advance despite my repeated follow ups. Later I got to know that people who claimed the bills from last 6-8 months are yet to receive their claims. The circle HR was one of the most irresponsible and careless employee I have ever seen
I got opportunity at right time and shifted back to Bangalore, as I was getting suffocated in SATYAM. (I feel now I made a excellent decision by shifting). I put up my papers on 28th of April 2007 and took a forced exit. I addressed all the issues to the center head and the ES circle head keeping SK in loop which forced me to take the decision to get out of the company.
The real world.. 