Indestructible Brands: Building Brands to Survive Disruption

A special session on “Indestructible Brands: Building Brands to Survive Disruption” was held at AIMA’s 2nd National Leadership Conclave (NLC) on 3rd & 4th March 2016 at New Delhi.

Below is an excerpt of the Q & A between Ms Supriya Shrinate, Chief Editor-News at ET NOW and Mr Santosh Desai, Managing Director & CEO of Futurebrands India Ltd, Author, Columnist, Social Commentator.

Santosh Desai addressing AIMA’s 2nd NLC

How has brand building changed in India and why are we so obsessed with disruption?

I think we live in a time where things are changing very fast and we have said this for a few decades now. You know there is a sense that things are changing but in the last seven or eight years, in particular, it’s not just the pace of change, It’s as if our foundational assumptions, the way we see the world itself has changed. And I think this creates a very interesting challenge at this particular point in time. I found the subject interesting, ‘indestructible brands: building brands to survive disruption’. Implicit in this articulation, It’s curious because there are certain assumptions that are built into this. It says building brands to survive disruption, not to create disruption. Brands are implicitly imagined as some sort of citadels, fortresses which do not create the new but which somehow must survive the new, which are not found in the source of change but they are under attack from change and they must protect themselves against disruption. This is very interesting. I just find this unconscious mental model of the brands as not being the source of change but being under threat. I also find it interesting that we are yearning for indestructibility. This idea that a brand is a permanent asset that you create once which stays for life and forever and forever, which survives attacks that marauders and invaders make on it and it stands there proud defined over millennia, this is an outdated idea. This yearning, this nostalgia for a permanent notion of a brand, It’s fundamentally at odds with the world that we live in.

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2nd National Leadership Conclave: Making India a Creative Superpower

Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Minister of State (IC) of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship speaking at AIMA’s 2nd NLC

Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Minister of State (IC) of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship and Minister of State of Parliamentary Affairs, Government of India speaking at AIMA’s 2nd NLC.

“In past two days’ sessions, I believe many issues have been talked upon. I was going through the agenda. For this concluding session, I was invited to speak on something which is possibly being talked a lot these days. Well, much more than I think I have been doing in my ministry, I have become votary in this campaign put up by the prime minister. Skill is something which is possibly a part of life which most of us would not recognize it. Why skill has become so important and why did the prime minister decide to create a separate ministry for skill is something which intrigued me because when I was given the charge to begin this ministry, it came as a department when the government was formed and subsequently elevated to become a full-fledged ministry. So the issues which were being discussed and when I looked into certain statistics, I thought that this possibly could be the reason why the prime minister thought let’s create a separate ministry. It’s not that skills were not happening in the country. There were skills which were existing. But why did the prime minister and one of the basic statistics which reveals if you look at China or United States of America for that matter or the United Kingdom. Today the United Kingdom is out of the work force 63% skilled. If you look at Germany, out of every 100 people, 74% people are skilled, skilled to get employed. Look at Japan, its 80% of the workforce is skilled. If you look at Korea now, 96% of the workforce is skilled. The National Sample Survey organization of India reveals that in India, its just 3.5% of the workforce is skilled. This is something which possibly has drawn the attention of the government. Even if you add all those traditional skills which existed in the society and which has not been mapped, it would not cross more than 5-6%.

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India Conference in UAE with Mr Naresh Trehan, MD, Medanta

AIMA organised an International Conference on the theme “Building Human Capital for the Knowledge Economy“, on 15th March 2016 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The conference was organized under the patronage of His Excellency Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, UAE Minister of Culture and Knowledge Development and brought together policy makers, CEOs, thought leaders, entrepreneurs and investors from both India and UAE to discuss strategies to promote cooperation between the two countries and win in the emerging knowledge economy.

Below is an excerpt from the speech of Mr Naresh Trehan, Chairman & Managing Director, Medanta – The Medicity on the theme “Health Hubs: Creating Global Healthcare Centres”.

Mr Naresh Trehan, Chairman & Managing Director, Medanta – The Medicity addressing AIMA conference

“Thank you AIMA for this opportunity to share the escalated progress of healthcare delivery system in India, which actually caught on fire about 15 years ago and now is growing at a CAGR of 15% and it is predicted that by the year 2020 will be 250 billion dollar sector. For many years the pharmaceutical industry in India has played well on the world stage by the generics and new molecules and is now the second largest makers of generic drugs supplied to the world. In last 40 years, the credentials of Indian doctors worldwide has been established, I was there for 20 years but I would like to share with you that 17% of all super specialists in America are Indians, 30% of the NHS system is run by Indians. The credentials, skills, and knowledge of the Indian doctors were already accepted across the world. If you look at the way the healthcare sector built out itself in India – primarily before the 1980s it was the domain of the government, we had some charitable institutes and the level of delivery (except for a few well-established hospitals mainly in the government domain) was of very little quality of care.

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Creating Excellence in Education & Training – Mr Pramod Bhasin, Founder, Genpact

AIMA organised an International Conference on the theme “Building Human Capital for the Knowledge Economy“, on 15th March 2016 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The conference brought together policy makers, CEOs, thought leaders, from both India and UAE to discuss strategies to promote cooperation between the two countries.

