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Authors: Ravi Venkatesan
Conquering the Chaos: Win in India, Win Everywhere (19 page)
1
. Unless otherwise cited, all quotes come from my interviews.
2
. David Pilling, “India’s Bumblebee Defies Gravity,”
Financial Times
, February 15, 2012. For a fuller discussion of the drivers of growth for MNCs, see
“Winning in India,” McKinsey Asia Center, 2011.
3
. “Top 10 Abuses of Power,”
Time
, May 17, 2011.
4
. James Crabtree, “India’s Growth Threatened by Old Abuses,”
Financial Times
, May 15, 2012.
5
. “Decision to Amend IT Act Retrospectively ‘Capricious,’ Says Economist Raghuram
Rajan,”
Economic Times
, April 12, 2012.
6
. “Act or We Could Become Banana Republic: Tata Strikes Back,”
Indian Express
, November 27, 2010.
7
. “The Regulator Without a Fan,”
Business Today
, June 24, 2012.
8
. The phrase “new Hindu rate of growth” describes decades of slow growth under socialism.
9
.
The Prospect
, January 2012,
http://www2.lse.ac.uk/IDEAS/publications/reports/SR010.aspx
.
10
. Paul Beckett, “Honeywell Warns India Is Scaring Away Foreign Investors,”
Wall Street Journal
, May 3, 2012.
11
. Bart Vogel and S. Barasia, “How Global Telcos Can Profit from India’s Wireless Experience,”
Bain & Company,
http://www.bain.com/Images/BBIndia_Telcos_4-11-11.pdf
.
12
. “We Use India to Scale Up in Africa,”
Economic Times
, January 21, 2011.
13
. “Dual-SIM Phones Help Beat Back Competition in India: Stephen Elop, Nokia CEO,”
Economic Times
, September 8, 2011.
1
. McKinsey Asia Center,
http://www.mckinsey.com/client_service/strategy/mckinsey_asia_center
.
2
. Peter Marsh, “Performance in Asia Crucial for Caterpillar,”
Financial Times
, November 16, 2009.
3
. “India Will Be the Centerpiece of Our Growth,”
Forbes India
, December 2009. (Note that GE does not break out India figures and this is an estimate
from industry sources; average orders for the three years post the change [2010–2012]
are 55 percent higher than the three years prior to the change [2007–2009].)
4
. Samar Srivastava, “Adidas versus Subhinder,”
Forbes India
blog, September 21, 2012.
5
. “Fighting for the Next Billion Shoppers,”
The Economist
, June 30, 2012.
6
. The following discussion about GE is drawn from the following sources: Jeffrey Immelt,
Vijay Govindarajan, and Chris Trimble, “How GE Is Disrupting Itself,”
Harvard Business Review
, October 2009; Neelima Mahajan-Bansal and Malini Goyal, “GE Has Its Finger on the
Indian Pulse, at Last,”
Forbes India
, December 16, 2009; Neelima Mahajan-Bansal and Malini Goyal, “GE Is Flat-Footed,
Not Knowledgeable and Missing What the Local Market Needs,”
Forbes India
, December 16, 2009; Neelima Mahajan-Bansal and Malini Goyal, “Jeff Immelt: ‘India
Will Be a Centrepiece in Our Growth,’”
Forbes India
, December 16, 2009; and Neelima Mahajan-Bansal, “I Want GE India to Be Viewed as
One of India’s Best Indian Companies,”
Forbes India
, December 16, 2009.
7
. C. K. Prahalad, “End of Corporate Imperialism,”
Harvard Business Review
, August 2003.
8
. For an articulation of the idea of a paradigm shift, see Thomas Kuhn,
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).
1
. For instance, see Dave Ulrich, Norm Smallwood, and Kate Sweetman,
The Leadership Code: Five Rules to Lead By
(Boston: Harvard Business Press, 2009).
2
. See Nathaniel Foote, Russ Eisenstat, and Tobias Fredberg, “The Higher Ambition Leader,”
Harvard Business Review
, September 2011.
3
. Warren Bennis and Robert Thomas,
Geeks and Geezers: How Era, Values, and Defining Moments Shape Leaders
(Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2002).
