Exchange of ideas between industry and academia on strategy, disruption, sustainability and more: Day 2 of India Strategy Conference 2023
Discussions revolve around challenges due to new-age disruptions and how to leverage these positively for growth
15 December, 2023, Bengaluru: IIM Bangalore, jointly with IIM Ahmedabad, ISB Hyderabad and Confederation of Indian Industry Chief Strategy Officers Forum (CII CSO Forum), is hosting the India Strategy Conference 2023 (ISC 2023), from 14th December to 17th December 2023, at the IIM Bangalore campus. The Co-chairs of the India Strategy Conference 2023 are Prof. Rejie George Pallathitta, IIM Bangalore; Prof. Prateek Raj, IIM Bangalore; Prof. Amit Karna, IIM Ahmedabad, and Prof. Chitra Singla, IIM Ahmedabad, all faculty from the Strategy area. Day Two included the Confederation of Indian Industry’s Chief Strategy Officers Forum featuring prominent industry leaders who shared insights on shaping strategies in a disruptive world.
Welcome address
The welcome address was delivered by A. K. Parameswaran, Chairman, CII Chief Strategy Officers Forum, Former CSO, Coromandel International, and Prof. Rishikesha T. Krishnan, Director, IIM Bangalore.
A. K. Parameswaran during his address explained how Strategy is evolving as a function in industry. “Strategy has been gaining importance as an area during the past decade. It is about making choices and payoffs, and about being different. Strategy has advanced footprints in the academic community, management consulting and among management gurus. But it is still in the nascent stages and will take many years to mature with collective effort. The CSO Forum is one such vehicle which would help accelerate the pace.”
He went on to talk about the origin and purpose of the CSO Forum. “Our vision is to make India a global Strategy Centre of Excellence. To achieve this, we identified certain work streams and progressed in some, including, creating networks, sharing knowledge, defining the CSO role in companies, mentoring start-ups and associating with academia. Through all these activities we are defining, using and delivering value to the Strategy function of organizations.”
He also touched upon the theme of disruption in the realm of technology, sustainability and the current geo-political situation, and concluded by urging, “Take learnings from this conference and further the cause of Strategy as a function and make India a global Strategy Centre of Excellence.”
Prof. R T Krishnan discussed how the discipline of Business Policy evolved into Strategy in academic institutes. “There was a need for a set of courses which takes an integrated view of the enterprise and mirrors challenges faced by Chief Executives of organization. In IIMB, the Strategy department started in the early 1990s. Students became interested in that discipline because global Consulting firms started recruiting from Indian business schools. We did not have a large body of research for Strategy initially. However, in 2008 the SMS India Conference was organized which is the origin of conferences like today’s.”
He said that the India Strategy Conference aims to give fillip to the idea that theory and practice must work together. “Today many students opt for the Strategy Elective not just because Consulting firms are the single largest recruiters from our campus, but also because Consulting has become much more important and salient in the industrial context. The drivers to that are disruption, technology, innovation – all of which have transformed the challenges faced by industry leaders, and they have changed the way business is done necessitating a much stronger focus on Strategy than before.”
Inaugural keynote
The inaugural keynote was delivered by Shiv Shivakumar, Operating Partner, Advent International, Past Chairman, PEPSICO, South Asia.
He discussed the past models of Strategy, how it has transformed over the years and where it is heading. “The past models need to change as those made assumptions on the future based on data collected, before devising Strategy. But the world is not so stable today. In the past, Strategy was only about setting a goal and beating it, mostly financial. But what is changing now are time scale, tactics, focus on execution, use of AI, etc. Strategy cycles have become a series of short terms. Result variation is explained by unforeseen circumstances. The thing to remember is, any Strategy you adopt should make you competitive for the future.”
He concluded by asking if the compass was more important than the map. “Every institution needs a compass. As long as you focus on the compass, you are in the right direction in terms of Strategy.”
Capitalizing on Global Opportunities
A session focusing on, ‘Capitalizing on Global Opportunities’ was led by Ajai Chowdhry, Co-founder, HCL, Chairman, EPIC Foundation; Sairam Nair, Sandoz Global Competency Center Lead, Hyderabad, and Kaushika Madhavan, Managing Partner & Country Head, A T Kearney. Shilpa Ahir, Global Lead for GCC Strategy, Performance and Analytics, Sandoz, moderated the session.
