Strategies to deal with Uncertainty [Bhaskar Pramanik, Chairman, Microsoft Corporation (India) Pvt Ltd]

Mr. Bhaskar Pramanik, Chairman, Microsoft Corporation (India) Pvt Ltd

Uncertainty is the new norm and I want to share with you the four strategies which Microsoft has adopted and helped us in uncertain times. The volatility that we are seeing today is not just a passing phenomenon, it is going to be a fact of life and all of us should start getting used to it. No industry, country or company is immune from it. If you look at the technology industry, India has moved from fixed line phones to pagers to mobile phones. We have moved from rise of emails to decline of emails to the growth of social networks. We have seen adoption of internet widely. We have seen the financial crisis in 2008. In India we have had our own self-inflicted injuries which have caused us grievous concerns in many ways. All this has happened in last 15 years. We have to start managing this kind of changing environment. I have been quite happy to work in these uncertain times as it is in uncertain times that the good gets better and the average decline. If you want to increase your market share, make use of these uncertain times.

How has Microsoft prospered in uncertain times? We are 38 years old and we continued to grow through this. We started with a vision of a PC in everyone’s home. Today we talk about our vision being how we can help individual, business & countries to realise their true potential through the magic of software and we are just about to modify that all over again as we believe time has changed. We have moved from the era of personal computers to the era of what we call personal computing. It is personal and you have the ability to access enormous amount of power with the computer now. The next phenomenon would be where all software becomes a service. We are moving to the era of connected devices. This requires a completely new type of computing & it changes the balance of power from the enterprise to the consumer and it is a huge change which requires a different type of coding, mentality & thinking. It also has huge challenges in many other areas like taxation, privacy & security; therefore it is something which as a nation we have to resolve.

The four strategies that we have adopted through these uncertainties are: Living our culture & values, investing for the long term in good as well as bad times, executing excellence & giving back to society. These four strategies have kept us going in the toughest of times. Peter Drucker said “Culture is strategy for breakfast” and I think the point he was trying to make was that anybody can copy technology, pricing & distribution strategy. What your competitors can’t copy is your core values and as a company we have had a strong culture & strong set of values. The important thing is if you want this culture to work for you, then you have to make sure that your employees and partners understand and live with these values, day in & day out, at work & at play.

Living our culture & values: The values which we follow as a company are integrity & honesty that gets translated into the way we do our business. Software business is complex, we don’t really own the software, you get the right to use it and our whole concept of software licensing in this industry is based on trust, the trust that you will use the software for the purpose for which it is suppose to be used. We trust you & you trust us & that’s how we want to do the business as a company. Integrity is very important for us, it is because of our founder Bill Gates and it gives us a sense of pride that over the last 10 years we have been one of the most ethical companies to work with globally. The second value which we have is to be open & respectful. It is about listening to your customers, partners & government of the countries in which you do business. It is about respecting the view of others and respecting your competitors. The third value which we have is Passion for technology, customers, employees & our partners. Everything we do at Microsoft is all about passion. The fourth value is about making big, bold & aggressive goals. We never think about solving a problem just for our company but we want to solve problems of the globe. We are self critical & we make sure that we don’t commit the mistakes again that we committed in the past. But that does not prevent us from taking risk & creating barriers for innovation & creativity.

The second strategy that we have adopted is to invest for long term in both good & bad times. Last 4-5 years has not been good for the technological industry, growth rates declined & IT spending has come down. Our goal is to focus on innovation. Over the last 3 years we have invested 30 billion dollars on technology up gradation to come up with products with better features & productivity. We spend more money on technology research & development than perhaps any other IT company. What we have been able to do is to re-imagine the products. In next 6-9 months you will see the re-launch of every single product or service we have ever delivered to the customers. We are also very persistent, we never give up. We may not be the first one in the market, but with our ability to stay focussed, we have done well in the markets.

3^rd strategy is the execution excellence. We measure employee & customer satisfaction every year. We have very strong focus on operation execution, decision making & analysis. These can help you to manage in uncertain times. Last but not the least the forth strategy that we follow is giving back to the society. We actually have a plan to work with local government in which we work. In India we have identified four areas where we can play role:  Increasing education & employability, helping state government in e-governance & transparency, building a robust digital technology & improving information security.

How do you drive change? You must make sure that you have the right kind of leadership in your organisation. According to me agility is very important for the organisation as it is important to have the liberty of what you to do, when you really want to do it. That’s agility in simple form. Agility is the best way to beat uncertainty. We need leaders with clarity of thought and purpose. We need leaders who can prioritise because prioritisation gives you speed. Last but not the least we need innovation/novelty to ensure that we think out of the box. Also, engaging, enabling & empowering your employees can help you in the most uncertain times.

The above article is an excerpt from the speech delivered by Mr. Bhaskar Pramanik, Chairman, Microsoft Corporation (India) Pvt Ltd at AIMA’s 39th National Management Convention which was held in September 2012.