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ET adopted a democratic, participa-

tive and rigorous process to choose

the best and the brightest of India Inc.

In an elaborate two-step exercise,

the selection process began with

number crunching done by the ETIntelligence Group (ETIG). In some

categories, parameters were set by

ETIG to shortlist the candidates. For

example, for the Company of the Year

award, companies with an average

market capitalisation of over`11,000

crore and revenues of over `3,000

crore were considered. They were

ranked on the parameters of net sales,

net profit, market cap and RoE, share

price return over a one-year period

and CAGR in revenue and net profit

over a three-year period. Companies

incorporated post 1995 and having

a market capitalisation of more than

`1,000 crore, were considered for the

Emerging Company of the Year award.

Criteria used for Business Leader and

Entrepreneur of the Year included the

creation of successful and enduring

brands, leadership and vision, and a

transformational approach to busi-

ness and industry that has left a last-

ing mark. The new category of Startup

of the Year looks for an enterprisewith potential to establish itself as an

innovative and financially successful

company. For Global Indian, the jury

looked for an Indian who has excelled

against competition in a global envi-

ronment, and for the Corporate Citizen

Award, companies with turnover

exceeding `500 crore that have done

well or have made significant progress

on social, environmental and govern-

ance challenges were considered. The

Business Reformer category seeks to

honour a public servant or politician

dedicated to the cause of promoting

business and trade, while Lifetime

Achievement honours a personality

who has transformed the face of their

industry, and put India on the interna-

tional map in their own way.

METHODOLOGY

The year 2013 has proved tobe a watershed for AshishHemrajani, 38, and histeam at BookMyShow. InJuly this year, Indias most

popular ticketing website signed afive-year pact with PVR Cinemas tosell the multiplex chains tickets on itsportal. This one deal is estimated toyield revenues of `1,000 crore for thecompany, which has been chosen asthe Startup of the Year 2013.

We feel very privileged, saidHemrajani, founder and CEO ofBigtree Entertainment, the holdingcompany of BookMyShow. Thisaward had a heavyweight jury, andif they thin k we are worthy, it is a bigvalidation for us.

Earlier this year, Bigtree acquiredTicketgreen.com, a rival with a largefootprint in southern India, cement-ing BookMyShows near-monopo-listic stature as Indias largest enter-tainment ticketing portal.

A venture that initially started out

as just another movie ticket portal,BookMyShow now offers the Indianconsumer a choice of tickets rangingfrom the Indian Premier League tothe Formula One India Grand Prix,music concerts, plays and stand-upcomic acts. BookMyShow has ex-panded operations to global markets,including New Zealand, Australia

and the UK, boosting investor inter-est in the five-year-old venture. InAugust 2012, Accel Partners, whichcounts companies such as Facebookin its portfolio, invested`100 crore inthe company to buy an undisclosedstake through a combination of pri-mary share issue and sale of sharesby Network18, one of the investors.The deal reportedly valued theMumbai-based BookMyShow at close

to 400 crore.For Hemrajani, the

startup journey beganwhile he was on vaca-tion nearly a decadeago. Intrigued by thevariety of leisure-time options that theInternet threw upwhile holidaying inSouth Africa, the

24-year-old trawled the sites of inter-national ticketing companies such asFandango and Ticketmaster.

Back home in India, Hemrajani quit

his job at ad firm J Walter Thompsonto launch Bigtree Entertainment.But he could not sustain the fledgl ingventure after the dotcom bubble burstin 2001. He managed to stay af loat byrunning call centres and developingsoftware for cinemas. He relaunchedthe brand as BookMyShow.com in2007, when he saw a revival in the

consumer market.It was the second coming, said the

entrepreneur, who expects to sell 100million tickets a year by 2016-17. Heestimates that around 4 billion movietickets are sold in India every year,and that 90% of the tickets boughtonline are purchased on his portal.

