This is a Case I wrote for evaluation purposes in the Business Ethics course:
The rise of Headstrong Builders to the league of top firms in the market had been nothing less than phenomenal. A fresh company merely 5 years back, Headstrong Builders were giving the market leaders, Nadiadwala & Sons, a run for their money. In an industry where revenues were governed by strategies and politicking around tenders for major construction deals, HeadStrong Builders (HB), with a visionary and strong-willed leader in the form of Mr. Akash Bhalla, had always relied on using the best of materials, excellent service and fair methods of bidding for contracts. The Gods had been kind and Mr. Bhalla knew it, but being at the top was a dream he had always cherished.
A mere 45 years old, Akash Bhalla was a man of few words. However, he was immensely innovative, ferociously hardworking and inspite of all the success, remarkably humble. A civil engineer from IIT Cawnpore and a management graduate from Crochet Institute of Management, Mr. Bhalla had learned the importance of hardwork and dedication, and considered no other path to success to be an agreeable option. Having been a brilliant student and studied at the most prestigious of institutes, he had also gotten used to being a success story everywhere he went. The quick success of his company had buoyed his confidence but his ambition to dethrone Nadiadwala & Sons, coupled with the recent spate of contracts his firm had lost to them, had been enough to give him sleepless nights.
When Bhalla had started out his firm in 2005, he had set up shop out of a small rented and renovated godown in the city of Agra. He had a small staff of 30 odd people and invested in rigorous groundwork before establishing a long term contract with a labour supply firm and another long standing firm in the construction materials business. Over the years, the firm had grown tremendously in size, with offices in 3 other locations across India and a working staff of close to 400 people. Apart from a huge turnover of over Rs. 3500 crores, HB's market reputation had grown after the conclusion of the recent CommonWealth Games. The construction activities during the event had come under the judicial scanner due to reported cases of misappropriation of funds and use of inferior materials. However, after painstaking trials, HB was among the few firms who had come out with a complete clean sheet.
HB's major market lay in the Eastern UP belt as the urban areas in many cities in this region were undergoing a major face-lift and the reckless drive of corporate retail giants to introduce the “mall” culture to the towns as well was creating a huge business prospect for construction firms. However, Nadiadwala had been operating in this region for almost two decades now and perhaps it was this knowledge of the pulse of the market that had led to its unparalleled success in winning tenders. Their chairman was a man of the world and was a popular figure in the local circles. There were rumours that all the practices of the firm were not entirely fair and an acute sense of business was not the only factor which had kept the firm going for all these years. Bhalla, however, had no intention to investigate any such matters and believed that their efforts would help them trump this dominance.
Bhalla believed that his success lay in the people his firm possessed. He was very proud of the hiring practices of his firm and to date, kept a keen check on each and every staff member being added to the rolls. Once inside the firm, the employees always knew that Mr. Bhalla would be collecting regular reports about every member's performance and any promotions/pay hikes would be accorded purely on this evaluation. However, he was also open to discussion and whole-heartedly welcomed employees who wished to meet him to share their troubles or any opinion they had with regards to the company workings or policies.
Apart from this, Bhalla had a core group of five employees – brilliant, dedicated managers and engineers who had been carefully handpicked by Bhalla through other construction firms or from the best campuses across the country. One of the recent inductees, Anil Mani, a young man of thirty, had got himself counted in Bhalla's good books pretty soon with his keen intellect and irrepressible drive to stay ahead of the competition. Anil, a product of WimV School of Management, had worked his way through a 'dog eat dog' environment where results were the only thing that mattered. Bhalla was wary of such attitude, having heard faint murmurs about Anil's behaviour from other staff members, but felt it better not to question him till- as long as he produced excellent results.
Meanwhile, towards the end of the first decade of the millenium, construction work in the UP belt was witnessing a massive peak due to certain radical reconstruction plans announced by the State government. Bhalla, of course, saw this as an opportunity to fulfill his dream of achieving market dominance but knew winning huge contracts like the ones in the pipeline would be an uphill task. He organized various meetings with members of the company board and also invited few of his trusted employees to discuss where they could improvise to ensure that results went their way. After long hours of brainstorming, few strategies were developed but Bhalla was growing more and more unsure of what impact these changes would bring in terms of winning them the relevant contracts. It was after one such meeting where plans were being discussed, that Bhalla was sitting slouched in his chair and lost deep in thought, when Anil knocked on his door.
Bhalla was a little surprised to see Anil approach him in his office late in the evening, but promptly asked him in. Anil had been part of the long meeting that Bhalla had gotten out of barely fifteen minutes back and which had worsened Bhalla's unfounded fears of losing the contract to Nadiadwala again. Anil had been remarkably quiet during the meeting, a fact that Bhalla had silently ovserved.
“I wish to talk to you about the plans our firm has for the contract bid.”, said Anil. Bhalla gestured him to continue.
“I believe I have a solution to our company's problems and a sure way to match Nadiadwala's contract. Although, I am not very sure if you would be willing to go ahead with this approach”.
“Would you care to come to the point?”, shot back Bhalla, his frustration now clearly showing in his tone.
“Sir, I might have skipped these details when I came here for employment, but I had worked at Nadiadwala's office for a brief stint and was responsible for analysis of material costs and contract pricing. I know of, and I dare say, am in the possession of certain documents, which reveal that their firm has clear cost standards and a knowledge of those would give us a clear idea of the bids they are going to make. All I require is your permission to act on this.”.
Anil's suggestion left Bhalla stunned. On one hand, he was aghast to hear Anil had never talked about his association with Nadiadwala. However, the other side of him suddenly grinned at the prospect of a way out. But soon enough, his conscience came in the way and he flinched. All this while, Anil was patiently waiting for a response.
“How can I trust you?”, quipped Bhalla. Anil was taken aback at this, but gathered himself soon quickly.
“HeadStrong was where my efforts were rewarded, Sir. I have no incentive to fool you.”. With this he moved out of the room in swift fashion.
Bhalla, though, was left battling a lot of doubts and trepidations. It had been a rather usual day but this startling turn of events had left him in a state of mental disarray. All his life, he had been an honest person and had stayed as far away from unfair practices as possible. The firm's image owed a lot to the transparent policies and the ethical methods it adopted in its day to day functions. Could he jeopardize this set of principles and ideals for the pleasure of being called the No.1 firm? But then, hadn't it always been his ambition? And he couldn't have been closer to achieving it...
Fair dealing, at the end of the day, was merely perception. What if Anil brought him all the information and they worked out the nuances inside closed doors? He was also perturbed by the intangible or evident favours Anil might ask for at a later stage for this act of his. Nobody risks his image for charity, he thought.
His scruples were, more or less, the only barrier in the way of the fulfillment of his ambitions. It had been a long day. With a thousand questions running through his head, Bhalla bolted the door and headed home.
