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Plenary Panels – Extraordinary Stories
During the Plenary Panels, Indian Corporate Leaders engaged with world renowned strategy scholars and thought-leaders to discuss about business model innovations from India, about leadership issues, about models for globalisation, and about multinational innovations. It was the ‘India Story’ in all.
SMS Conference Convenor C K Prahalad said of the panellists, “They represent an interesting spectrum of people building a ‘disruptive model’.”
Panel 1: Innovation as Strategy-The Indian Story
The first panel was on ‘Innovation as Strategy- The Indian Story’. Moderated by CK Prahalad himself, the panel comprised Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Chairman and Managing Director of Biocon, Manoj Kohli, CEO Bharti Airtel, Ramalinga Raju, Satyam Computers, and Atul Chandra , President - International Operations, Reliance Industries Limited.
During the panel the four CEOs who have spearheaded innovative businesses, discussed, among other issues, how they were able to deliver a world class mobile service with a completely outsourced business model, create a unique technology platform in oil and gas exploration, alter the discovery and development process of complex pharmaceuticals, and pioneer a global delivery platform for complex information technology based services.
Kohli noted, “ Ours is a story of entrepreneurship. 15-20 years back, we just had the aspiration, a burning desire. We aimed to be flexible, ahead of times, break old paradigms. And all we had was a weapon called ‘speed’ - of thinking, of execution, and of employee passion.” He said that innovation, for his company, was a survival issue and not a romantic journey. And thus began the Airtel journey towards becoming the lowest cost producer in the world of telephony, and one who gave the lowest tariff - that was the new model. “We listen to the market and change,” Kohli let the audience know.
Ramalinga Raju said “Through this conference it’s evident that academicians now want to connect with action. In our organisation too, we are driven by the fascination of the enhanced role of knowledge in value creation and wealth creation.” He stressed on the need to demystify knowledge so that “ordinary people can participate and do extraordinary things”.
Chandra noted that Reliance is “proxy to India’s growth”. He recounted the unique story of innovation in the oil and gas sector - about the world fastest gas discovery in deep waters and the worlds largest micro tunnelling, all accomplished by Reliance.
Shaw mentioned, “In our business, innovation is not just about about high risk and high reward, it is about managing that high risk, about addressing the probability of failure.” Innovation and R&D are at a risk, according to her, they are starved, at least in the pharma space. “Big pharma companies are getting into generic spaces. But I believe here lies opportunities to do more for less,” she said. She explained that the West is running out of patience as innovation there is becoming unaffordable, the product cost of drugs is increasing, and so clinical development is shifting to India and China. “We can be a global enabler of affordable drugs by applying creativity both in the realm of known and unknown,” she concluded.
Panel 2: Globalisation of Indian Inc.
The second Plenary Panel comprised Pankaj Ghemawat, IESE Business School, who acted as moderator, Baba N Kalyani, Bharat Forge Ltd, Koushik Chatterjee, Group CFO, Tata Steel, and KV Kamath, ICICI. The theme of this panel was ‘Globalisation of India Inc.’
This panel dwelt on the successful approaches of Indian multinationals in international expansions. The panellists discussed what these developments mean for business strategy, whether these strategies are sustainable, and if so, the new opportunities for research, and what traditional MNCs can learn from emerging multinationals from India and India-like markets.
Chatterjee mentioned about the “baked” and not “microwaved” acquisition that Tata had with Corus. “We went into it with eyes open and not out of euphoria, the contours of the integration were worked out well,” he explained. He also stressed on the need for a performance culture – “clear, simple, communicable attributes.” He said that we need to blend the specific target models of the West with the some-what “nebulous” target settings here in India. Kalyani talked about the “velocity with which Indians can move brain power and knowledge into other products”. “ That is our strength, the power of India. We need to just leverage knowledge, skills and people for success,” he said.
Kamath outlined the journey of ICICI Bank - from a project finance company to a universal bank. “In the past when we planned to make changes happen and diversify, it was met with a lot of scepticism, but we painted our horizons of growth in a methodical manner. The strategy was based upon three foundations, according to Kamath - competent people, acquiring or building financial products, to create distribution and build execution capabilities. And wrap it all up in technology, which was the key differentiator.