BookMyShow offers tickets for over2,000 screens in tie-up with cinemachains such as Inox, Fame and BigCinemas, and theatre venues suchas Prithvi, India Habitat Centre andRangashankara. Hemrajani said thecompany earns 40% of its revenuesfrom non-movie events, includingFormula 1, Indian Premier Leagueand football and live music concerts.

The focus now for BookMyShow isIndias much-neglected tier-2 and tier-3 cities. Given the low Internet pen-etration in the country, the companywill not simply stop at offering ticketsonline. The risk capital funding isbeing used to sign on single-screencinemas and events in small towns

and cities, and building technologiesaround mobile payments and applica-tions. Mobile is a huge thrust, saidHemrajani, who expects one-thirdof revenues through mobile transac-tions in the near future.

A competitive sailor, Hemrajani saidthe best thing about this award wasthat it was not in anybodys hands.

He Proves All Weekdays, NotJust Fridays, are Blockbusters

THE AWARD SEEKS TO

recognise a startup whichhas the potential to rapidly

establish itself as aninnovative and financially

successful company

Startup of the YearBookMyShow

Hemrajanisays 90% ofmovie tickets

boughtonline inIndia arepurchasedon his portal

THE AWARD

SEEKS TO

honour thecontribution topublic goodthroughcommitmentto criticalsocial causesthat influencethe lives ofthousands ofneedy Indians

When you are a com-pany with plants andlarge campuses at asmany as 24 locationsacross the country,

it sometimes becomes a matter ofconscience for you to take care ofthe people who live and work justoutside your factory walls.

At Larsen & Toubro, this is not anoption, it is embedded in the very cul-ture of the company. When you be-

come an integral part of a neighbour-hood, it becomes your obligation tobecome one with the communityaround, says Executive ChairmanAM Naik. You have to think, oncompassionate grounds, what moreyou can do for the people [livingaround your area of operations]. Themore people in your neighbourhoodare happy, the more there is peace inthe area. Not to mention consider-able goodwill for the company.

In 2012-13, L&T contributed`73.04crore (or about 1.49% of its profit af-ter tax) towards social development,which took the form of four focus are-as: education, skill-building, health-care and environment. According toits 2013 annual report, the companyhas reached out to half-a-millionbeneficiaries, secured a source oflivelihood for over 5,000 underprivi-leged women and set up more than 50learning centres.

When it comes to education, thecompany has through outreachto 147 schools and its communitylearning centres benefitted al-most 1 lakh underprivileged chil-dren (a 44% increase over last year).The engineering and technologycompany has helped develop infra-structure in schools near its Hazira,Kansbahal and Chandigarh plants,and in the suburbs of Hyderabad,Jamshedpur, Chennai, Surat,

Rourkela, Murshidabad and Vizag.It provides learning kits to variousrural and slum school s, as well to or-phanages. The companys CSR driv-er, the L&T Public Charitable Trust,has supported the implementationof Project Vidyaa in Gujarat andMaharashtra, where some 36,000children in 56 schools participatedin various academic events, healthcheck-ups and IQ and personalitydevelopment sessions.

The idea that by 2022, of an estimat-ed 700 million jobseekers in Indiaonly 200 million may be g raduates,is not lost on L&T. The constructionmajor turns a keen eye on skill-build-ing by supporting eight constructionskills training institutes (CSTIs)and 27 Industrial Training Institutesacross the country.

It also believes in adomino effect whenit comes to women that empoweringthem with employ-ment and vocationalopportunities will goa long way in creatinga healthy, well-adjust-ed society, while alsobridging the skills

gap. L&T has collaborated withvarious non-profit organisations toensure income generation for 5,200women till now.

L&Ts Project Neev works withnon-profits to mainstream and cre-ate livelihood opportunities for thedifferently abled.

In the coming years, it will up theante on education and nutrition ini-tiatives for children; skill-buildingand income generation; healthcarefor women and kids and general med-ical care. It will also pursue specificgreen goals in ensuring environ-mental sustainability.

