Who said thrillers died with the end of the Cold War? Asian markets collapsed, global commodity prices slipped, and the Internet mystique continued to propel software stocks to an all-new valuation paradigm.

The Indian industry experienced a heady year of riding the crests and troughs of global economic currents, suffering bruising lessons in survival and downsizing, but in the end, emerged wiser and tougher.

Bottomlines and learning curves took off in opposite directions -- downward and upward, respectively. Business slowed to a crawl, and mostly, government announcements of purchase orders and market-boosting packages failed to boost growth, as it had done so many times in the protected past.

Instead, answers to the difficult questions started coming from within the corporations. Cost-cutting became the tool ofthe year, with every corporation scanning every centimeter of its account books to find pennies to pinch, to implement systems that made business simpler, eliminating redundancies, duplications, inefficiencies.

Even then, around October, as corporate bottomlines nosedived right across the performance graphs, Andersen Consulting managing partner Sid Khanna told The Financial Express in an exclusive interview that his firm could walk into any company and pare 15 per cent inefficiency straightaway.

Companies retreated into themselves, and sought management-related exits from the recessionary tunnel (rather than policy-related escapes as in the past). Fixed-asset ownership and addition became the subject of careful judgment, as "outsourcing" and "vendor management" provided gainful alternative systems. Thousands of small- and medium-scale enterprises therefore gained from the management and automation-related experience and expertise of giants such as Hindustan Lever (fast-moving consumer goods, foods) orReliance Industries (textiles, petrochemicals) as they became, as suppliers, vendors and sourcing agents, key players in the corporate giants' game plans.

Hardly a surprise was the fact that supply-chain management consultants laughed all the way to the bank through the year -- the Indian industry was beginning to automate, systematise its relationship with its immediate business environment.

As commodity prices sank into lower depths than ever, the companies realised that a supreme sacrifice of margins would be necessary, and that tentacles would have to extend deep and straight into the Indian heartland to push volumes and preserve bottomlines. Operating profit margins therefore remained virtually stagnant, but sales rose, propelled by volume push and superior distribution management.

Another crucial method emerged to increase sales and add to fixed assets: mergers and acquisitions. Replacement-cost theory, the theory that a taken over asset costs less than what would have been the cost of setting upa whole new unit, does not really work, Gujarat Ambuja Cement treasurer Anil Sighvi was at pains to point out during informal chats with The Financial Express during the year. But his industry clearly thought otherwise. The cement industry led the country's first real M&A boom, as excess capacities changed owners through bids hostile and friendly.

The government could and did play one important role. It gave Indian industry a voice in policy-making it never had before. The prime minister set up a committee of industrialists, who later each headed committees on important aspects of business. Ratan Tata, Nusli Wadia, Mukesh Ambani, Kumar Mangalam Birla and Rahul Bajaj brought to bear all their experience to weave, for the first time in India's history, a private sector-led formula for economic revival. It was an important blueprint for growth, a valuable document of the progressive mindset of India Inc's attitude to national progress.

There were frustrations during the year. The Tata group was unable to flywith its airport and airline projects -- thanks to unrelenting stalling tactics of the bureaucracy, political wranglings and rival lobbying. A huge cyclone temporarily set back the civil construction of the Reliance mega project, the recovery from which turned into a management exercise in itself. Hindustan Lever constantly felt the searing breath of regulatory heat on its neck, accused as it stood of insider trading, and although the finance ministry's appellate authority absolved it, the issue continues to be a court subject.

There were examples of companies simply unable to cope with the recession, and giving in. India Polyfibres became a sourcing agent for Reliance and then the RPG group promoters divested substantial equity to the Ambanis. Oswal Petrochem had to declare a lockout, Baroda Rayon continued to strive for survival, and JCT went through the motions of a botched up sale to Indonesian Polysindo.

But as the year drags to an end, although no end to the general tragic overtones of the externaleconomic environment is in sight, there are substantial indications that the schoolbooks Indian corporates have been carrying to school over the last year are full. If you have some money to put on their survival through the toughest of tests, the bets are safe.