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THE FOURTH flf-CIRRUS IMAGE REVIEW OF CEOS, UNION ECONOMIC MINISTERS AND COMPANIES THAT MANAGED TO GET THE BEST PRESS IN 2006. ^ India's Biggest Newsmakers
THE FOURTH flf-CIRRUS IMAGE REVIEW OF CEOS, UNION ECONOMIC MINISTERS AND COMPANIES THAT MANAGED TO GET THE BEST PRESS IN 2006. ^
India's Biggest Newsmakers
STOP PRESS: THERE'S RIL IN MY HEADLINE ONCE AGAIN, MUKESH AMBANI'S RELIANCE INDUSTRIES TOPS THE CHARTS AS THE MOST WRITTEN ABOUT COMPANY
5 : ;-
AUTOMOTIVE (cars, utility vehicles & trucks) T W O - W H E E L E R S Ism
R A N K C O M P A N Y T O T A L V IS IB IL ITY
S C O R E T O T A L I M A G E
S C O R E Q U A L I T Y O F E X P O S U R E
R A N K C O M P A N Y T O T A L V IS IB IL ITY S C O R E
T O T A L I M A G E S C O R E
Q U A L I T Y O F E X P O S U R E
1 Tata Motors 101,948 129,693 127 1 Bajaj Auto 45 ,053 58 ,204 129
2 Marut i Udyog 82 ,860 101,550 123 2 Hero Honda Motors 32,257 42 .913 133
3 General Motors India 67 ,729 79 ,807 118 3 TVS Motor Company 20 ,039 2 7 J 4 5 138
4 Mahindra & Mahindra 51 ,231 74 .547 146 4 Suzuki Motors 14,477 17,879 124
5 Hyundai Motor India Ford India
49 ,242 66,745 5 Kinetic Motor Company 7,074 9,339 132
6 Hyundai Motor India Ford India 48 ,478 56 ,962 118 6 Yamaha Motor Escorts 6,596 8,493 129
7 Toyota Kirloskar Motor 44,829 61 .703 138 7 Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India 6,591 7.382 112
8 Honda Siel Ltd 39 ,760 60 ,039 151 8 Kinetic Engineering 2 ,213 2,997 135
9 DaimlerChrysler India 30 ,454 36 ,005 118 9 LML 1,766 1,660 94
10 Ashok Leyland 17,009 25 ,382 149 10 Eicher Motors 1,279 1,294 101
Q u a l i t y o f e x p o s u r e : D e n o t e s t o n e o f c o v e r a g e ; a s c o r e o f 100 i n d i c a t e s n e u t r a l : a b o v e 100 p o s i t i v e , a n d b e l o w 100 n e g a t i v e
THETOP 20
D O U G L A S BAILLIE HUL Last year, Baillie took over as__ the CEO, but decided to maintain a low profile i n _ _ media. That, however, didn't go against Hindustan Unilever
R A N K ! C O M P A N Y T O T A L VISIBILITY T O T A L I M A G E Q U A L I T Y O F S C O R E S C O R E E X P O S U R E
1 Reliance Industr ies 158,240 . 175 ,871 111 . 2 | HLL .114,996 175,579 . 1 5 3 . . 3 Intosys Technologies _ 91 ,432 143,769 157 4 Mitral Steel 126,354 . . . 1 3 0 , 4 5 9 . . . . 103 5 ; Tata Motors 101,948 129,693 1 2 7 . 6 Microsoft 85 ,295 111,380 131 7 Marut i Udyog 82 ,860 101,550 123 8 Jet Airways 85 ,092 97 ,717 115 9 : Anil Dfi irubhai Ambani Group . 8 3 , 1 6 8 8 9 . 4 / 2 . . 108 . 10 ONGC 70,736 85,427 1 2 1 . . . 11 Bhart i Airtel 59 ,124 83 ,198 1 4 1 . . 12 ICtCf Bank 61,726 82 ,591 1 3 4 . . . 13 Wipro 52,115 .... 80 ,418 154 14 General Motors India 67 ,729 79,807 .118 15 Mahindra & Mahindra .5.1,231 74,547 146 16 Tata Steel 55 ,792 73,599 132 17 BSNL . 6 1 , 4 1 6 72 .292 118 18 Wills Sport 48 ,185 67 ,412 .. 140 19 Air Sahara . 61 ,217 67 ,315 110 20 Hyundai Motor India 49 ,242 66.745 136
M UKESH AMBANI MAY N O T LOVE INDIAN MEDIA M U C H , but the media loves him and his Reliance Group just the same. So, when Business Today commissioned Delhi-based image monitoring firm, Cirrus, to find out who were the biggest newsmakers in corporate India (starting this
year, the J3T-Cirrus study considers Union economic ministers as well) last year, it didn't come as a surprise that Ambani's Reliance Industries had once again topped the charts.
After all, 2006 was a big year for Reliance Industries (and we are not talking about Reliance Retail, which is considered as a separate entity for the purpose of this study). The year began with RIL formally handing over control of the four demerged companies (Reliance Natural Resources, Reliance Communication Ventures, Reliance Energy Ventures and Reliance Capital Ventures) to Ambani's younger brother Anil, with whom he split in 2005. Soon thereafter, American oil giant Chevron announced that it was picking up a 5 per cent stake in Reliance Petroleum for $300 million, with an option to increase the stake to 29 per cent. And when the company, which plans to set up a Rs 27,000-crore refinery with a capacity of 580,000 barrels a day, came out with its I P O in April, it was oversubscribed 50 times.
