Raju a feared man; earlier in US, now in India: Experts

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New Delhi: Years after the foreign media wondered if Americans should be afraid of Ramalinga Raju more than Osama Bin Laden due to jobs they lost to India, experts said the fear seems to have come true, although for a different reason.

"Raju has certainly inflicted a huge blow to the India story on the global business arena and the companies across the world would be much more vigilant before engaging any Indian company for their business purposes," said an analyst.

Way back in 2004, American media had reported that it was not only dreaded terrorist Osama whom the Americans were afraid of, but Ramalinga Raju was a feared man too as millions of jobs were being outsourced to Indian companies like Satyam.

Talking to Canadian newspaper ‘Financial Post’ at that time, Raju downplayed the fear generated by Satyam and others regarding the impact on the North American economy.

"In my opinion, the fear is misplaced," Raju had said during a visit to Canada in October 2004. Noting that Americans were only seeing one side of the picture, he had said, adding that the outsourcing trend had helped create lakhs of jobs in India and jobs were also being created in the US and Canada with firms like Satyam setting up shop there.

While the context has changed completely, the level of financial wrongdoing revealed today by Raju at Satyam makes him a feared man in the corporate world, another analyst said.

"Tables have turned upside-down now. The threat that Raju was to the US earlier is now a threat to the entire India Inc," brokerage firm SMC Global's Vice-President Rajesh Jain said.