Twenty-four buyers made the proposed programme sound broad. No single legal entity represented more than 19% of the projected amount, and the commercial presentation used those facts to support a diversification argument. Neither fact was invented. The problem was the conclusion attached to them. The names did not establish that the underlying economic exposures were independent. Before the company accepted the proposition, risk colleagues needed to understand the relationships behind the list and the ways those relationships could matter to repayment.
The 2024 proposal involved ₹250 crore of exposure. Review identified nine economic groups behind the twenty-four buyers. The largest group's projected amount was ₹115 crore, or 46% of the whole. That was a materially different picture from the one suggested by the largest individual entity's share. It did not mean that every company within a group had identical operations or that group membership alone settled the credit analysis. It meant the strategy paper had used a count to make a claim the count could not support.
Identify what the count is being asked to prove
A buyer list can describe commercial reach, servicing complexity or the number of relationships a team must manage. Those are useful purposes. Economic diversification asks another question: how much of the outcome depends on related sources of payment, control or business conditions? Qualified risk colleagues examine the relevant connections and their significance. My team could assemble the opportunity and explain its implications, but it could not turn a sales list into a credit conclusion by calling each legal name a separate source of resilience.
The relationship team challenged the group view. Several entities operated different businesses, and some had distinct customers and management. Those points deserved consideration. I did not want the review to replace one shortcut with another by treating every group member as indistinguishable. Risk colleagues assessed the actual connections. Their work could recognise differences while still identifying a concentration that required a limit. The strategic discussion needed to preserve that professional assessment rather than choose whichever description allowed the largest volume to remain in the plan.
This is where a CSO's role becomes more useful than simply advocating growth or restraint. I needed to make the consequences of the assessment understandable to the CEO and commercial team. What part of the original proposition remained available? Which relationships would need to change? How would the revised amount affect the business plan? Those questions followed from the risk decision; they did not give strategy permission to substitute its own preferred classification or quietly move exposure between names to preserve the headline.
The authorised risk owners set a ₹70 crore ceiling for the largest group in the proposed programme. The other ₹135 crore remained in the planning comparison. That produced a revised ₹205 crore proposition and removed ₹45 crore of planned volume. I wanted those numbers shown together. A paper that retained the original ₹250 crore headline while discussing a smaller group allowance elsewhere would leave its reader to discover that the parts no longer described the same opportunity. The revision had to reach the plan itself.
Rebuild the opportunity after the limit changes
The revised group share was about 34.1%, calculated against ₹205 crore. It was no longer 46%, but it was not a convenient round 30% either. Changing a numerator can also change the denominator. That is a modest arithmetic point with an important consequence for the language of a recommendation. We should not describe the new mix using an old total simply because doing so makes the improvement appear larger. The approved limit and revised proposal deserved an account that remained internally consistent.
Each underlying exposure still required its ordinary approval. The ₹205 crore figure described the revised programme proposal, not a blanket permission to fund every item within it. The risk ceiling did not eliminate all common exposure or establish that the rest of the programme was free from correlation. We retained those boundaries so the strategy decision did not acquire a meaning the risk owners had not given it. The company could examine the opportunity without pretending that one adjustment completed every relevant assessment.
Commercial colleagues now had less planned volume through the original relationship structure. That was a genuine consequence. It affected the growth narrative, the effort already invested and the work needed to find other opportunities. I did not call the removed ₹45 crore an accounting loss, nor did I claim it was a measured loss avoided. The original programme had not produced an observed default. The decision was to accept a smaller proposition because the assessed concentration did not justify the initial scale under the company's approved approach.
There was also a temptation to replace the removed amount quickly with a new list and declare the plan restored. New names would still need the same examination. If they shared important dependencies, the apparent breadth might again overstate the economic difference. I asked the team to preserve the gap until replacement opportunities had an adequate basis. A strategy should be able to remain smaller for a time rather than manufacture completion through a different presentation of unassessed exposure.
Let the commercial account retain the cost
The case changed how I want opportunity summaries to be written. They should say what the customer count measures, what group analysis has established and what remains to be approved. They should also carry the consequence of a limit into the projected volume and economics. Those are connected parts of one recommendation. Separating them across presentations can allow the commercial story to remain optimistic while another team holds the qualifications that would have changed the reader's interpretation.
At board level, I would ask whether the proposed expansion introduces different sources of business or merely more legal relationships around familiar dependencies. The answer may support the original plan, a revised scale or further investigation. The question is not an invitation for directors to redo individual underwriting. It is a way to test whether the strategic claim about breadth reflects the assessed business reality and whether management has accepted the effect of that assessment on its plans.
I also learned to invite the group analysis before the opportunity became a public commitment inside the organisation. Once teams have built budgets and expectations around a number, revision can feel like withdrawal of support for their work. Earlier examination allows the proposition to be shaped while alternatives are still open. It does not remove disagreement, but it gives colleagues a common account of the decision rather than asking risk to dismantle a commercial promise after it has already acquired an audience.
The final lesson is about the honesty of a smaller plan. We had a revised proposal with a known reduction in volume and continuing approval requirements. That was more useful than a larger number supported by an inappropriate inference from buyer count. Strategy should make the available choice clearer, including its limits and cost. Twenty-four names remained twenty-four names; the improvement was that we stopped asking them to prove something about the company’s exposure that required a different kind of evidence.