BANKING T O T A L V IS IB IL ITY
S C O R E T O T A L I M A G E
S C O R E Q U A L I T Y O F E X P O S U R E
R A N K C O M P A N Y T O T A L VISIBILITt S C O R E
T O T A L I M A G E S C O R E
Q U A L I T Y O F E X P O S U R E
.85,092 97,717 115 1 State Bank of India . 86 ,151 62 ,102 72 61,217 67 ,315 n o _ 2 ICICI Bank 61 ,726 82 ,591 134 47.377 46 .879 9 9 „ 3 Standard Chartered Bank 25,073 27,432 109 . 42 ,625 45 ,838 . 1 0 8 4 HSBC 22 ,281 23 ,279 104 41 ,697 45 ,451 . 1 0 9 . . 5 .. Punjab National Bank . . . . .. 21 ,012 2 7 J 7 5 131 36 ,695 47 ,99 .8 . 131 6 HDFC Bank 18,890 23 ,406 124 26 ,993 34,43.1. 128 7 IDBI 16,987 . 19,257. . 113 . . . 16,605 18,333 110 8 UTI Bank .. 15,735 .. 15,508 99 5,106 5,4.00 . . . 106 9 ABN AMRO 14,197 17,154 121 4 ,185 4 ,371 104 10 Bank of Baroda 14,183 16,541 117
CEMENT CONSUMER DURABLES R A N K C O M P A N Y T O T A L V IS IB IL ITY
S C O R E T O T A L I M A G E
S C O R E Q U A L I T Y O F E X P O S U R E
1 Gujarat Ambuja Cement 9,653 13,193 137 2 ACC 7,226 8,347 116 3 India Cement 5,264 6,879 131 4 Holcim 4,460 6,004 135 5 UltraTech Cement 3,258 4 ,044 124 6 JK Cement 2 ,251 2,576 114 7 Grasim Cement 1,384 1,925 139 8 Lafarge India 1,360 1,685 124 9 Madras Cement 1,113 1,469 132 10 Jaypee Cement 780 1,104 141
R A N K C O M P A N Y T O T A L V IS IB IL ITY T O T A L I M A G E Q U A L I T Y O F S C O R E S C O R E E X P O S U R E
1 LG Electronics 39 ,172 48 ,616 124 2 Samsung 34 ,854 47 ,072 135 3 Sony 24 ,541 25,559 104 4 Videocon 13,341 18 ,034 135 5 Ti tan Industr ies 11,989 15,941 133 6 Phil ips Electronics 11,169 12,981 116 7 Whirlpool of India 7 ,051 9 ,131 130 8 National Panasonic India 6,407 9 ,481 148 9 Kentosh India 3 ,752 4 ,522 121 10 Voltas 3,388 4 ,331 128
RAVI KANT/Tata Motors Land for the contentious small car project in Singur kept Tata Motors in public glare last year, but the coverage wasn't all negative
For good reason: the group that created the equity cult in India was coming out with an IPO after 13 long years. It got more press when, in October, a section of the Jamnagar refinery caught fire, and some more when just a little over a month later, Reliance reported that the unit was up and running in record time. On top of it all, Reliance was continuously in the news for its mega special economic zone (SEZ) plans.
But here's the thing about Reliance Industries. While it may top in terms of visibility (which is a function of the size of the article, its position in the publication and the readership of the publication) and image (determined by the tone of coverage: positive, negative or neutral), its overall quality of exposure is lower than that of several companies, including tech giants Infosys Technologies and Wipro, and F M C G giant Hindustan Lever (now called Hindustan Unilever). Compared to Infosys' quality of exposure score (QoE) of 157 per cent, Wipro's 154 and HUL'S 153, Reliance racks up 111 per cent.
The quality of exposure is an important consideration because it reflects the nature of news that got a company its print space. A QoE of around 100 per cent indicates that the coverage has been largely neutral; a score higher than that indicates positive coverage, and any score below that indicates negative coverage. In the case of Reliance, its SEZ plans may have affected its QoE, simply because SEZs were (and continue to be) among the most contentious issues that media reported last year.
