Three interesting events in the last fortnight have thrown up some intriguing viewpoints and a set of challenges and opportunities which we can ignore only at our own peril. The first was a television debate convened by Tim Sebastian of BBC Hardtalk fame where I had the opportunity to speak against the motion on the topic ?India is mean?. The second was a presentation on the amazing turnaround and march to victory of the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) cricket team in the recent IPL tournament by their professional CEO Venky Mysore. And the third was a workshop on co-creation conducted for CEOs by Prof Venkat Ramaswamy of the University of Michigan.
The TV debate, with two CEOs squared off against two well-meaning Corporate leader turned Social evangelists was held in front of a TV audience drawn from some of the best Mumbai colleges and as the discussion and interaction progressed, it became increasingly evident that try as we might, my partner Ronnie Screwalla of UTV Disney and I had an uphill battle to overcome conventional thinking that the rich did not care two hoots about the lesser elements of society. The current revival of Government intent to ask corporates to mandatorily allocate two percent of profits to CSR probably needs to be viewed through this lens of public opinion.
The KKR story is one of meticulous planning and out-of-box thinking. Taking over a team that had run out of India?s, Venky?s systematic approach to team selection, talent spotting and development and match tactics to pull off an incredible turnaround in team capabilities and fortune is indeed an object lesson for all of us running teams and companies in the corporate sector. And Prof Ramaswamy?s approach to building new solutions for unpredictable environments involving all participants and beneficiaries could be the way to find co-created solutions for many of the tricky problems of our times.
How do we bring three seemingly unrelated ideas to work for the country and the industry in these uncertain times? The three significant challenges in front of all of us is the imperative to find new products or services for existing markets and new markets for our existing portfolio, the ability to motivate and hold our teams together in times of adversity and of course to do our bit for the nation. Co-creating with our customers may be a definite solution in our own industry with a plethora of possible solutions in Cloud computing, Mobility, Enterprise Social media and business analytics all emerging as solutions in search of real business problems to solve. In many situations we are finding that the use of platforms like Facebook to engage retail customers in competitions designed by product manufacturers creates more excitement and sales than the traditional manufacturer driven approach to product creation and marketing. Co-creation can also enable new solutions to be developed for Government to Citizen interfaces, small and medium enterprises and other hitherto untouched constituencies who have enough capability to buy if adequate excitement and participation is ensured.
The KKR approach can be most useful in the identification of new talent sources and development of a robust talent pipeline for the IT services industry. Venky Mysore?s talent spotting approach that brought new names like James Pattinson not just into IPL but also into their own national teams can be replicated in our search for new talent from second and third tier cities. And co-creation of new recruitment retention and training strategies with colleges, third party source-and-train providers and the associates working in our organisations can ensure that the process of hiring, enabling and retaining talent is streamlined in our organisations.
The original perception problem that successful companies and wealthy employees do not do enough for society can be overcome, not just by increasing our CSR budgets, but also by encouraging participation and time commitment by company leadership and a larger portion of the employee base. At Zensar our experiments with multiple initiatives like community development, healthcare awareness, education and skills for the unemployed and creation of bio-diversity parks for the benefit of the community have all enabled us to increase awareness, participation and voluntary time and budget contributions from our associates.
The celebrations at this year?s Independence Day functions around the country have been understandably somewhat muted. With the global economies including India teetering on the edge with continuing slide in industrial production exports and almost all sectoral indices and the economic outlook of the country looking dismal with the twin ills of corruption and inflation clouding all short term prospects, there is precious little to cheer out. However, if there is strong focus on co-creation and we reflect on some of the simple lessons of lateral thinking and co-creation that have been mentioned in this article, one can hope that the more visionary companies will lead the way to the others and ensure that this nightmare period gets over soon and we all rediscover the path to growth in our companies and happiness for all our stakeholders!
Dr Ganesh Natarajan is Vice Chairman & CEO of Zensar and Chairman of the National Knowledge Committee of the CII.