What would you say has been your best business decision?

My best business decision is clearly sitting down with my younger colleagues and together coming to the conclusion that our objective must be to seek respect from every one of our stakeholders -- respect from customers, respect from employees, respect from vendor partners, respect from investors, respect from government of the land, and respect from society. . . I can tell you that that is the best decision that I have taken.

We had a four-hour-long discussion in 1981. Somebody said we must be the company with the most revenue, somebody else said we must be the most profitable. Finally, we all agreed that we will become the most respected company in India. Our logic was very simple. If we seek respect from our customers, we will not shortchange them; if we seek respect from our employees, we will treat them with dignity and fairness; if we seek respect from our investors, we will follow the best principles of corporate governance; if we seek respect from our vendor partners we will be fair with them and sympathetic to them; if we seek respect from the government, we will not violate a single law of the land, and if we seek respect from our society, we will give back to the society.

And then we said revenues will come, profits will come, market capitalization with come.

And in 1999, when Economic Times instituted their award, we were the first company to win the award of the Best Company of the Year, ahead of all multinationals and corporations much bigger than us! To me, that has given us the greatest satisfaction: the fact that we chose respect as the most important objective.