Anil Ambani's Reliance-Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (RADAG)
didn't do as well in media, though. While its quality of exposure was only marginally lower than that of Mukesh's Reliance Industries,
F&B FMCGs C O M P A N Y T O T A L V IS IB IL ITY
S C O R E T O T A L I M A G E
S C O R E Q U A L I T Y O F E X P O S U R E
R A N K C O M P A N Y T O T A L V IS IB IL ITY S C O R E
T O T A L I M A G E S C O R E
Q U A L I T Y O F E X P O S U R E
Pepsi Foods 54 ,184 4 4 . 1 1 1 8 1 1 HLL 114,996 175,579 153
Coke India 48,082 31 .523 66 2 GCMMF 11,725 13,464 115
Tata Tea 14,750 18.663 127 3 Dabur India 11,624 17,499 151
United Breweries 19,844 10,836
22 ,026 11.458
111 4 Marico Industr ies 11,230 16,055 143
McDonald 's 19,844 10,836
22 ,026 11.458 106 5 Procter & Gamble 10.937 13.283 121
Amalgamated Bean Coffee 5,969 6,538 110 6 Britannia 7,538 10,750 143
Radico Khaitan 1,730 2,044 118 7 Nestle 7,293 8,843 121
Shaw Wallace & Company 876 1,004 115 8 ITC Foods 7,104 9,049 127
Tata Coffee 5,113 6.033 118 9 Godrej Consumer Products 6 ,037 8 .465 140
McDowel l 3,459 4 ,197 121 Colgate Palmolive 5,743 7,817 136
FINANCIAL SERVICES MUTUAL FUNDS R A N I j C O M P A N Y T O T A L V IS IB IL ITY
S C O R E T O T A L I M A G E
S C O R E Q U A L I T Y O F E X P O S U R E
1 I HDFC 24 ,969 30 ,158 121 2 j Reliance Capital 8 ,631 12,414 144 3 J ING Investment Mgmt (India) 5 ,536 6,088 110
4 L DSP M e r n i Lynch 5,068 5,116 101
5 Indiabul ls 7,822 4 ,696 60 6 i ICICI Venture Fund Mgmt Co... 4 ,221 4 ,658 110 7 ! Kotak Securit ies 4 ,184 4 ,258 102 8 I ICICI Securit ies & Finance Co. 3,897 3.961 102 9 j Mot i la l Oswal 3 ,619 3 .672 101 10 : JM Morgan Stanley 2 ,319 2,326 100
R A N K C O M P A N Y T O T A L VISIBIL ITY T O T A L I M A G E Q U A L I T Y O F S C O R E S C O R E E X P O S U R E
1 UTI Asset Management Co. 19,140 25 ,149 131 2 Prudential ICICI A M C . . 11,082 13,882 125 3 Templeton Asset Mgmt India 10,717 12,967 121 4 SBI Funds Management 7,731 J J 8 0 119 5 Birla Sun Life AMC 7,197 9,215 128 6 Reliance Capital Asset Mgmt 6,628 9 .164 138 7 HDFC Asset Mgmt Company 5,328 6,346 119 8 DSP Merrill Lynch Fund Manager > 5,298 5,997 113 9 Principal Asset Management Co 5,242 6 ,258 119 10 Tata Asset Management 4 ,976 6.208 125
JAGDISH KHATTAR/ Maruti Maruti ranks at # 7 overall, and has a better quality of exposure score than General Motors, but not Hyundai Motor India
it had much less visibility and image score. That's possibly because a string of RADAG'S plans, including most recently the bid for Hutchison Essar, did not pan out.
The News Hogs FMCG major Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL) rode high in media for all the right reasons. It began the year with a brand new top management, led by CEO Douglas Baillie. Sanjay Dube, Dhaval Buch, Anoop Mathur, and Nitin Paranjpe were some of the executive directors inducted into the new Management Committee. That apart, the F M C G market continued to buoy HUL's performance; early last year, it reported an 11 per cent increase in net sales over 2004 (it follows the calendar year) and an 18 per cent jump in net profit. Then, HUL announced the merger of Modern Foods with itself. N o doubt, the F M C G giant would have got even more (positive) press had its new CEO given more media interviews.
One company that seems to have the media eating out of its hand is Infosys Technologies. Compared to Reliance or HUL, Infosys doesn't get as much ink, but when it does get written about, it's usually in glowing terms. That's reflected in its high image score, which is vastly higher than that of Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services. In fact, look at the three parameters and there's an interesting story that unfolds about Indian IT'S triumvirate. Infosys is way ahead of both Wipro and TCS on every count, but compared to TCS, Azim Premji's Wipro comes out way ahead, too. Statistically speaking, the distance between Infosys and Wipro, in terms of overall ranking, is almost the same as the distance
HARDWARE IT R A N K C O M P A N Y T O T A L V IS IB IL ITY T O T A L I M A G E Q U A L I T Y O F R A N K C O M P A N Y T O T A L VISIBIL ITY T O T A L I M A G E Q U A L I T Y O F
. . S C O R E S C O R E E X P O S U R E S C O R E S C O R E E X P O S U R E
IBM 35,217 50,177 142 1 Infosys Technologies 91 ,432 143,769 157 2 Intel 24 ,604 35 .515 144 2 Microsoft 85 ,295 . 111 .380 131 3 Dell 20 ,784 26 ,864 129 3 Wipro 52,115 80 ,418 154 4 ' HP 24,623 „ _ 22,027 89 4 Tata Consultancy Services 41 ,019 63 .128 154 . 5 HCL Infosystems 10,444 13 ,894 133 5 . Cognizant Technology Solutions 19,426 36 .606 188 6 Cisco 11,710 13.115 112 6 HCL Technologies 22 ,721 35 .834 . 158 7 AMD 6,114 7.015 115 7 Satyam Computer Services 21 ,123 32 ,715 155 8 Canon 4 ,311 5.409 125 8 - O r a c l e 11,952 16,182 135 9 EMC 1,379 1,909 138 9 Aptech 9,675 15,049 156
