On Wednesday when Rajan Mittal, vice-chairman at Bharti Enterprises, announced at a town hall meeting that former Wal-Mart India CEO Raj Jain will join Bharti Retail as an adviser, the crowd erupted in applause. Wal-Mart Asia head Scott Price, who barely four months ago had ousted Jain amidst an internal probe into possible violation of US anti-bribery laws, was at the town hall in Bharti Walmart's Gurgaon office.
"They had to struggle to keep the applause down and Price was visibly embarrassed," said a person who attended Wednesday's meeting where Walmart and Bharti also announced their break-up.
Why is Jain so popular among his subordinates as well as the Mittals? Because he is a good strategist, calm in nature and, most importantly, has excellent people-management skills, say Bharti officials. And he had no red mark in his record till that fateful summer day.
At around 7.30 in the morning on June 26, when Jain was busy at home preparing a presentation about Bharti Walmart's future plans to his boss Price, KPMG consultants and lawyers from US law firm Greenberg Traurig were sealing his cabin in the Gurgaon office.
Then Jain was summoned to Vivanta by Taj Hotel in Gurgaon where he met Price, Donny Rumsby, vice-president of asset protection for Walmart Asia, executives from KPMG and lawyers from the Greenberg Traurig.
Price asked Jain to resign. He refused.
Later the seven people drove to Bharti Walmart office, packed in a Toyota Innova. Bharti Walmart officials were quickly summoned to fourth floor for a town hall. And Price announced that Jain is no longer with the company.
"Raj deserved much better than the way Walmart handled his case," a former senior Bharti Walmart executive who worked under Jain said.
Officials say Rajan Mittal expressed his displeasure when Ramnik Narsey, who replaced Jain as the chief executive of Bharti Walmart, called on him. "This is not our culture to deal with employees," he had told Narsey, they say.
Rajan and Sunil Mittal had so much faith in Jain that two Bharti veterans who were transferred to the retail venture a few years ago were removed because they couldn't work with Jain.
Many Bharti Walmart officials ET spoke with said Jain, 54, is good in spotting talent and nurturing people. "The traditional leaders will think ten times, but Raj won't hesitate to give someone a role ahead of time if he believes," said the former official quoted earlier.
"He is crafty too, in the sense he knows how to manage his bosses," said another.
Not that everybody in Bharti Walmart is a Jain fan. Some people who have worked with him say that if Jain did not like any employee he would ensure that the person left the company, adding that he has done it with some people. They also say Jain is known to bring his own set of people, creating a coterie of sort in the office. "Bharti Walmart was sometime also called a 'mini Whirlpool'," said a company executive, referring to a host of people Jain poached from Whirlpool India that he headed between 1995 and 2005.
However, Jain, who heralded the joint venture since its inception in 2007, has been widely credited with building a cash-and-carry business in a complex market like India.
Jain started his career as a management trainee at Hindustan Unilever (then Hindustan Lever) where he was one of the key people handling the southern operations.
Raju Aneja, who worked with Jain in those days, remembers him as a great people manager. "I was his boss at Levers and he was the branch manager at Madras. He is one of the best branch managers I ever worked with in India, Brazil and East Africa. He is excellent in managing people and had great human relations skills," said Aneja, who is currently a management consultant for companies in Latin America and Middle East. Even today Jain tries to mingle with even till the bottom-level employees, Bharti executives say.
After joining Whirlpool, Jain was instrumental in setting up the US appliance maker's first greenfield plant in India at Pune. Eventually he became Whirlpool India MD in 2000.
A senior industry executive with a rival firm said that under Jain Whirlpool was giving tough competition to the Korean duo LG and Samsung. "Whirlpool used to have a lot of outstanding and credit in the trade, which Jain reduced considerably by bringing stricter trade terms," he said.
The person said Jain by nature sought discipline and methodology in business practices. "Jain is a tough task-master," he said, adding that he introduced six-day working culture in Whirlpool corporate office to ensure time spent on work was similar both at the plant and in the office. In 2004, Jain moved to Whirlpool Shanghai office as the head for new product planning for the Asia-Pacific region. In 2006, he joined the Shanghai office of Walmart.