Below is an excerpt from the speech of Mr Pramod Bhasin, Founder, Genpact and Chairman, The Skills Academy on Human Capital Competitiveness: Creating Excellence in Education and Training

Pramod Bhasin, Founder, Genpact and Chairman, The Skills Academy addressing the conference

We are, as a country the most attractive destination in the world today for investment and opportunity. 8.4% average annual growth rate over the last so many years is a phenomenal achievement and; while we sitting inside India are the worst critics of India, I think sometimes when we step outside, we forget to understand how the rest of the world looks like and I think we have an enormous opportunity. When I was building Genpact which was really the pioneer and it was my idea and we, as a result, created the BPO industry, the first thing that struck us was the lack of skilled available people and the fact that only 6-9% of our graduates are truly employable.

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Smart India – Gen Bikram Singh at AIMA’s 60th Foundation Day

AIMA celebrated its 60th Foundation Day & 10th National Management Day on 20th February 2016 at Hotel Le Meridien, New Delhi. The theme of the celebrations was “Smart India”. General Bikram Singh, PVSM, UYSM, AVSM, SM, VSM (Retired), Former Chief of the Indian Army & Chairman, Chiefs of Staff was the Chief Guest. Below is an excerpt of his speech on ‘Smart India’.

General Bikram Singh, PVSM, UYSM, AVSM, SM, VSM (Retired), Former Chief of the Indian Army & Chairman Chiefs of Staff addressing the Inaugural session.

I have been associated with AIMA for a while now and this is the third time I am here. One of the reasons for accepting this opportunity to be here today is also the theme ‘Smart India’. To a soldier, anything that talks about enhancing the honor and prestige of India is something which is very appealing and the event theme ‘smart India’ is indeed very appealing. I am sure, not only to a soldier but to all of us.

As a soldier when I envision the Smart India dream, which has been annunciated by our honorable Prime Minister, the foundation of this dream hinges on technology. It hinges on the digital India. But I think we need to take up more holistic view of this entire dream.To convert it into reality, I feel there are three prongs of the strategy which have got to be borne in mind. The first one is creating the Ecosystem, the environment which is smart. Second, we have to ensure that we have to be able to monitor and manage this environment through E-governance and the last but not the least which we tend to forget is that, this entire dream has got to be transformed into reality by all of us, by the nation. We got to train our leaders, managers and skill the people to make sure that this dream comes true. Therefore, the transformation hinges on all of us.

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Making it Happen with Col. Rajyavardhan Rathore, Minister of State for Information & Broadcasting, GoI

The theme for the 42nd National Management Convention, the annual flagship event of AIMA, was “Making it Happen: Leadership in Times of High Expectations”, and speakers from different spheres of life shared their views with participants through interactive sessions.

Below is an excerpt from an inspiring speech by Col. Rajyavardhan Rathore (Retd.), AVSM, Minister of State for Information & Broadcasting, Govt. of India at 42nd NMC

Rajyavardhan Rathore speaking at AIMA's 42nd NMC

Rajyavardhan Rathore, Minister of State for Information & Broadcasting, Govt of India, speaking at AIMA’s 42nd NMC

“Thank you so much! Today the theme is management, high expectations and I am certain that everybody here is an expert in management in various fields of life. You have overcome hurdles, problems, found solutions with out of the box ideas or building on foundations and that’s how you are here today, that’s how your company or students are doing well, that’s how your parents are proud of you and so it’s an honour for me to come and speak to you.

I remember when I was a very young cadet in the military academy and we were given very thin précis on tactics and one of our cadets asked in enthusiasm that if this is all about the tactics then what if enemy gets hold of this and our instructor said this is just a foundation, you need to build on this, these are just the basic principles and rest would be left to your imagination and your ingenuity. So today my talk is no way going to be like précis to you where it’s just words on the foundations and basic things that I in my bit of experience in the armed forces, sports and in politics, whatever I could hear, listen, experience, I am just going to share with you and I am sure you are going to build on it. It’s just the basic foundation that I will speak on.

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42nd National Management Convention: Disruptive Innovation

Excerpt from an insightful speech by D Shivakumar, Chairman & CEO – India Region, PepsiCo India Holdings Pvt Ltd at AIMA’s 42nd National Management Convention held on 30th September – 1st October 2015 at Hotel Taj Palace, New Delhi. The theme for this session was “Disruptive Innovation: Winning By Changing The Rules”.

“Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. It’s always a pleasure to come for an AIMA National Management Convention. My experience of disruptive innovation is from my own career, working in Hindustan lever when we tried to make accessible and affordable categories like shampoo, face cream, detergent, baby care products etc, for the bottom of the pyramid. Then in Nokia, we made technology which was completely new to the world and accessible in a country like India, we went from something like 80 million subscribers to 900 million subscribers. That was the fundamental shift and now on the new journey of health and wellness platform. So what is disruptive innovation? What examples have we seen over the last decade of disruptive innovation and what we’ll see in the future?