1 0
Seagate 9 1 4 1,197 131 10 NUT Technologies 9,824 12,662 129
REAL ESTATE & INFRASTRUCTURE PHARMA RANK 1 C O M P A N Y T O T A L V IS IB IL ITY T O T A L I M A G E Q U A L I T Y O F
S C O R E S C O R E E X P O S U R E
1 DLF Group 32,468 31 ,873 98 2 |._GMR Grpuj) 2 3 J 7 7 . 30 ,201 131 3 I Larsen & Toubro 21,540 28 ,366 132 4 1 GVK Enterprise 12.006 14,949 125 5 J Ansal Properties & Infrastructure 7,740 8,998 116 6 ' I Uni tech j 3,497 3 .621 104 7 j E m a a r - M G F Land 2,864 2 ,871 . 100 8 | Cushman Wakefield 2,828 2,849 101 9 | Parsvnath Developers 2,805 2,848 102 10 | Hindustan Construct ion Co. 2,550 2,637 103
R A N K C O M P A N Y T O T A L VISIBILITY T O T A L I M A G E Q U A L I T Y O F S C O R E S C O R E E X P O S U R E
1 ; Ranbaxy 34 ,012 37 ,519 110 2 I DrReddy 's 19,734 28 ,584 145 3 Biocon 18,554 23 ,543 127 4 Pfizer 10,587 10,097 95 5 Nicholas Piramal 8 ,907 11 ,961 134 6 7
Wockhardt GlaxoSmithKline
8,449 11,197 133 6 7
Wockhardt GlaxoSmithKline 7 ,311 8,167 112
8 Cipla 6,551 8,812 135 9 S u n P h a r m a 3,828 5,257 137 10 Glenmark Pharma 3 ,674 4 ,463 121
NARESH GOYAL/Jet Airways Goyal's acrimonious split with Air Sahara on the merger deal kept Jet in the news, but it ended up with greater and better coverage than Air Sahara
between Wipro and TCS. Infosys is # 3 , Wipro 13, and TCS 22. The story of foreign technology giants in India is even more in
teresting. Microsoft dominates at # 6 , IBM follows far behind at 30, and Intel does worse at 50. But Accenture takes the cake: Of the Top 200 companies, it comes in somewhere midway at 114. Coming to internet brands, Google, at rank 2 1 , emerges much ahead of rival Yahoo (#77). The only consolation for Yahoo is that its QoE is as good as Google's (due to a lack of space, we have listed only the Top 20 companies; for scores of the other 180 companies, please log on to www.business-today.com).
Meanwhile, how did the automotive companies do? There are five of them that made it to our overall Top 20: Tata Motors, Maruti Udyog, General Motors India, Mahindra & Mahindra, and Hyundai Motor India. (Incidentally, the largest number of any industry segment.) Hyundai brings up the rear, but had the second-best QoE after Mahindra & Mahindra. What must seem surprising is, however, Tata Motors not just getting the highest visibility and image among the automotive companies, but also emerging # 3 in its category on QoE. Don't forget that Singur was potentially a damaging episode for Tata Motors, but the Tata name and the fact that the West Bengal government came out strongly in support of the Tatas, must have worked to the group's favour.
Finally, Jet Airways got its share of press, too, but largely because of its abortive deal with Air Sahara. But despite being perceived as the victim, Air Sahara got worse press compared to Jet. As veterans of media relations know only too well, the media is a strange animal. The only thing worse than dealing with media is ignoring it.
G E N E R A L INSURANCE L IFE INSURANCE R A N K C O M P A N Y T O T A L V IS IB IL ITY
S C O R E
1 ICICI Lombard General Insurance 7,749 2 Bajaj All ianz General Insurance 7,290 3 National Insurance Company 3,523 4 Tata AIG General Insurance 3,360 5 IFFC0-TQKI0 General Insurance 2,763 6 New India Assurance Company 2,266 7 Reliance General Insurance Co. 1,192 8 HDFC Chubb General Insurance . 9 1 5 9 Cho lamanda lam General Insurance 370 10 Oriental Insurance Company 4 ,121
T O T A L I M A G E S C O R E
8,978 8,293 3,570 3,670 2 ,884 2,335 1,651 955 468
4,197
Q U A L I T Y O F E X P O S U R E
116 114 101 109 104
. J03 138 104 127 102
! C O M P A N Y T O T A L VISIBILITY T O T A L I M A G E Q U A L I T Y O F S C O R E S C O R E E X P O S U R E
LIC 24 ,785 36 ,035 145 ICICI Prudential Life Insurance 12,743 17,446 137 Bajaj All ianz Life insurance Co . 7 ,371 10,178 138
|. Birla Sun Life Insurance 5,558 8 ,215 148
F J a f o A f i 4 ,956 6,106 123 . Aviva 4 ,947 . 7 ,071 143
Max New York Life Insurance Co. 4 ,846 6,059 125 Kotak Life Insurance 3,142 4 ,195 134 HDFC Standard Life Insurance 3 ,036 3,912 129 SBI Life Insurance Co. 3 ,034 3,809 126
T E L E C O M MOBILE & T E L E C O M SOLUTIONS I N K C O M P A N Y T O T A L V IS IB IL ITY
S C O R E T O T A L I M A G E
S C O R E Q U A L I T Y O f E X P O S U R E
R A N K C O M P A N Y T O T A L VISIBILITY S C O R E
T O T A L I M A G E S C O R E
Q U A L I T Y O F E X P O S U R E
BSNL ^ Bhart i Airtel
61 ,416 59 ,124
72 ,292 83 ,198
118 141
1 2
Nokia Motorola .
