This is about Satyam Saga. Most of the articles and comments I have read in business media focus on tangibles like revenue, profits, number of customers, etc. So in today’s post I am discussing my view of Satyam Saga. My focus is more on the intangible issues that are hidden and may not visible to common investor.

I would like begin with commending the authorities who made this transition smooth, swift, and without much ado. The use of word authorities here is a proxy for industry association, company law board, ministry officials, and other unknown institutions. I believe if this situation had prolonged and quick decisions were not made, Satyam would have went for a toss, and it would have had a negative impact on Indian outsourcing business. The short term implications would have been far reaching somewhat similar to Lehman Brothers.

One company is Tech Mahindra (TM). The other one is not Satyam. My personal viewpoint about Satyam is that it does not have wide moat in the supply chain. It operates on a business model which uses labor arbitrage as its USP. It is relatively easy and manageable for customers to shift the vendor and still not have any significant impact on their operations. I do not have any intention to offend Satyam folks. However, one has to be pragmatic and take into account how their customer base (i.e. international companies across the developed world) views them as a company. It is viewed as Wal-Mart of software outsourcing industry. The second company I would like to include here is Larsen and Toubro (LnT). Continue reading rest of this article…