The Smart Manager - May - June 2017

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This issue of The Smart Manager features Gautam Hari Singhania, Chairman and Managing Director, Raymond Group who talks about the future path of the company. We have Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott, London Business School talking about a three-staged life and its implications, while Ken Rutsky, author of Launching to Leading gives us insights on how to lead. Morgen Witzel, Exeter Business School, shows the way for companies to expand internationally.
This issue also features The Akshay Patra Foundation, an organisation dedicated to serving wholesome meals to school children. Vip Vyas, Distinctive Performance and Stuart Doughty, an executive consultant share their views on how we can create new worlds of possibilities, while Nicholas Ind, Oslo School of Management tells us how brands can nurture a desire for themselves among customers. We have featured Liri Andersson and Ludo Van der Hayden, INSEAD who talk about what companies must do to survive in today’s digital world. Anees Haidary, Sasken elaborates on harnessing the potential of cross-cultural diversity in companies.
In our regular section Robin Speculand busts myths regarding why many fail at executing strategies. Hardik Harsora, Effex, writes about the importance of business modeling. Howard H Yu, Knut Haanaes, and Jayanth Narayanan, IMD, share their views on the indispensible role of innovation in the progress of companies. Rahul Shah, DDI gives advice on transforming from ‘mindfull’ to ‘mindful’, while under First Serve we are featuring the best customer service practices of Grofers.

Delivering Delight

The online ‘grocery ordering’ business in India has not taken off like some others such as apparel, electronics, etc. It is riddled with many challenges, some of them unique—the need for cold storage—to maintain the quality of perishable products such as fish and vegetables. However, things are now looking bright for this sector which is projected to grow by around 38%.1 India was the fifth largest market in Asia Pacific for online grocery retailing standing at $135mn in 2016.2 Many players are now operational in this space and are working on different business models. Grofers, a mobile and web application is setting the benchmark for service delivery and customer satisfaction. We speak to Albinder Dhindsa, Co-founder and CEO, Grofers to know more about their zest to make a mark in this category.

6 mins

Is Your Thinking Flawed?

Robin Speculand, founder and CEO of Bridges Business Consultancy Int, dispels myths surrounding strategy execution.

5 mins

Gift Of Time

In The 100-year Life, Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott refer to a French fable in which a nymph, Ondine, curses her husband Palemon: as long as he is awake, he will breathe; as soon as he sleeps, he will die. From that time on he spends every moment in frantic activity, fearing death. Will an extended three-stage life be like this—entailing constant work, boredom, and missed opportunities—or full of possibilities?

4 mins

Content, Context, And Conversations

As per B2B Content Marketing 2017 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America, 70% of B2B marketers say they will produce more content in 2017 than they did in 2016 and 39% of B2B marketers say they will increase spending on content marketing over the next twelve months. Content is key for any marketing initiative to succeed. However, in the present world of information overload, content without context merely is a ‘low-test fuel, prone to knocks and stalls’. In this exclusive with The Smart Manager, Rutsky talks about how B2B companies can break through and lead when they control the context of the market conversations.

5 mins

The Art Of Giving Back

Ever since its inception in 2000, The Akshaya Patra Foundation has been shaping lives, one meal at a time. Theirs is the world’s largest NGO-run midday meal program, serving wholesome lunch to over 1.6 million children in 13,577 schools across 11 states in India. The Foundation—while fighting the dual challenges of hunger and education—has emerged as a brilliant model in operational excellence, technological innovation, and quality management. This interview offers a glimpse into their functioning and their plans for the future.

5 mins

Thinking That Matters

The Gartner Group identified thought leadership marketing as a major business trend that has rapidly become an established field in marketing and a basis of competitive differentiation when well-informed buyers see little perceived differences between solution providers.*Today, individuals and businesses need to embrace thought leadership—which is about coming up with new ways of thinking and reinventing—as a strategy for growth.

4 mins

Greed Is Good

“[Brand desire]…is the passionate feeling for acquisition and experience of a product or service which is driven by a set of connected factors that are intrinsic and also extrinsic.” Nicholas Ind, co-author of Brand Desire: How to Create Consumer Involvement and Inspiration, discusses how more than ‘want’ or ‘need’, ‘desire’ entices consumers to brands. And how brands should cultivate desire to build a stronger connect and engagement.

5 mins

The New Normal

For over a decade, companies have been urged to ‘digitalize’ or risk getting left behind. The specific technology innovations introduced by the digital revolution such as mobile, apps, ‘the cloud’, big data, and 3D printing are shaking up businesses and organizations. The digital journey has passed a frontier into a land that no longer distinguishes between digital and business, as these are now unavoidably linked. However, in this passage a fracture is being revealed: top corporate leaders across the globe are insufficiently directing the digitalization of their companies. For this category of leaders, more than for the rest of the organization, digital is at best confusing and at worst unclear.To support business leaders—executives and boards alike— in their effort to digitalize, INSEAD, in collaboration with the consultancy ‘this fluid world’, have issued a report, Directing Digitalisation: 11 Guidelines for Boards and Executives. The concepts covered in this report are grouped under three key headings—environmental, organizational, and strategic, which are discussed below in the context of India.

4 mins

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The Smart Manager Magazine Description:

The Smart Manager, India's first world-class management magazine, was founded in 2002 by eminent business historian Dr Gita Piramal with Harvard Business School Dean, Prof. Nitin Nohria with the mission of updating managers and business practitioners in India with the latest thought-provoking strategic ideas from experienced, world-class managers, academics and consultants from across the globe. Over the years, the magazine has carried articles authored by illustrious management gurus such as the late CK Prahalad and Sumantra Ghoshal, Jack Trout, Ram Charan, Gary Hamel, Gay Haskins, Jagdish Seth and Lynda Gratton. We believe that "managers are the best teachers of managers" and most of our articles are written in the first person by top-tier CEOs such as Kumaramangalam Birla, Sunil Mittal, Aditya Birla, KV Kamath, Santrupt Mitra, Rajeev Dubey and S Ramadorai. We also have relationships with a number of B-schools around the world, apart from most top-level schools in India.

The Smart Manager hosts the Tata Consultancy Services Smart Manager Case Contest, the most prestigious competition of its kind in the Indian print media. The contest, with a cash prize of INR50,000 per issue, sees wide participation from national and international business managers and students. 
The 'Smart" in The Smart Manager is an acronym for Strategy, Marketing, Analysis, Resources and Technology. Truly useful knowledge when you need it 24 x 365, year after year.