37 ,956 29 ,929
51,643 39 ,049
136 130
Reliance Communicat ions 45 ,227 54,429 120 3 Tech Mahindra 6,938 9,175 132 Hutchison Essar 41 ,430 48 ,060 116 4 Sony Ericsson India 7,554 8,549 113 MTNL 29 ,816 38 ,235 128 5 Ericsson India 5 ,701 7,702 135 Tata Teleservices 19,117 24,447 128 6 QUALCOMM 5,886 6,169 105 Idea Cellular 17,674 2 1 J 3 7 120 7 Alcatel 4 ,241 5,308 125 VSNL 12,480 13,423 108 8 Sasken Comm. Tech. 3,876 4 ,923 127 Vodafone 7,000 7,029 100 9 Lucent Technologies 2,523 3,054 121
BPL Mobi le 5,527 5,495 99 10 Huawei 2,277 2,308 101
SUNIL MITTAL/ Bharti Airtel A booming telecoms market and market leader Bharti's own rapid growth last year earn the telco a spot in our Top 20 overall
M E T H O D O L O G Y VISIBILITY SCORE: This is a function of the size of the article, its position in the publication (cover story, first page, etc.) and the readership of the publication.
IMAGE SCORE: Visibility scores for each article are multiplied by 1, 2 or -1 depending on whether the article is neutral, positive or negative.
QUALITY OF EXPOSURE: This determines the relationship between visibility score and image score. Mathematically, it is the image score divided by the visibility score expressed as a percentage. Thus, a QoE of around 100 per cent indicates that the coverage has been largely neutral, a score significantly higher than 100 per cent that the coverage has been largely positive, and that significantly lower than 100 per cent that the coverage has been largely negative.
CATEGORIES: The scores are pigeon-holed across various industries (banking, consumer durables, automotive, telecom, etc.).
GENRES: The scores are pigeon-holed across various genres (marketing and sales, finance and financial results, corporate, product launches, personalities, etc.).
COVERAGE: English and vernacular newspapers, and English and vernacular magazines. Unlike the coverage of politics, sports or entertainment, that of business is still dominated by the print medium. For economic ministers, television was also considered.
TIME PERIOD: January 1, 2006, to December 3 1 , 2006.
RETAIL OIL& GAS R A N K C O M P A N Y T O T A L V IS IB IL ITY
S C O R E T O T A L I M A G E
S C O R E Q U A L I T Y O F E X P O S U R E
R A N K C O M P A N Y T O T A L VISIBIL ITY S C O R E
T O T A L I M A G E S C O R E
Q U A L I T Y O F E X P O S U R E
1 Pantaloon Retail India 18,904 27 ,588 146 1 ONGC 70,736 85,427 121
2 Shoppers ' Stop 12,813 20,689 161 2 Gas Authorty of India (GAIL) 26,365 31 ,940 121
3 Wal -Mar t 14,094 16,150 115 3 Indian Oil Corporation 22 ,506 26 ,884 119
4 Bhart i Enterprises (Retail) 12,622 14,511 115 4 Reliance Petroleum 18,774 24JL77 129
5 Big Bazaar 8,596 10.733 125 5 BPCL 9,470 10,614 112
6 Reliance Retail 6,072 7,319 121 6 HPCL 8,831 10,135 115
7 Trent 5,095 7,022 138 7 Shell 5,713 6,985 122
8 Oxford Book Store 5,514 6,581 119 8 Chevron 1,072 1.315 123
9 Crossword 3 ,414 4.796 140 9 Brit ish Petroleum 1,147 1,181 103
10 Landmark 3,357 4,533 135 10 Exxon-Mobil 1,053 1,104 105
"bt special THE TOP 25
THE BIGGEST NEWSMAKERS WHO WERE THE CEOS THAT THE BUSINESS PRESS WROTE, WROTE AND WROTE SOME MORE ABOUT?
R A N K P E R S O N A L I T Y / C O M P A N Y T O T A L V IS IB IL ITY S C O R E
T O T A L I M A G E S C O R E
Q U A L I T Y O F E X P O S U R E
1 ' NR.NarayanaMurthy,N.Ni lekani 20 ,861 ; INFOSYS TECHNOLOGIES
29 ,784 143
2 : L N . M i t t a l '•: MIHAL STEEL
9 ,526 15,099 . 159
3 : Mukesh Ambani
i RELIANCE INDUSTRIES
9,638 14,260 148
4 Anil Ambani \ ANIL DHIRUBHAI AMBANI GROUP
11,402 13,703 120
5 Bill Gates ! MICROSOFT
7,748 11.446 148
6 A z i m Premji : WIPRO
7,289 11,206 154
7 R a t a n T a t a TATA GROUP
8,063 11,568 143
8 : Indra Nooyi ; PEPSI
5,363 9,873 184
9
10
Kiran Ma jumdar -Shaw ; BI0C0N
S . B . Mittal BHARTI AIRTEL
5,986
5,345
9,222
7.869
154
147
11
12
Rahul Bajaj FJAJAJ AUTO Vijay Mallya KINGFISHER AIRLINES
5,325
3,812
6,085
4.894
114
128 ~
13 Kumar Manga lam Birla AD1TYA BIRLA GROUP
2,783 , 4 ,590 165
14 Adi Godrej GODREJ GROUP
2 ,901 4 ,394 151
15 K.V. Kamath ICICI BANK
2 ,817 4 ,009 142
16 Anand Mahindra MAHINDRA & MAHINDRA
2 ,998 3,953 132
17 Vi jaypat Singhania RAYMOND
3,217 3 ,872 120
18 Naina Lai Kidwai HSBC
2 ,224 3,829 172
19
20
Shiv N a d a r HCLTECHNOLOGIES Naresh Goyal JET AIRWAYS
2 ,544
2,207
3 ,730
3.136
147
142
21 Lakshmi Narayan COGNIZANT TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS
1.490 2,948 198
22 Y . C . Deveshwar ITC
2 ,525 2 ,861 113
23 Deepak Parekh HDFC
1,783 2,387 134
24 Ajay Piramal NICHOLAS PIRAMAL
1,209 1,995 165
25 Vinita Bali BRITANNIA
1,000 1,943 194
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Turn to page 134 Conditions apply.
