TELCO (now Tata Motors) had big dreams and big plans in the 1970s. The market for trucks was booming. Waiting lists for new trucks were as long as six-to-seven years. Telco decided to expand production and build new factories near Pune. It could raise the money but it could not buy machines, equipment and dies required because imports were severely restricted and there were no suppliers yet in India. Therefore, Telco had to make the machines and dies itself. It lined up technical collaborations with European companies. However, it had to find the most critical resource — qualified and skilled people to design the machines (and new trucks) and to produce them in India. It needed thousands of such people.

The usual channels — recruiting from other firms and tapping the educational institutions — were woefully inadequate. Experienced people with these abilities were not available in India and youngsters from the institutes had no experience at all. Telco had to get the best talent — defined as youngsters willing and able to learn fast — to build its new factories in Pune. IIMs to which the best IIT graduate engineers gravitated were hunting grounds of foreign banks and MNCs in India who had good international brands, offered high salaries and occasionally foreign training and postings. Telco could not offer any of these. What it offered was a set of challenges and opportunities: the challenge of doing something not done before; the challenge to rapidly learn how to lead, innovate and get things done in tough conditions and the opportunity to make Indians proud of their country. The very best in the institutes, foregoing other financially more attractive offers, took up these challenges and joined Telco.