Rebooting BHEL

In mid January 2016, a week into his new job as chairman and managing director of BHEL, Atul Sobti took a decision he would share with his employees the difficult situation the company was in. BHEL's financials, which showed falling revenue and profit, were no doubt public, but the details and extent of its problems were not.

In his speech during a visit to BHEL's Hyderabad facility where about 3,000 of its 50,000 odd employees work he revealed that the demand for its principal products was falling steeply, both because the power sector was not doing well and due to growing competition from cheap Chinese imports and domestic private players. He noted that BHEL's recent diversification plans had not progressed as well as they should have. Returning to Delhi, he wrote separate letters to different sections of employees, including the workers, reiterating all he had said earlier, even ensuring that the letters were translated into many regional languages.

Started in