A S AN EXECUTIVE D U O , N . R . NARAYANA MURTHY A N D N A N D A N M .
Nilekani must seem unique. There's no other pair, either in the tech circles or outside of it, that gets mentioned or talked about in the same breath as this one does. At Microsoft, it's about Bill Gates; at Intel, it's about, er (who, Craig Barrett or
Paul Otellini?), one doesn't quite know. And at the Tatas, Birlas, Ambanis or Wipro, there's always one name that comes to mind ahead of others.
So, what makes Murthy and Nilekani the most written about corporate honchos? It's possibly the clear (or clever?) positioning that the two enjoy with respect to their company and industry. Nilekani is perceived as the poster boy of Indian IT (thanks to, no mean extent, New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman—of The World is Flat Fame),
while Murthy is the eminence grise, whose opinion is sought on just about everything from governance to poverty to education. In fact, Murthy swaps places with Arcelor-Mittal's Lakshmi Niwas Mittal this year (see The Top 25).
But one name that didn ' t figure at all on our last year's list, but storms in this year at # 8 is Indra Nooyi , C E O and Chairman-designate, PepsiCo. That should surprise no one. Nooyi made waves last year when she became the first w o m a n C E O in the h is tory of PepsiCo, and a woman of Indian origin at that. What ' s also heartening about this year's top personalities list is that there are four women in the top 25 , c o m p a r e d t o j u s t o n e l a s t y e a r ( B i o c o n ' s K i r an M a z u m d a r - S h a w h a d t ha t d i s t i nc t i on ) . N o one can blame the media for not doing its bit t o sha t t e r t h e glass ce i l ing in the corporate world.
Number in photo indicates rank
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FRONT PAGE HEROES COMPANIES OF ANIL AND MUKESH AMBANI HOGGED PAGE ONE, BUT SURPRISINGLY TWO STATE-OWNED TELCOS WEREN'T TOO FAR BELOW THE FOLD.
ANIL & MUKESH AMBANI Compared to some other groups, brothers Mukesh and Anil manage fewer companies. But in terms of sheer activity, there's no one to beat them
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COMPANIES C O V E T IT AS M U C H AS REPORTERS: SPACE
O N Page One, or the cover of a magazine such as this one. It's this space that tells one news from
another, one company from another, and one reporter from another. So, who got the most Page One mentions last year? Predictably, these were the companies owned by brothers Anil and Mukesh Ambani. What was not so predictable was the emergence of BSNL and M T N L
as # 4 and # 5 companies, respectively. One reason was, of course, the mammoth tender that BSNL floated for add ing 4 5 . 5 mil l ion lines at a cost of $5 bill ion (Rs 22,000 crore). The other reason was the spat between BSNL and M T N L over the national long-distance arrangement that the former had with the latter. Eventually, M T N L not only did launch its own N L D service between Delhi and Mumbai, but also offered calls between the two cities at local rates.
Two other groups not used to getting space on Page One of national dailies ended up under the arc lights as well. We are talking of G M R and GVK. And you know the reason. These two southern groups surprised everyone early last year by wiiining the bids for modernisation of airports at Delhi and Mumbai.