D Shivakumar, Chairman & CEO – PepsiCo India addressing AIMA’s 42nd NMC

Disruptive Innovation is about creating new value! You can create new value through new price point, new quality point, a time dimension, so fundamentally creating new value in any market is a disruptive innovation. You create new market itself. Mobile phones created a new market; tablets are creating a new market, a market which did not exist before. Suddenly you bring something which is a new to the market. Most of the disruptive innovation is led by technology that’s what we have seen and when new entrants come into the market, they do not have old cost. The old costs of legacy players are completely disrupted by these new people with new business models. We have seen this in steel and every other industry. New players tend to have cost structure which is significantly lower and hence their business models are different. Then in the technology world, we see the concept of freemium, everything goes free but they make money somewhere else. So what do you do? How do you compete with something which is free? That is the disruptive innovation.

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42nd NMC 2015: Playing It Straight: Keeping Cricket Clean

The 42nd National Management Convention of AIMA was held in New Delhi from 30th September – 1st October 2015 at Hotel Taj Palace, New Delhi. The theme of the 42nd NMC was “Making it Happen: Leadership in Times of High Expectations”, and speakers from different spheres of life shared their views with participants through interactive sessions. KPMG in India was the Knowledge Partner for the Convention.

Below is an excerpt from the speech of Mr Kris Srikkanth, Former Captain of the Indian Cricket team and Former Chairman of the Selection Committee on the theme “Playing It Straight: Keeping Cricket Clean”. Kris Srikkanth’s Speech in AIMA’s NMC 2015

Kris Srikkanth at AIMA’s 42nd NMC

First of all I would like to thank Shiv (D Shivakumar, CEO, Pepsico India) for inviting me over for this function to come and speak at the Aima’s 42nd National management convention. In life, I played cricket and I played it for the passion. In my younger days, I wanted to be an engineer, I mean as usual coming from a typical middle-income family from Chennai the focus was on studies and I never wanted to be the cricketer but then it’s the God’s grace that my passion at the end of the day became my profession, cricket is still my passion.

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42nd National Management Convention – Mr. T V Narendran, Managing Director, Tata Steel India

Mr. T V Narendran, Managing Director, Tata Steel India,South East Asia

Mr. T V Narendran, Managing Director, Tata Steel India, South East Asia speaking at AIMA’s 42nd National Management Convention on 30th Septemeber 2015

The theme of this conference is about making it happen and I think that’s very important. And when I looked at this theme, I was remembering something I heard a few months back from somebody, I don’t remember the name of the speaker but, he said something which stuck in mind and he said – ‘Leadership is about dreams and details’ and I think that’s a very important and crisp way of defining what leadership is about. Because he said ‘you should have dreams otherwise you can’t inspire the people who follow you to follow you and you should have the ability to get into the details because otherwise you can’t make it happen. And if you only have the details and not the dreams then again you are probably not a leader’. So I think it’s important to have this balance between dreams and the details and making it happen is about bridging that balance. So when you look at the Make in India initiative and I think as someone in the manufacturing industry it’s something really exciting for us because after a long time we are all talking of ‘making India’ and we have a government who is making a big splash about it and I think we are really delighted about that because one thing is clear – there is no economy in the world which has made this transition from underdeveloped to developed without having a strong manufacturing sector and even today most developed countries have a bigger share of their manufacturing in their pie than India has.

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National Leadership Conclave 2015 – Nishant Rao of LinkedIn India

Nishant Rao addressing AIMA’s NLC

“Thank you so much for having me here. It’s an honor to be here among such distinguished panelists and an audience like this. I have been in technology for many decades now. I am very passionate about it and I think that it’s changing the way the world works. And I think fundamentally between the internet and social media that’s happening because there is some key ingredient that makes for economic success. Forrester calls this TERA – Trust, Efficiency, Relevance, and Access. Trust is about just being able to tap into the wisdom of the crowd so that you can talk to experts and layman and make an informed decision because you have a lot of information at your fingertips so there is a trust built into that so you are not having a biased opinion. Efficiency comes from just being able to search that and find the information very quickly. Relevance is about just finding the right information and increasingly as platforms are no more about you can actually tailor that content using bunch of fantastic apps come out around that. And then access is obviously about reach.

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Indestructible Brands: Building Brands to Survive Disruption

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2nd National Leadership Conclave: Making India a Creative Superpower

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India Conference in UAE with Mr Naresh Trehan, MD, Medanta

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Creating Excellence in Education & Training – Mr Pramod Bhasin, Founder, Genpact

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Smart India – Gen Bikram Singh at AIMA’s 60th Foundation Day

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Making it Happen with Col. Rajyavardhan Rathore, Minister of State for Information & Broadcasting, GoI

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42nd National Management Convention: Disruptive Innovation

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42nd NMC 2015: Playing It Straight: Keeping Cricket Clean

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42nd National Management Convention – Mr. T V Narendran, Managing Director, Tata Steel India

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National Leadership Conclave 2015 – Nishant Rao of LinkedIn India

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