"They had to struggle to keep the applause down and Price was visibly embarrassed," said a person who attended Wednesday's meeting where Walmart and Bharti also announced their break-up.
Why is Jain so popular among his subordinates as well as the Mittals? Because he is a good strategist, calm in nature and, most importantly, has excellent people-management skills, say Bharti officials. And he had no red mark in his record till that fateful summer day.
At around 7.30 in the morning on June 26, when Jain was busy at home preparing a presentation about Bharti Walmart's future plans to his boss Price, KPMG consultants and lawyers from US law firm Greenberg Traurig were sealing his cabin in the Gurgaon office.
Then Jain was summoned to Vivanta by Taj Hotel in Gurgaon where he met Price, Donny Rumsby, vice-president of asset protection for Walmart Asia, executives from KPMG and lawyers from the Greenberg Traurig.
Price asked Jain to resign. He refused.
Later the seven people drove to Bharti Walmart office, packed in a Toyota Innova. Bharti Walmart officials were quickly summoned to fourth floor for a town hall. And Price announced that Jain is no longer with the company.
"Raj deserved much better than the way Walmart handled his case," a former senior Bharti Walmart executive who worked under Jain said.
Officials say Rajan Mittal expressed his displeasure when Ramnik Narsey, who replaced Jain as the chief executive of Bharti Walmart, called on him. "This is not our culture to deal with employees," he had told Narsey, they say.
Rajan and Sunil Mittal had so much faith in Jain that two Bharti veterans who were transferred to the retail venture a few years ago were removed because they couldn't work with Jain.
Many Bharti Walmart officials ET spoke with said Jain, 54, is good in spotting talent and nurturing people. "The traditional leaders will think ten times, but Raj won't hesitate to give someone a role ahead of time if he believes," said the former official quoted earlier.
"He is crafty too, in the sense he knows how to manage his bosses," said another.
Not that everybody in Bharti Walmart is a Jain fan. Some people who have worked with him say that if Jain did not like any employee he would ensure that the person left the company, adding that he has done it with some people. They also say Jain is known to bring his own set of people, creating a coterie of sort in the office. "Bharti Walmart was sometime also called a 'mini Whirlpool'," said a company executive, referring to a host of people Jain poached from Whirlpool India that he headed between 1995 and 2005.
However, Jain, who heralded the joint venture since its inception in 2007, has been widely credited with building a cash-and-carry business in a complex market like India.
Jain started his career as a management trainee at Hindustan Unilever (then Hindustan Lever) where he was one of the key people handling the southern operations.
Raju Aneja, who worked with Jain in those days, remembers him as a great people manager. "I was his boss at Levers and he was the branch manager at Madras. He is one of the best branch managers I ever worked with in India, Brazil and East Africa. He is excellent in managing people and had great human relations skills," said Aneja, who is currently a management consultant for companies in Latin America and Middle East. Even today Jain tries to mingle with even till the bottom-level employees, Bharti executives say.
After joining Whirlpool, Jain was instrumental in setting up the US appliance maker's first greenfield plant in India at Pune. Eventually he became Whirlpool India MD in 2000.
A senior industry executive with a rival firm said that under Jain Whirlpool was giving tough competition to the Korean duo LG and Samsung. "Whirlpool used to have a lot of outstanding and credit in the trade, which Jain reduced considerably by bringing stricter trade terms," he said.
The person said Jain by nature sought discipline and methodology in business practices. "Jain is a tough task-master," he said, adding that he introduced six-day working culture in Whirlpool corporate office to ensure time spent on work was similar both at the plant and in the office. In 2004, Jain moved to Whirlpool Shanghai office as the head for new product planning for the Asia-Pacific region. In 2006, he joined the Shanghai office of Walmart.
Walmart got into wholesale business in India by default, because that was the only space foreign retailers were allowed to operate in when it entered the country. India allowed