4
. Claudio Fernández-Aráoz,
Great People Decisions: Why They Matter So Much, Why They Are So Hard, and How You
Can Master Them
(New York: Wiley, 2007).
5
. For more, read Tony Schwartz, with Jean Gomes and Catherine McCarthy,
Be Excellent at Anything
(New York: Free Press, 2011).
1
. For market share, see “Nokia Loses Its India Plot,”
Economic Times
, September 29, 2010.
2
. Mehrdad Baghai, Stephen Coley, and David White,
The Alchemy of Growth
(New York: Basic Books, 2000).
3
. Sumantra Ghoshal and Chris Bartlett,
Managing Across Borders: The Transnational Solution
(Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2002).
4
. IIM Bangalore Case Study, “Bosch Group in India: Transition to a Transnational Organization,”
IIM Bangalore, 301.
5
. Ibid.
6
. The history buff should read Nick Robbins,
The Corporation That Changed the World
(London: Pluto Press, 2012); Philip Mason,
The Men Who Ruled India
(New York: Jonathon Cape Ltd, 1989); or “The Company That Ruled the Waves,”
The Economist
, December 2011.
1
. “Delivering Results through Talent: The HR Challenge in a Volatile World,” PwC 15th
Annual CEO Survey 2012,
http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/ceo-survey/key-findings/hr-talent-strategies.jhtml
.
2
. PwC Saratoga Human Capital Effectiveness Survey,
www.pwc.com/saratoga
.
3
. “Best Companies to Work for in India,” Indicus–
Business Today
survey, March 4, 2012,
http://businesstoday.intoday.in/story/best-companies-to-work-india-survey-business-today/1/22284.html
.
4
. Bill Conaty and Ram Charan,
The Talent Masters: Why Smart Leaders Put People Before Numbers
(New York: Crown Business, 2010); Stephen Remedios, “Transformation—How Hindustan
Unilever Makes CEOs out of College Kids,”
Management Exchange
, October 10, 2012,
http://www.managementexchange.com/
.
5
. Nitin Paranjpe, Hindustan Unilever, press release, “K.B. Dadiseth Unveils HLL’s
New Growth Blueprint,”
http://www.hul.co.in/mediacentre/pressreleases/2000/KBDadisethUnveilsHLLsNewGrowthBlueprint.aspx
.
6
. Ram Kumar, “Human Resource Professionals Have Lost Sight of the Connect with Their
People,”
Economic Times
, August 17, 2012.
7
. Saumya Bhattacharya, “How We Can Love HR and What HR Must Do for That,”
Economic Times
, March 11, 2012.
8
. Kala Vijayraghavan and Chaitali Chakravarty, “What Ails HUL? Strategic Changes by
CEO Paul Polman Upset Indian Executives,”
Economic Times
, January 24, 2012.
9
. Arijit Barman, “Senior MNC Execs Jump Ship as India Inc Empowers Them,”
Business Standard
, February 20, 2012.
10
. Nitin Nohria, “Why Globalization Will Revolutionize Talent Management,”
The Focus
XI, no. 2 (2008): 24–27.
1
. See, for instance, Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble,
Reverse Innovation
(Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2012); or Nirmalya Kumar and Phanish Puranam,
India Inside
(Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2011); or Navi Radjou,
Jugaad Innovation: Think Frugal, Be Flexible, Generate Breakthrough Growth
(New York: Jossey Bass, 2012).
2
. See “The Fortune Just above the Bottom,”
Economic Times
, March 6, 2012.
3
. McKinsey Asia Center report, “How Multinationals Can Win in India,”
McKinsey Quarterly
, March 2012.
4
. See V. Kasturi Rangan, “Hindustan Unilever’s ‘Pureit’ Water Purifier,” case 511-067
(Boston: Harvard Business School, rev 2012).
5
. See Govindarajan and Trimble,
Reverse Innovation
.
6
. C. K. Prahalad, “How to Be a Truly Global Company,”
Strategy+ Business
, Autumn 2011.
7
. Eric Ries,
The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically
Successful Businesses
(New York: Crown Business, 2011).
8
. Dell interviews; and “How Dell Conquered India,”
Fortune
, February 10, 2011,
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/02/10/how-dell-conquered-india/
.
