Management Lessons from the Masters (Believe to Succeed Like Azim Premji)

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'We must remain "trustees" of our wealth for society, not its owners.' —Azim Premji

To decode success, one must borrow a leaf from an accomplished life. In this book, author Rajiv Agarwal, also a management professor and family business consultant, shows the strategies used by the czar of the Indian IT industry, Azim Premji, to chart his route for success.

In the fourth book in the series, Management Lessons from the Masters, Agarwal analyses various moves and decisions made by Premji before he became the face of corporate philanthropy. It shares an insight into the vision and principles of a man who started his entrepreneurial journey with a small vegetable oil company at the young age of 21 and went on to build Wipro, one of India's leading IT organizations.

In this authoritative and compelling account, the author shows how Premji, the founder and chairman of Wipro, fearlessly diversified the organization into varied industries (FMCG, IT services and infrastructure engineering). Besides, Premji also inspired entrepreneurs around the world to generously donate large parts of their wealth. Today, his endowment of $21 billion is among the top five endowments in the world.

A must-read for aspiring leaders as well as students, this book shows how wealth can be used to impact the lives of many, not just stakeholders of a business.

I began writing this book, with trepidation, in the middle of the year 2019. Given Azim Premji's reputation for media shyness, I was not sure whether I would get the information I required. But I ventured forth anyway, since I believed that his story was not adequately covered and it was one which needed to be told.

I was fortunate, as just then he had announced he was stepping down from Wipro and the media was filled with information covering this momentous event. But my research showed that there was still very little background information on him in the public domain. Keeping these limitations in mind, I still attempted to write this book.

Readers would be advised to note that this work is based purely and solely on information available in the public domain. Hence, it may suffer from the limitations of being restricted to what is being reported therein. Due to this, there could be errors or misstatements, and readers are advised to treat this work accordingly.

The story of Azim Premji and his journey encompasses a fifty-three-year-long career with Wipro, as it transitioned from a small vegetable oil firm to a $8.5 billion information technology giant.' It is a story worth narrating.

Premji is, perhaps, one of the best examples of a media-shy billionaire who is successful, yet not a very prominent personality in the media—entirely by his choice.

The roots of serving society run deep in the Premji family. If his success and achievements can be an inspiration to the many young managers who are seeking to better their lives and careers, his generosity redefines the concept of capitalism. Capitalism has always been regarded as the exploitation of resources and (sometimes) people for the sole purpose of enriching the individual and/or family. Now, it has one more purpose, which is to ensure that the creation of wealth has a nobler objective—to impact society in a meaningful manner. The gargantuan size of his giveaway, coupled with his intention to ensure that it is being used in an impactful manner, shows his patriotic and altruistic intent, which is exemplary and admirable.

That is just one of the stories—perhaps the biggest—which surrounds the enigma that is Azim Premji. And that is all the more reason why his story needs to be told.