Ajai Chowdhry’s talk was focused on the electronics and semiconductor area, in the context of the current geopolitical situation. He began with the observation that aspiration is greater than resources. “People are looking for trusted and resilient supply chains and India fits in brilliantly. Opportunity also lies in having the best and largest R&D capability. Moreover, we have a large domestic market. But the country has to boost its logistics operations. Institutions need to set up start-up villages and design companies in order to create the ecosystem and design capability to make India a hardware hub. In the next 25 years, we need to move away from being a service- to a product-focused nation. We should aim for the global market and be a product nation adding value in specific well-defined areas. We need to think about exponential change – change as individuals, as firms and as the country.“
Sairam Nair pointed out that it was not about how India can leverage global opportunities, but also about how the world can leverage India and look at the country as a value proposition. “We have the talent, skill and ecosystem. India could be a ground for experimentation. There are widespread expectations from stakeholders to gain more global recognition and certain areas of improvement still remain, such as, lack of pride to deliver from India, quality, communication and cross-cultural interaction, etc. But we can counter all of that. Let us deliver for and from India, and deliver with pride”, he concluded.
Kaushika Madhavan was of the opinion that India is likely to be world’s fastest growing economy by 2047. “We need to realize our full potential in an uncertain world. We have many things going for us, including consumer demand, manufacturing capability, skills and competence, etc. Every sector in India may become number one in terms of volume by 2047. We will see rise of Indian giants driven by these opportunities. Indian exports are restricted to a segment of global trade today, which will also change in coming years. India’s talent is the key reason for the scaling up of Global Capability Centers in India. In the future, India could be the GCC hub for Analytics, AI, Cloud, Cybersecurity and more. Value could be added further by setting up more R&D centres and manufacturing hubs."
Embracing Sustainability
‘Embracing Sustainability’ was a session featuring Prabha Narasimhan, Managing Director and CEO, Colgate Palmolive (India) Ltd; Meenakshi Nevatia, Country President & Managing Director, Pfizer India, and Anindya Chowdhury, Country Manager – Energy Transitions, Shell India Markets Pvt. Ltd. Himanshu Chaturvedi, Chief Strategy & Growth Officer, Tata Projects Limited, moderated the session.
Prabha Narasimhan spoke on the topic representing the personal care industry. “We need clarity of communication to help consumers understand what manufacturers are doing in terms of sustainability, our initiatives on water, waste, plastic use, etc. We have to also start producing economic value for waste.”
Meenakshi Nevatia from the pharmaceutical industry lens discussed her firm’s key drivers to achieve its net zero ambition by 2040 in the areas of supply chain, packaging, R&D, trying to move to renewable energy, etc. “Rebuilding the whole chain of healthcare to minimize wastage, is our focus. However, the willingness to pay extra for green is not there among customers. In that case, the only way to keep price constant is to be more and more efficient. We have set targets for our stakeholders and conduct audits. Government mandate can also make a difference.”
Anindya Chowdhury, representing the oil and gas industry, said, “What got us here will not get us there. Firms need to reinvent themselves to survive. They have to test new technology and scale up. The environment problem was ignored previously, and we need to find ways to harness gas emissions. However, we cannot pull out fossil fuels completely. Today, 80% of energy demand supply is from fossil fuels, and the demand is likely to go up higher. We need to find affordable alternatives and solutions. Customers’ and stakeholders’ choices are aligned to the cost impact. The change needs to come from the demand side. Government intervention would also help.”
Himanshu summed up the talk adding, “Sustainability, while it has its own goals, is making us reimagine and reinvent ourselves, keeping us on our toes.”
Turbocharging Technology & Digital Disruption
The day also featured a session on, ‘Turbocharging Technology and Digital Disruption’ led by Himanshu Chakrawarti, Chief Executive Officer, Snapdeal; Kumaran Anandan, Chief Technology Officer, Tiny Magiq, and Rajiv Jayaraman, Founder-CEO, Knolskape, moderated by Ramya Mohan, Chief Strategy Officer, Cyient.