Corporate Citizen of the YearLarsen & Toubro

The Big Giant ofEngineering hasa Humane Heart

L&T nowplans to upthe ante oneducation &nutrition forchildren, andhealthcare

for women

THE AWARD SEEKS TO

honour a public servant(politician or bureaucrat)dedicated to the cause ofpromoting business & trade

On October 29 last year, threemonths after taking overas the finance ministerfor the first time in UPA-2, P Chidambaram said

he would keep the fiscal deficit for2012-13 at 5.3% of GDP. The marketslaughed off his assertion. Most pri-vate forecasters pegged the deficit atclose to 6% of GDP citing a slowingeconomy. Economic growth fell to adecade-low of 5% for the year, provingmany of them right, but they did nothave the same satisfaction with theirestimates for the fiscal deficit.

An unprecedented spending freezesaw the fiscal deficit drop to 4.9% ofGDP, letting Chidambaram have thelast laugh. For the current year, hehas set a target of 4.8%, which he in-sists will not be breached.

Chidambaram has restored thecredibility of the government in theeconomic sphere, possibly his big-gest achievement in his latest stint atNorth Block. The markets listen and,more importantly, believe what thegovernment says. Although at timesthey are disappointed by the quan-tum of action, there is no doubtingthe seriousness of intent any more.

Known to relish challenges,

Chidambaram, a Harvard-trainedlawyer acknowledged by friends andfoes alike for his clarity and rigour,has transformed North Block, theseat of Indias economic policy mak-ing, almost overnight. The 68-year-old, immortalised in public memoryfor his dream budget of 1997-98, hasalmost taken it personally to changeIndias economic destiny.

Soon after takingcharge, he goaded theUPA leadership totake tough decisions.So much so, that UPAalmost staked its sur-vival on a decisionchampioned by him FDI in multi-brand re-tail. Rules for single-

brand retail were eased, the aviationsector was opened to foreign airlinesand the government bit the bullet onfuel price reform.

Chidambaram suggested FDI re-forms and a more liberal regime forforeign investors, an idea that officialsin his ministry rushed from concep-tion to announcement in record time.

He rushed from one global financialcentre to another to assure jittery in-vestors that all was well with India,

and outlined a series of reforms thathe subsequently delivered. The im-plementation of the controversialanti-tax avoidance rules (GAAR),was deferred for three years and theminister promised a non-adversarialtax regime to soothe nerves frayed bythe retrospective amendments to thetax law in the 2012-13 budget.

Another game-changing idea wasto suggest and get the governmentto set up the Cabinet Committee onInvestment to clear stalled projects,the results of which should begin toshow up in the next few quarters.

But through all this, he has alsobeen less than lucky. The recentrupee depreciation has taken someof the sheen off the turnaroundachieved by the finance minister.Growth may be lower than last yearand inflation continues to rise.

But to his credit, Chidambaram con-tinues to fight on and arg ue for morereforms. He has promised to rein inthe current account deficit and hasassured that election-year populismwill not derail his budget and reformsto repair the economy will continue.

The wider jury may be out on wheth-er this can happen, but the ET AwardsJury has little doubt about his intent.

This Man of the Moment

Always Means Business

Business ReformerP Chidambaram Union Minister of Finance

His actionshelped

India averta sovereignratingsdowngradethat appeared

Indias strength has always been the quality of itsentrepreneurs, whether its individuals or corporations

Anshu Jain Co-CEO, Deutsche Bank

HOW THEY MADE IT TO

THE HALL OF FAME

INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL: (from left) ICICI B ank Chairman KV Kamath, HDFC B ank MD Aditya Puri, TAFE Chairman & CEO Mallika Srinivasanand Unilever COO Harish Manwani

AM Naik

Ashish Hemrajani

7WWW.ECONOMICTIME S.COM