9
. Ibid.
10
. “Ratan Tata Says Nano Can Still Be Successful,”
India Today
, January 6, 2012.
11
. See “Microsoft Knits Windows into India,”
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2008/0929/074.html
.
12
. Ibid.
1
. Ashish K. Mishra, “The Education of Carlos Ghosn,”
Forbes India
, December 8, 2011.
2
. David F. Hawkins, “Caterpillar, Inc. (A),” Case 111-031 (Boston: Harvard Business
School, September 2011).
3
. “Act Quickly, Execute Flawlessly,”
People Matters
, July 1, 2011.
1
. See
http://www.kpmg.com/in/en/issuesandinsights/articlespublications/pages/fraudsurvey12.aspx
.
2
. World Economic Forum, The Global Competitiveness Report 2011–2012,
http://www.weforum.org/reports/global-competitiveness-report-2011-2012
; Economic Intelligence Unit; Kroll, Global Fraud Report (2011–2012 annual edition),
http://www.krolladvisory.com/library/KRL_FraudReport2012-13.pdf
.
3
. Ernst & Young, “Fraud and Corporate Governance—A Changing Paradigm in India,” 2012,
http://www.ey.com/IN/en/Services/Assurance/Fraud-Investigation---Dispute-Services/Fraud-and-corporate-governance-Changing-paradigm-in-India
.
4
. Binoy Prabhakar and Chaitali Chakravarty, “How Adidas Slipped in India,”
Economic Times
, May 13, 2012.
5
. See
http://www.kpmg.com/in/en/issuesandinsights/articlespublications/pages/fraudsurvey12.aspx
.
6
. Samar Srivastava, “Sticky Situation at Cadbury India,”
Forbes India
, August 15, 2012.
7
. Heather Timmons, “For Vodafone in India, a Swift but Bumpy Rise,”
New York Times
, March 27, 2011.
8
. See “The New Great Wall of China,”
Time
, September 2012,
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2124406,00.html
.
9
. See “From Tiger to Pussycat: How Vietnam’s Economy Got Off Track,”
Newsweek
, October 1, 2012.
10
. Read more at
http://www.microsoft.com/india/msindia/msindia_up_partnerslearning.aspx
.
11
. For details, see
www.microsoft.com/india/msindia/msindia_ourmission_projectjyoti.aspx
.
12
. Michael Porter, “Creating Shared Value,”
Harvard Business Review
blog,
http://hbr.org/2011/01/the-big-idea-creating-shared-value
.
13
. Arundhati Roy, “Beware the ‘Gush-Up Gospel’ Behind India’s Billionaires,”
Financial Times
, January 13, 2012.
1
. C. K. Prahalad and Kenneth Lieberthal,
The End of Corporate Imperialism
(Boston: Harvard Business Press, 2008).
2
. Himangshu Watts, “General Electric CEO: India Story Is Unfolding as Expected,”
Economic Times
, September 26, 2011.
3
. IBM survey, “Do Multinationals Really Understand Globalization?”
BusinessWeek
, August 2010,
www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/aug2010/gb2010086_282527.htm#p2
.
4
. Jeffrey Immelt, Vijay Govindarajan, and Chris Trimble, “How GE Is Disrupting Itself,”
Harvard Business Review
, October 2009.
5
. “Tom Keene Talks to Harvard’s Clay Christensen,”
Businessweek.com
, January 3, 2013.
6
. See “Apple’s Emerging Market Problem—Seeking Alpha,”
Times of India
, October 3, 2012; “Apple Has Ceded the Crown to Samsung in Emerging Markets,”
Times of India
, September 22, 2012.
If I have seen farther than others, it is only because I stood on the shoulders of
giants.
—SIR ISAAC NEWTON
This book represents the contributions of many thoughtful and generous colleagues
and friends.
I am particularly grateful to Anand P. Raman of
Harvard Business Review
, who sharpened my writing with his incisive feedback and was responsible for encouraging
me to embark on this project in the first place. Thanks also to the fabulous and highly
professional team at Harvard Business Review Press, who were a delight to work with.
