Mr. Kurush Grant, Executive Director, ITC Ltd

Ladies and gentlemen, a very good morning! A few years back when the last financial meltdown took place, the Advertising Agencies Association of India had a seminar in Mumbai, and I would like to repeat the name of that seminar because I think it fits in with what we are going through at this point of time. It is – ‘Why Waste a Good Recession’ and a lot of us laughed at it and thought they were being too clever but what we found is that those companies who leveraged to good recession actually did well and those companies who panicked and who did the traditional stuff, which Mr. Bajaj also talked about, didn’t perhaps do so well.

One of the issues raised in the brief up of this particular recession was, ‘is it worth while changing vision, is it worthwhile changing strategy during times of uncertainties and difficulties? And if you were to look at various examples of companies around the world, what we find is that those companies who stick to a vision and whose strategies are robust and whose strategies actually work across time, never actually change their strategies. What does certainly happen is that they change tactics, they change logistics, they change supply chain possibilities but in the long run, strategies are very very rarely changed. But the issue is what short term is & what is long term?

Successful companies throughout the world have actually, apart from the traditional aspect of having a three layered goal and three layers of new product innovation- the short term, the medium and the long term, what successful companies actually do is that they have three layers of planning and three levels of actual strategic formulation for the short, medium and long term. Continue reading →

Mr D Shiva Kumar, CEO PepsiCo & Past president AIMA

Thank you Ladies and gentlemen. We have already had 10 wonderful sessions and we have heard a lot on the theme of courage and uncertainty. I think, we can say if we conclude that uncertainty is here to stay amongst us and not go away.

How do firms deal with uncertainty? Some firms behave like an ostrich and soon they cease to exist. They are in denial mode and they start to externalise a lot. They start blaming others for their problems. Some firms get all rational and get into analysis paralysis mode. They think they are making great progress because of the number of slides and data points they have. This is what I call ‘death by PowerPoint’. Some firms get into an activity mode and unleash the activity trap, forgetting that the first thing you need when you go through an uncertain stage is focus. Some firms freeze, hence they lose. Some firms liberate to what I call emotional engagement. Courage is one part, logic many parts magic. And magic happens when we show emotions, when we tap into the emotional energies of people.

I want to show you a clip from the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and then I will talk about what happened after that to end with what courage all means.

From the video, Derek Redmond showed enormous courage in dealing with failure, 150 meters into the race and 250 meters to go.

His decision to complete the race shows determination. His hopping for 250 meters shows endurance through pain. His father’s act shows empathy, compassion and the need for emotional anchors in uncertainty. His tears show vulnerability. That’s what courage is all about. And courage shown through these emotions has an astounding impact on 65000 people in that stadium. He didn’t win the race but he won admiration for life and that’s what courage is all about.

Two years after this Derek’s doctor told him that he couldn’t run again because he had had multiple challenges with his feet. So Derek without losing dedication decided to choose another game. He picked up basketball when Toronto represented United Kingdom in basketball. So, Derek represented the country twice, once in athletics and second in basketball. This Barcelona video brought him lot of fame. This was used by the Olympic committee on a theme called ‘humanity’. It was used by the Visa brand to promote the Olympic movement. It was used by Nike for ‘Acts of courage’. And this is what the Olympic committee or the movement said of this film when they ran it. They said force is measured in kilograms. Speed is measured in seconds. But courage, you can’t measure it!

On that note I would end my session. Thank you ladies and gentlemen.

The above article is an excerpt from the speech delivered by Mr D Shiva Kumar, CEO PepsiCo & Past president AIMA  at AIMA’s National Management Convention which was held in September 2013

Mr. Gyan Gupta CEO, Dainik Bhaskar Digital Business

Henry Ford has been known for producing the mass production system in the American history. He is known as the most senseless and the most brilliant marketer at the same time. Senseless because all he gave to the customers was one black car and brilliant because he could create the production system that could create a car for 500 dollars, and he could sell millions of them. Henry Ford was a real marketer; he did not produce a 500 dollar to produce an assembly line. He actually figured out if he can produce a 500 dollar car, he would be able to sell million of those to the customers. So he kept the customers in mind and focused on a low cost production system. So, there’s a fine line between the customer & the product.
Not the strongest, not the most intelligent but the most flexible species will survive in today’s world. People from big publications think that they are in the business of newspaper; in fact they should focus on the news rather than the newspaper. Newspaper was a medium that was convenient some time back. The consumer today still wants news, they still want credible news from the trusted sources but the medium has changed due to advanced technology. Consumers are changing & they are adapting themselves to the current changes in the environment. Continue reading →