Himanshu Chakrawarti, representing the e-Commerce sector, said that digital opportunities have thrown open the doors for online shopping all over India, which has further accelerated by what he termed the ‘Jio revolution.’ “The urban segment is digitally savvy, and that market is already thriving. Opportunities for new market and expansion of existing market lie in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities and in mofussils. However, in that segment, challenges for scaling up arise due to issues in logistics, users’ lack of trust in the pre-paid mode, unfamiliarity with technology or poor connectivity, etc. To resolve this, we need to look from the lens of the consumer, make the technology more user friendly, boost supply chain systems for seamless delivery and pick up, etc.”
Kumaran Anandan rued the fact that organizations are focusing more on output than outcome, leading to performance undersupply. “With more technology-driven power, comes greater responsibility. Policy should be aligned to execution, with the aim to provide maximum value to the customer.”
Rajiv Jayaraman was of the view that due to turbocharging technology and limitless digitization, unbound innovation, relentless upgradations, together with AI, the vision of organizations is getting blurred. “Because of deficiency in one of these areas, a lot of organizations are getting redundant too. AI is using all of us as its sensory mechanism and using it to make its own intelligence. While we talk a lot about automation, we rarely talk about augmentation. Augmentation with AI will be the game changer.”
Special address
A special address was delivered by Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala, faculty, IIT Madras, President, IITM Research Park and IITM Incubation Cell, and Chairman, Governing Council, IIIT Hyderabad, on ‘Driving Digital for India Transformation by Start-ups’.
Stating that digital has the power to transform India to a very large extent, he detailed the history of digital in the country covering telephone, ATM, credit cards, and more. “Digital banking in India took off once payments could be made through mobile phones. The future of banking in our country is digital.”
Discussing the meteoric rise in adoption of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), he said, “UPI monthly transactions touched ₹17 lakh crores in November 2023. Other than mobiles and payments, GPS, maps, Cloud, logistics and eCommerce, professional services, nurturing of innovation and entrepreneurship from the university ecosystem, etc., have also added to the digital marketplace.” Prof. Jhunjhunwala was instrumental in introducing UPI and OTP to the Indian banking system.
He added that going forward the mantra should be to generate excitement among youngsters for start-ups. “Nurture qualities like commitment, as well as the ability to assess market and take risks, build production and teams, manage cashflow and learn from failure. Nurture trading, training, Board meet-ups and build start-ups for the long haul.”
He observed that in India, the stage is now set for deep tech start-ups to drive digital to solve societal problems. “The areas of focus for rural India should include fintech for inclusion, education and training, and healthcare. In the urban sector, the areas include waste management, real time monitoring of energy usage in buildings, climate change, early warning system for natural calamities, traffic congestion management, etc.
Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala referred to the recent floods in Chennai which resulted in disruption of daily life for the entire city, adding that AI/digital can play a crucial role in solving or mitigating such crises. “Can India become a leader in digital wireless technology? Can young India leverage technology for progress on all fronts? What is needed are will and focus on building India.”
Closing address
The closing address was delivered by Neeraj Chandra, Business & Strategy Advisor, Tenex, and Nandu Nandkishore, Professor of Practice, Indian School of Business. Nandu Nandkishore, speaking online, said that the challenge for leadership does not lie in just bringing about disruption, but also to boost scaling up. “The responsibility for leadership is to manage tension and ambiguity between divergent groups and prepare people with different skills to play different games. In all this, persistence is the key.” Neeraj Chandra, speaking on, ‘Dance of Disruption and Creation’, said that in the current business world of disruption, only those who want to, and adapt to, change, will survive and thrive. “What and how we think are major drivers of bringing change. The biggest societal disruption in India is urbanization and the top engine of change is technology. We can do different things, do things in a different way and turn dreams into reality – all with the help of technology. Consumer value is essential for disruption. New experiments and reimagination are needed to drive disruption forward. The leaders need to be the changemakers and build the framework for disruption to make a difference.”
Implications for Research Themes
Prof. R. Srinivasan, Strategy area, and Chairperson of the two-year fulltime MBA programmes of IIMB, spoke on ‘Implications for Research Themes’, during which he summed up all the key observations from all the sessions, including, role of Strategy in organizations, schools of Strategies, how to get practice and theory to come together, if big problems are getting sufficiently addressed, and the importance of history in the entire process. The vote of thanks was delivered by Perry Goes, Business Transformation Consultant and Mentor.
The morning session also included paper development workshops for select participants, alongside a case method workshop and careers networking event. The evening session saw the 'Meet the Editors' workshop being conducted, which brought together editors from prestigious strategy journals.
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