Most of us would have experienced the ultimate corporate allegiance shown to a mostly invisible group of investors who impact our lives more than anything on this planet, that mysterious group of people is known as shareholders.
For their growth and welfare, the top management sacks employees in the name of restructuring and other such buzz words, and acquire prospering businesses with cash generated from existing activities so as to fire more people from the newly acquired companies, all in the name of health of the business and to maximize returns to shareholders.
Now, one wonders about the chemical and emotional makeup of those monsters, imagining some blood-thirsty creatures always on a lookout for human flesh and eager to swallow not only human beings but also the concrete and steel structures.
Seeing your ever-growing interest to know about those monstrous and diabolical creatures, we have decided to present to you the activities of a carefully selected group of them, commonly known as investors or shareholders.
Investor Number 1: Mr.
X1 This gentleman heads a company and invests in shares of other businesses as well.
He buys and sells shares based on his instinct and of course, on the advice of his stock broker.
He is married, has two children and contributes well on all fronts, i.
e.
business, social, and personal.
He feels sad when companies fire employees on the pretext of lower sales and profits, though he doesn't know who they are, yet he feels sorry for them who lose jobs.
He is compassionate and does not believe that in order to cut costs and increase profits, the heads should be chopped, to him that should literally be the very last option.
Investor Number 2: Ms.
Y2 This lady works for an international company and is pretty senior in corporate echelons.
She is married, blessed with three children and she also has a husband who is not as senior as she is.
She buys and sells shares and has made a lot of money in the stock market in past fifteen years.
She is a regular donor to charity and believes that all men are born equal and have equal rights to survive and prosper in any civilized society.
On being asked about the termination of employees on the ground of falling sales and profits, she felt offended and said that if somebody has to be fired, it's got to be the top management and not the junior staff, because the top guys are responsible for profits and sales.
She also said that the big boys fire the lower staff because that is easy, and gives some more time to hide their incompetence.
Investor Number 3: Mr.
X3 This gentleman established a successful company and star brands from scratch and sold his entire business to a multinational giant, of course, for a mouth-watering amount of money.
He had no plans to fire any of his team members because his business was in a massive growth phase.
When asked about the acquisition and how he felt when the new management sacked many of his former employees, post-acquisition, he said that his company actually grew due to the efforts of his entire team, and he really felt sad for those who lost jobs.
He added that during the negotiation process he was assured that none of the staff members will be fired.
There are other similar examples where those who invest in share market are not in favor of a head-cut for the sake of increasing returns to investors.
They in fact have never realized that the top management resorts to such forced actions in order to increase the bottom line.
They however opined that voluntary separation schemes are fine as long as they are mutually beneficial to both parties.
According to most of the investors interviewed, we have drawn this conclusion in light of their genuine feelings and earnest feedback; That a business should be placed somewhere between a monstrous, flesh-eating entity that only recognizes numbers on one extreme, and that of a loving family on the other, where youngsters are loved, elders are respected, and all family members pull along together for the safety and prosperity of their unit.