FRONT PAGE HEROES R A N K [ C O M P A N Y T O T A L V IS IB1L IT
S C O R E 1 T O T A L I M A G E
S C O R E Q U A L I T Y O F E X P O S U R E
1 1 Reliance Industr ies 18,255 21,636 119
2 [ Ani l Dhirubhai Ambani Group 18,679 20,613 110
3 H U - 10,426 17,225 165
4 | BSN1 8,663 14,283 165
5 MTNL 6,396 11.026 172
6 Mitral S t e e l . . . 9 ,140 10.901 119 .
7 Jet Ai rways 6,868 9,989 145
8 Air Sahara 7,642 8,768 115
9 Infosys Technologies 5,109 7,114 139
10 Wills Sport 5,267 5,943 113
11 1 Tata Sons 3,617 4.952 137
12 GMR Group. . 2,708 4.755 176
13 GVK Enterprise 2,692 4.712 175
14 Reliance C o m m . Ventures 4 ,418 4,116 93
15 Wipro j 2,615 3,876 148
1 Air India ... 2,976 2,878 97
17 Bhart i Airtel 1,828 . 2,678 . . 147
18 Marut i Udyog 2,187 2.463 113
19 ICICI Bank 1,936 2 .402 124
20 Aditya Birla Corporate
Standard Chartered Bank
1,814 2.315 128
21
Aditya Birla Corporate
Standard Chartered Bank 1,973 2.272 115
Sahara India 1,951 2,177 112
[ ITC 1,531 2,166 141
24 Reliance Petroleum 1,344 2,047 152
25 Biocon 1,143 . . _ . 2 ! 3 0 178
26 Microsoft 1,332 2,025 152
THE TOP GROUPS ICICI GROUP STORMED INTO THE TOP LEAGUE, RIGHT BEHIND THE TATAS AND THE MUKESH AM BAN I GROUP.
K.V. Kamath/ ICICI Bank
K.V. KAMATH-led ICICI Group is the only pure financial services group to feature on our list of top 10 groups, and ICICI Bank the only bank on our overall list of top 25 companies
IN TERMS OF COVERAGE, THERE ARE T W O GROUPS THAT HAVE STEADILY LOST
in the BT-Cirrus study of biggest newsmakers. These are the Aditya Birla Group and the (Rahul) Bajaj Group. While the former didn't figure on
our list of top five last year, the latter barely made it at # 5 . This year again, the Bajajs have just made it—but on an expanded list of top 10; sadly, the Birlas haven't made it again.
The Tatas and the Reliance Group continued to be the # 1 and # 2 groups, respectively, but there was a surprise # 3 this year—the K.V. Kamath-led ICICI Group, which includes everything from ICICI Bank to ICICI
Prudential Life Insurance Co. to ICICI Venture to ICICI OneSource (now called Firstsource). At ICICI Bank, its efforts at creating beachheads overseas continued to attract media attention (Sri Lanka, Russia, Belgium, and M a l a y s i a w e r e some coun t r i e s THE TOP GROUPS where it opened b r a n c h e s las t year), while the Shikha Sharma-led I C I C I P r u dential got into a bit of a tussle with Bajaj Allianz over industry leadership. The latter claimed to be # 1 in terms of received p remium, bu t the former said it was the top dog in terms of annualised premium. In fact, the ICICI
Group isn't just the only financial services group in the top 10, but also ICICI
Bank is the only bank to make it to the overall top 20 list. That's quite an achievement.
Lakshmi Niwas Mittal's L N M Group also grabbed a lot of headlines for the stunning Arcelor deal. First rebuffed by the Anglo-Dutch steel major, Mittal's steel company went on to sweep shareholders off their feet with a sweetened offer, making Arcelor-Mittal the largest steel company in the world. Y.C. Deveshwar's cigarettes-to-hotels-to-paper-apparel group, ITC, came right behind L N M , followed by Bharti Enterprises and Anand Mahindra's Mahindra Group. The dapper Mahindra, of course, had everything going his way last year, including the deal with Renault to make cars in India, and Tech Mahindra's IPO.
in photo indicates rank
R A N I C O M P A N Y T O T A L VISIBILIT l S C O R E
f T O T A L I M A G E S C O R E
Q U A L I T Y O F E X P O S U R E
1 Tata Group 364 ,769 466 ,491 128
2 Reliance Group 188,166 215,377 114
3 | ICICI Group 105,979 136,766 129
4 \ Ani l Dhirubhai Amban i Group 118,044 130,953
5 LNM Group 126,354 130,459 103
6 LjTCGrourj 91,113 122,072 134
7 1 Bhart i Enterprises 79,585 . 1 0 9 . 7 8 8 . . . 138
8 Mahindra Group 60,007 85,600 143
9 Wipro Group 52,285 80,610 154
10 • Bajaj Group 63 ,178 80,455 127
Yogi Deveshwar/ ITC Anand Mahindra/ M & M
THE TOP MINISTERS SURPRISE, IT'S NOT FINANCE MINISTER P. CHIDAMBARAM, BUT RAILWAY MINISTER L A L U PRASAD YADAV WHO GETS MORE OF MEDIA.
•liU
LAST YEAR, IT WASN'T JUST THE INDIAN RAILWAYS THAT TURNED AROUND. Its political master, Lalu Prasad Yadav, emerged as a turnaround artist and a management guru, too. Perhaps, that's why, Yadav beat his
Cabinet colleague and Finance Minister P. Chidambaram—who ought to win hands down if only the business media were to be considered—to emerge as the most written about Union minister in charge of an economic ministry. This is a new category that the BT-Cirrus study considers this year, therefore, there are no comparisons available from the previous studies.
There's a simple reason why the popular media (excluding the pink dailies and business magazines) loves Yadav. He makes for entertaining copy. So, be it his run-ins with Bihar Chief Minister and his political rival Nitish Kumar or his vocal support to controversial yoga guru, Baba Ram Dev, or simply a matter of vacating THE TOP MINISTERS his official bungalow in Patna, Yadav knows how to work t h e m e d i a to his advantage.