My colleagues at Truepoint Partners have been wonderful thought partners throughout
this journey. Thank you, Mike Beer, Flemming Norrgren, Nathaniel Foote, Shankar Raman,
Malcolm Wolf, and, most of all, Russ Eisenstat.
I owe a particular debt to Alok Kshirsagar, the director of the Asia Center at McKinsey
& Company for being generous in sharing ideas, data, and possibilities. I am grateful
to Ananth Narayanan of McKinsey and to Karthik Ananth and Pari Natarajan of Zinnov
for the discussion on innovation and offshore R&D in India.
I owe a particular debt to Alok Kshirsagar, director of McKinsey & Company and leader
of its Asia Center practice, for being generous in sharing ideas, data, and possibilities.
I am grateful also to Ananth Narayanan of McKinsey for many thoughtful discussions
on innovation and Vimal Choudhary and his team of research specialists for supporting
my research.
I am grateful to the Rockefeller Foundation for enabling an extraordinarily productive
and agreeable residency at the Bellagio Center.
I am deeply indebted to a large number of thoughtful leaders who willingly shared
their ideas, experiences, and time. If the book is rich, it is only thanks to their
willingness to share their stories. Among them: the late C. K. Prahalad; professor
Bala Chakravarty of IMD, Sir Anthony Bamford, Alan Blake, Vipin Sondhi, Amit Gossain,
and John Kavanagh at JCB; Louis Schweitzer, Leif Johansson, and Olof Persson at AB
Volvo; Tim Solso and Tom Linebarger at Cummins; D. Shivakumar and Stephen Elop at
Nokia; John Flannery at GE; Jean-Pascal Tricoire and Olivier Blum at Schneider Electric;
Gabriela Prunier at Suez Environment; Govind Iyer and Claudio Fernández-Aráoz at Egon
Zehnder; Craig Mundie at Microsoft; Nitin Paranjpe, Yuri Jain, and Leena Nair at Hindustan
Unilever; Shane Tedjarati, Krishna Mikkileni, and Anant Maheshwari at Honeywell; Marc
Nassif, S. Nakamura, and Carlos Ghosn at Renault; R. C. Bhargava at Maruti Suzuki;
Hans Vestberg and F. Jedjling at Ericsson; S. Vishwanathan at Bosch; Jacques Challes
at L’Oréal India; Antonio Helio Waszyk at Nestlé; Scott Price at Walmart; Amit Jatia,
Hardcastle Restaurants; Rajeev Bakshi at Metro India; Ganesh Laminarayan at Dell;
Neeraj Swaroop and Jaspal Bindra at Standard Chartered Bank; Patrick Rousseau, Veolia
India, Ranjit Shahane at Novartis; David Brennan at AstraZeneca; Alberto Weisser at
Bunge; Ed Ludwig and Vince Forlenza at BD; Raj Kalathur and Bharat Vedak at Deere;
Zubin Irani and Sandy Diehl at UTC; JS Shin at Samsung; Prema and Jyoti Sagar, Meenu
Handa, Karthik Ananth, and Pari Natarajan at Zinnov; and Michael Bekins at Korn Ferry.
I am also deeply obliged to innumerable colleagues at Microsoft, Cummins, Infosys,
and Volvo, who have all shaped my thinking.
My thanks to Infosys, especially Kris Gopalakrishnan, Sanjay Purohit, and Sunil Jose
Gregory for supporting my research with two terrific interns, Shruti Malani and Navoneil
Bhattacharya.
Many friends patiently reviewed endless drafts of my manuscript and provided invaluable
feedback and encouragement. I am deeply obliged to Will Poole, Ann Fudge, Govind Iyer,
Peter Bijur, Hanne de Mora, Jonathan West, and Wayne Brockbank.
I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers for HBR Press, who took the trouble to read
a raw manuscript and provide sharp, yet constructive feedback.
For her unflagging encouragement and support at every stage, I owe an incalculable
debt to my wife, Sonali Kulkarni. An accomplished CEO herself, she encouraged me to
pursue this endeavor, was a willing sounding board day or night, read endless drafts,
dispelled my doubts, and provided me the essential fuel that sustained me throughout
this journey. Thank you.