Kamath mentioned that today ICICI Bank has 30 million customers today, around 5000 ATMs, is perhaps the largest call centre in country, and only 10% of the customers walk into the bank for direct transactions. “ Globalisation is no longer something that you examine but you need to embrace it in your core strategies of growth,” he said.
Panel 3: Strategy and Leadership-India in the 21st century
Panel Three on ‘Strategy and Leadership: India in the 21st Century’, was moderated by Professor Harbir Singh, University of Pennsylvania. Panellists comprised Neeraj Bharadwaj, Apax Partners, Vijay Mahajan, Basix Microfinance, Ramalinga Raju, Satyam Computers, and Analjit Singh, Max India Limited.
In this panel, speakers explored the unique dimensions of strategic leadership in India.. The high velocity of change in the Indian setting, unique elements of the Indian environment, and key attributes of culture have engendered a different model of strategic leadership. The focus of discussion on this panel is to highlight the distinct features of strategic leadership in India and their import for models of strategy in general.
Panellist Analjit Singh said, “The Indian style of management leadership, when compared to the developed counties, has one differentiating factor - the extent of coordination required by the CEO’s, and the need of getting into the trenches.” He also noted that family business is still very under-researched, and that Indians are very family oriented and so leaders have to find out efficient ways of involving families and manage the interface of families.
Ramalinga Raju in his presentation said, “I believe value-creation in its essence is a transformational process. Business is all about identifying transformational opportunities that creates something of significance. At Satyam we believe, all are leaders and nobody is a follower.”
“The central problem that India is facing is that of poverty, and it cannot be resolved by just volunteering or giving occasional advices. Fairly early, I decided that that’s a task I am going to address to, but as a professional,” said Vijay Mahajan.
Speaker Neeraj Bhardwaj added, “In the 21st century, there are going to be major technological changes in India. Global integration will be the bigger order of the day.” He pointed out that there are similarities between both the Western model and the Indian models in strategic leadership and in the way leadership translates strategies to deliver results in India.
Panel 4: Multinational Innovation in India
‘Multinational Innovation in India’ was the topic of the Fourth Panel. Bala Chakravarthy, IMD, and Yves Doz, INSEAD were Moderators. Panellists comprised Venkatraman Thyagarajan, GlaxoSmithKline India, Ad de Visscher, Royal Dutch Shell, D. Shivakumar, Nokia India, and Tejpreet Chopra, GE – India, Sri Lanka & Bangladesh. This panel aimed to showcase India as an innovation laboratory for western Multi National Corporations; and share some of the successes and challenges. that their Indian subsidiaries have faced in driving these innovations.
Visscher commented that Indian society was “million times better networked than any other country.” “Give people access to the most interesting work available in the industry to retain talent,” he added. Thyagrajan noted that brands last longer in India than anywhere else, with some brands existing for over 40 years now. When moderator Bala called India a chaotic democracy, Shivakumar said that “chaotic or volatile we don’t have a choice, we have to deliver.”
Panel 5: Management Education Innovations in a Flat World
The Fifth Panel was on ‘Management Education Innovations in a Flat World’. The panel comprised Robert Dolan, University of Michigan, Ted Snyder, University of Chicago, Jordi Canals, University of Navarra, MR Rao, Indian School of Business and Shekhar Chaudhuri, IIM-Calcutta. The discussion was moderated by Tarun Khanna from Harvard University.
Panel 6: Advancing Strategy Research in India-What can SMS do?
The Sixth and final panel focussed on ‘Advancing Strategy Research in India. Moderated by Joan E Ricart from IESE Business School, the panellists were Jay Barney, Ohio State University and Michael A Hitt, Texas A&M University. The panellists presented ideas of their vision of global participation for the society. The discussion was an interactive session that provided a forum for ideas on how to energise the academia, business and consultants based in India to engage them globally, as well as how to engage the SMS members outside India to engage in India.
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