Sify : Churn At The Top

It is with a certain tinge of amusement & sadness that I read about the exit of top brass of Sify. The rumoured exit of top leadership is quite unlike what we see in Indian headquartered companies. I know most of the sify top team quite well– and am watching sify at close quarters for almost a decade. I have seen sify bloom from a whiteboard idea to what it is today. A path breaking company, it underwent major changes and was beginning to look attractive. Sify always brought out mixed out emotions from observers – but everyone I speak to accept that Sify is sitting on a goldmine with its I-Way cybercafé spread across all over India and it had been far ahead of its time since its inception. I do not know of one listed company in Asia which could go after so many acquisitions in so few years time and could be more daring than Sify. I recently heard about their plans to expand into other geographies and focus on managed services in the US. Turnover at Sify was always very high – many in the corporate world in India would have some connections with Sify and in a true sense, it also managed to attract many senior executives from traditional industries to join the internet phenomenon that it spearheaded in the country. Sify.com is perhaps one of the richest portals with so many channels built inside in India - their corporate networks division was their biggest and the portals were easily the most underleveraged. Sify is an Indian internet world Icon – a pioneer of sorts on many things in India and certainly has a glorious future ahead, its recent performance is a testament to this. Let me stop at this - I know so many things about Sify and people associated with Sify -it may not be proper for me to elaborate further but would like to say that the top honchos of Sify would be found great picks by others in the industry.