Information and Broadcasting Minister, P r i y a r a n j a n Das Munshi got plenty of media exposure too, but mostly for the wrong reasons. For example, after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh clarified his statement on Muslims having the first right on resources of India (he meant to say all minorities), Munshi stepped in to say that the clarification was uncalled for. He also banned Arab channels, and stopped the screening of the movie The Da Vinci Code. Since then, he has gotten into more controversies, including the banning of AXN channel early this year (this, however, doesn't reflect on his score, since the study only looks at 2006 reports).
In contrast, Union Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel got relatively less visibility, but his quality of exposure was vastly better than Munshi's. Dayanidhi Maran, Union Minister of Communications & IT, did even better, notching up a QoE of 130. Next year, when KT-Cirrus conducts its fifth study, it will be interesting to see how fortunes have changed for India's top economic ministers.
Number in photo indicates rar
R A M N A M E T O T A L V I S I B I U T S C O R E
/ T O T A L I M A G E S C O R E
Q U A L I T Y O F E X P O S U R E
1 Lalu Prasad Yadav 249 ,881 256,815 103
2 [ P . Ch idambaram 182,195 185,455 102
3 ; Praful Patel 90,653 105,068 116
4 Priyaranjan Dasmunshi 111.047 1 0 0 , 1 5 9 . . 90
5 Dayanidhi Maran 51 ,794 67,127 ... 130 6 Anbumani Ramadoss 48 ,217 62,592 130
7 Murl i Deora 40 ,387 44 .855 111 .
8 Ram Vilas Paswan 42 ,764 39,504 92
9 Amb ikaSon i 14,777 24,480 166
10 Sushi l Kumar Shinde 17,005 21,533 127
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Dt special
GUEST COLUMN/SOURAV DE/ HEAD/ CIRRUS
FOCUS ON CORPORATE IMAGE BUILDING
LAST YEAR HAS BEEN A GREAT YEAR
for brand India. It's a new India, where corporate news is more
popular than ever before. Corporate leaders are being widely followed by the press, international acquisitions considered a matter of national pride and automobile, aviation, telecom, mobile handsets, malls, multiplexes, real estate top the list of favourites.
Over the last four years, the BT-Cirrus survey has evolved as a critical benchmark for corporate media performance and PR efforts. The survey this year marks the beginning of a new era with the introduction of TV and political analysis (although confined to economic ministries of the central government). The next BT Cirrus will include cross-industry image analysis of TV content.
While image building is a long-term process and my belief is that it is best done in print, the role of television has changed over the years and cannot be ignored anymore. Remember, TV can reach even those who cannot or do not read and when it comes to denting your public image, TV can be more lethal.
This year, for the first time, we have included the entire range of public sector companies. We have also taken a stand on non-inclusion of paid articles. We don't intend to pass a judgement on the practice and we accept that these articles positively impact the corporate image and are not easily identifiable. However, we strongly believe that no credit should go to the concerned PR department. We have also excluded trade publications to avoid any possible skew in favour of certain industries.
Looking at the survey findings, what strikes us is the huge gap between the famous and the not-so-famous. We were expecting this gap to
narrow. The visibility for the 100th company is around 10 per cent of that of the leader. # 2 0 0 is around 5 per cent. Don't forget that we are talking about the 200 most talked about companies in India. It speaks a lot and surely for so many companies, the focus is not on corporate image building. I have talked about higher fund allocations in the past, but there is no solution to a lack of corporate intent. It's time the CEOs took note; a cover page here and a feature there don't really take you places.
In terms of different sectors, IT, telecom and automobile continued their dream run, while aviation is fast picking up. The banking sector is performing decently but with the regular rate hikes and continuous flow of customer complaints of harassment by third-party musclemen, the industry might not stay popular for long. The mutual fund industry is not playing to its potential and the private insurance players are disappointing me. LIC still has 65 per cent of the market and this is a battle of public perception that can only be won through PR. They need a big push with allocation, intent and strategy. Retail and real estate are picking up and while the retail players are more sophisticated in their approach, the real estate guys will take some time to master the art.
One area where we would love to see lots of focus is corporate social responsibility, and if we go by media reports, there is hardly anything happening. We will be watching this genre closely and we intend to bring out a special report on CSR. India needs socially responsible companies.
In the political arena, media has always played a very important role in shaping public perceptions. Effective media management is critical to the people in power. A close look at the
figures will tell you that most of the min is t r ies are not pro jected as favourably as they would have liked to be. Lots of good work is happening and some ministries have remained extremely low profile. The Ministry of Shipping, Road Transport & Highways is one such. There is need for strategic management of media appearances at the highest level. Public appearances should only be to connect with the masses. Each message should be strategically positioned to reach the target audience, reinforced convincingly to deliver expected outcomes.
End of the day, it's all about the bottom line. And effective media management does contribute to it. •
Cirrus (www.icirrus.com) is a national corporate image monitor that pioneered media evaluation in India. Every year, Cirrus analyses over half a million news pieces in nine different languages on more than 1,400 corporate entities. It is part of agencyfaqs and not associated with any PR agency. The BT-Cirrus annual survey is the only cross-industry report of its kind. Feedback to bt-cirrus@icirrus. com
Esha News Monitoring Services Pvt. Ltd (www.eshanews.com) is the official television content monitor for all BT-Cirrus surveys. Esha monitors over 100 news channels in nine Indian languages. Viewership figures for all news items in this survey have been provided by aMap (www. a udiencemap. com)
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