Speaking at the CII seminar, he said that there was a need for Sundram Fasteners to break out of non-growth mould and so the company had to look for an agenda. "The main company agenda is to change when no change is perceived," Suresh Krishna noted and said such a strategic shift in agenda was required to make the company world class.

First the CEO had to have the attribute of having a vision- an outlook built out of the synthesis of views and aspirations of what people inside and outside the company felt about the company and issues affecting company performance.

Sundram Fasteners, he said, is a company that has been making the same products for the last 30 years - fasteners - and is basically a metal-bashing industry.

There was no excitement, no obsolescence. But for a company to thrive it had to rely on quality and be price competitive. Also it had to move with the times.

In the Eighties, Sundram Fasteners found that the Indian market was not growing and so the vision focus had to be changed to cater to export markets. Addressing the export markets meant that the company's products were not only qualitatively superior but also globally competitive.

According to Suresh Krishna what is important is not just product quality and pricing but the process of manufacturing - to make that a world class process. Sundram Fasteners was thus the first company in India to go in for ISO/9000 in 1990. Since focussing on exports in 1983, exports have been doubled.

In 1997, the company went in for Total Productivity Management and could effectively meet the juggernaut of competition. Besides, as Suresh Krishna says, having TPM and ISO/9000 certification were good calling cards for the company. This came about when the vision was communicated effectively across the entire workforce on the need to be globally competitive. This meant continuously bench-marking the company's production practices with the best in the world.

However, Suresh Krishna was totally opposed to the idea of floating joint ventures to be globally competitive. Entry of multinationals as a joint venture partner came with the risk of outright takeover or needless interference in systems and practices of the company. To be world class must be a credo.

One out-of-the-box idea for the company was to get into the supply of radiator caps to General Motors and successfully go on to win the Best Supplier's Award for four years consecutively. The company also enjoys zero defect performance for the five million radiator caps it supplied to 28 different plants of GM with zero delivery miss, twice a week.

Krishna's advice: Indian companies can become world class multinationals if excellence becomes a religion. For far too long mediocrity has been tolerated and good becomes rare while excellence is viewed as an idiosyncrasy. It's time Indian companies stopped thinking themselves as chicks and learnt to look up skywards, sprout wings and soar like eagles.