In her retrospective account of Conzerv, former CEO Hema Hattangady says the company dismissed senior sales managers accused of taking distributor kickbacks and later refused personal demands from an official inspecting a state electricity-board contract. The first episode led to a year of rebuilding the sales team; the second contributed to Conzerv leaving the tariff-meter business. Both decisions, she and co-author Ashish Sen wrote, reflected a commitment to long-term integrity over short-term gains.
What is the source of the Conzerv account?
The episodes below come from a 2020 Scroll excerpt of Hema Hattangady and Ashish Sen’s corporate biography. Scroll identifies it as an excerpt published with permission from Lift Off: Transforming Conzerv. It is a retrospective account by the authors, not an independent investigative finding or a current statement of company policy.
Harvard Business School’s faculty listing confirms that it published Hema Hattangady and Conzerv (A), Case 409-022, in December 2008 and revised it in December 2010; the listing also includes a related B supplement. That bibliographic record establishes the case’s existence and dates, but does not independently verify the later anecdotes in the book excerpt. HBS case listing
How did Hattangady say Conzerv handled internal kickbacks?
Hattangady writes that in 1998 a local area manager told her the national sales head and three regional managers were receiving kickbacks from distributors in return for steering customer orders to them. She says she checked the allegation by calling other area managers, who confirmed it.
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According to her account, Conzerv dismissed the implicated managers, spoke with the distributors involved and informed company staff. Replacing the experienced managers through hiring and promotions took about a year. The episode was an internal sales-integrity problem involving company leaders and commercial partners, rather than a public-official bribery allegation.
Why did Conzerv leave the tariff-meter business?
Hattangady says that despite a colleague’s warning, she pursued tariff meters for state electricity boards. The first contract came from a large board in Uttar Pradesh. During an inspection, she recounts, an official asked for personal benefits: local transport for his wife and help with his children’s college fees.
Conzerv refused those demands. Hattangady says the contract payments were then delayed for a year. In less than two years, the company exited tariff meters and absorbed the employees working on them into its main business. In her telling, refusing the demands meant accepting the commercial consequences rather than paying for an individual’s personal benefit. The excerpt reports these events; it does not cite a court or regulator finding.
How the two episodes differed
| Issue | Distributor kickbacks | Tariff-meter contract |
|---|---|---|
| Pressure described | Sales leaders allegedly received distributor kickbacks in exchange for routing customer orders. | A public-sector inspector allegedly requested personal benefits during a contract inspection. |
| Response in Hattangady’s account | Dismiss implicated managers, speak with distributors and inform staff. | Refuse the demands, then leave the tariff-meter line after payment delays. |
| Business consequence described | Hiring and promotions to replace managers took about a year. | Conzerv exited the line in less than two years and moved the staff into its main business. |
These are related integrity challenges, but not equivalent legal cases: one concerned alleged misconduct within the sales channel, while the other concerned a public official’s alleged personal demands. The source gives Hattangady’s account, not judicial findings.
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What was the leadership argument?
Hattangady and Sen present the choices as an effort to make ethical practice part of the company’s culture, even when doing so cost time, revenue or a business opportunity. Hattangady’s stated conclusion was: “Our view was that making compromises might help you get ahead in the short term but playing the long game needs zero tolerance for corruption.” The authors also recount Ashok explaining the decision to HBS case writer David Kiron as a choice between short-term and long-term thinking.
The broader integrity principle is not limited to public bribes. In a 2009 chapter for Transparency International’s Global Corruption Report, former GE executive Ben W. Heineman Jr. wrote that “The fundamental task of the CEO is to create the ‘performance with integrity’ culture”. His discussion treats corruption risks as extending to a company’s dealings with suppliers, customers and governments, and recommends visible leadership commitment, risk assessment integrated into operations, training, protected employee reporting channels, and controls such as third-party due diligence and contract safeguards. That is general guidance, not evidence that Conzerv used each of those measures. Transparency International, Global Corruption Report 2009
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- Author: Bungay Stanier, Michael.
- Publisher: Page Two
- Pages: 244
- Publication Date: 2016-02-29
- Edition: 1
How to read the corruption statistic cited in the excerpt
The Scroll excerpt cites Transparency International’s 2018 Corruption Perceptions Index, which ranked India 78th of 180 countries with a score of 41 out of 100. The CPI measures perceived public-sector corruption based on assessments by experts and businesspeople; it is not a count of bribes or a direct measure of any company’s conduct. The figure is historical and provides context for the excerpt’s publication, not a current ranking or evidence about Conzerv’s particular decisions.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Further reading
The Scroll excerpt is drawn from Hattangady and Sen’s book about Conzerv. A 2020 Business Standard excerpt discusses Conzerv’s integration with Schneider Electric and refers to the book as Lift Off: The Story of Conzerv; the title differs from the rendering used by Scroll.
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