How to think like and then become a monopolist? Saurabh Mukherjea explains

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Saurabh Mukherjea, Founder & Chief Investment Officer, Marcellus Investment Managers addressing AIMA LeaderSpeak session

Saurabh Mukherjea, Founder & Chief Investment Officer, Marcellus Investment Managers addressing AIMA LeaderSpeak session

‘Monopoly’ is not a good word to reckon with, Saurabh Mukherjea, Founder & Chief Investment Officer, Marcellus Investment Managers busts this myth during AIMA’s 32nd LeaderSpeak session with Mr Mohandas Pai, Chairman, Manipal Global Education Services on “India’s monopolists, their business models and business management.

‘Monopoly’ is not a good word to reckon with, however, companies are going for a paradigm shift to own the “monopolistic” identity. India’s biggest monopolists keep a low profile, they drive low-cost cars, they don’t make appearances for movie premieres or buy cricket/football teams. He further adds that the psychological approach of a monopolist is to be grounded and focused, rather than being caught up in the media hype.

A monopolist who endures is also someone who has relentless hunger. A classic example, Harsh Mariwala, Founder & Chairman, Marico, talks with the same hunger for the growth of his company as he would do 20 years ago. “If you keep yourself hungry then the country can give you endless growth opportunities,” says Mukherjea. And what is more interesting about it is that it is harder to keep yourself hungry than to enjoy what you have in plenty.

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Reimagining India with Rajiv Kumar, Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog

India has become a leading country in the world, but it still has some way to go before it can consider itself a truly great nation. India needs to reimagine itself as a nation without poverty and shortages and as a nation of capability and prosperity. NITI Aayog has to play a pivotal role in shaping the transformative policies and improving policy outcomes.

Rajiv Kumar, Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog sharing key insights on the ‘ReImagining India’ at #AIMA‘s Diamond Jubilee National Management Convention (#NMC) 2017. Read excerpts –

Rajiv Kumar, Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog addressing AIMA's Diamond Jubilee National Management Convention

Rajiv Kumar, Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog addressing AIMA’s Diamond Jubilee National Management Convention

Let me start off by complimenting ourselves, as Indians, for being in the midst of what I’ve always called India’s historically unique attempt at undertaking a triple transition simultaneously. I don’t see anywhere else in history or geography that there are other countries that have taken the social, political, and economic transitions simultaneously, these have always been sequential, and that’s something we’ve had to do because of what we were and what our independent leaders of our national movement decided. They simply decided that India could not afford to first take the economic transition where all the liberties would be closed and there would be no democracies and so on, and Mr Ambedkar ensured that you couldn’t undertake an economic transition without the social transition. And if you look at this huge achievement that we have had over the last 70 years, we very often tend to underestimate that. The inversion of the social pyramid in our country, where you’ve had a Dalit woman being the chief minister of the largest province in our country thrice, has been achieved practically and democratically without any bloodshed or violence. And states after states from Tamil Nadu to Bihar to UP we’ve seen that social transition happens over the last 70 years which for example cost millions of lives in the Soviet Union and China, and is doing so in Africa at the moment.

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Creating a Trillion Dollar Digital Economy – Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad on Digital India

Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister of Law and Justice; Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India addressing AIMA's Diamond Jubilee National Management Convention (NMC) 2017

Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister of Law and Justice; Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India addressing AIMA’s Diamond Jubilee National Management Convention (NMC) 2017

Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister of Law and Justice; Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India sharing his thoughts on Digitisation, #Digital Economy, and #Digitalindia at #AIMA‘s Diamond Jubilee National Management Convention (#NMC) 2017. Read excerpts –

Ladies and gentlemen, I have 20 minutes left, I’ll try to be as brief and as bullet points as possible. You know whenever you come with an Idea, certain hiccups are there. I remember when I was the minister in Vajpayee Government, the National Highway Program was started and Vajpayee was men of few words, sitting in a meeting and there was a lot of opposition “Jamin kaha se ayegi, Kashmir se Kanyakumari, Silchar se Surat 4 lane 6 lane highway kaise banega, kisan pareshan honge”. Vajpayee ji kept on listening and lastly uttered one word “Karna hai” that’s all. The Boss said enough is enough. About 10 months ago I had gone to Kanyakumari in a function. And I was told Kashmir to Kanyakumari 6 lane highway ends just adjacent to the area where the function was held… I said “Let me drive on this highway, I will not get time to drive all the way from Kashmir to Kanyakumari but let me have a feel. That if there is an idea, there is a commitment, results happen.

To speak about digitization today, when the computer came what was the objection? “Naukri chali jayegi computer aa gya” many of our own party people were also having the problem but today computer, leave aside killing jobs, became one of the biggest generators of jobs. Why I am speaking all this to you today is “1. Trust the potential of India’s talent, 2. Have faith in the innovative spirit of Indians, 3. Share the sheer optimism which young India is seeking to propel”. These three things I would like to highlight at the very outset.

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Vice President of India, Shri Hamid Ansari addressing AIMA JRD Tata Award

Shri Hamid Ansari, the (then) Vice President of India, addressing AIMA – JRD Tata Corporate Leadership Award ceremony. 

Shri Hamid Ansari, Vice President of India addressing AIMA JRD Tata Award Ceremony

Shri Hamid Ansari, Vice President of India addressing AIMA JRD Tata Award Ceremony

Shri Sunil Munjal, Shri Chandrashekhar, Shri Mohandas Pal, Shri Nikhil Swahney, Shri Sanjay Kirloskar, Miss Rekha Sethi, distinguished guests, ladies, and gentlemen. Some years back two management gurus had postulated that in a complex and dynamic global competitive environment adaptive capability is the key to survival and growth and that Indian businesses will find themselves on the road to rapid growth when they learn to think and act adaptively. The challenge before the Indian corporate sector today in the face of continuing low level of global growth and rapid changes in the technology of production and preferences of the end consumers is how to sustain their growth in times of recession that endangers protectionist regimes while competing in a fast evolving technological landscape.

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How to attain Sustainable Competitive Advantage – Mr. Arunabh Das Sharma – President, Bennett Coleman

Mr. Arunabh Das Sharma – President, Bennett Coleman

The concept of competitive advantage is slightly outvoted concept today.  What it means today and what it meant in 90’s is vastly different. In this age of dramatic & disruptive technology how can we manage the product life cycle is the main question. I have been fortunate to be associated with brands which have managed it successfully.  I have been fortunate to be a part of the journey of brands like Coke, Whirlpool & Times of India which are more that 100 yr old brands .According to me, the concept of product life cycle is dead. I think more and more people are trying to manage the brand life cycle as oppose to the product life cycle today. Because products that constitute the brand can come & go but the brand value will stay forever.

Product life cycle is an inverse s shaped curve, where you would start slow and then there’s rapid growth and then you start slowing down and at the end it would decline. Let’s take an example of Colgate dental cream. It is probably a 65 – 70 year old brand and yet it continues to be the leader primarily in same form & fashion. It is a very successful brand & product. I would however argue that the reason why Colgate dental cream is so successful is because the company has managed to figure out that there is a core set of consumers & there is a peripheral set of consumers & Colgate has been successful in focusing on both these categories by launching different products under same mother brand of Colgate, for e.g.:  Colgate total, Colgate sensitive & Colgate whitening. Continue reading

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