Redefining roles: (L to R) Aditya Birla Group's S. Misra, Cadbury India's B. Puri, Management Strategist K. Ohmae, BCG's A. Maira and Kotak Mahindra Bank's U. Kotak

The morning of September 15, 2004, saw some 150 honchos of India Inc. making a beeline for the Taj President Hotel, Mumbai, the venue of the BT Knowledge Management Forum, for a strategy session with who else but Mr. Strategy himself, Kenichi Ohmae. With a topic like "Mind of the Strategist: Roles and Strategies for the CEO in the New Age", it was only fair to expect Ohmae to be in his elements, and India Inc. was not disappointed.

Holding forth on the topic, Ohmae declared that everything about strategy was changing, and that it was important to "shut down and re-boot" the brain in order to re-absorb what is happening around us. He then focussed on the types of changes happening the world over and how companies were dealing with them. According to Ohmae, the value chain was gradually disappearing, and the key to progress and success lay in sustainability and it-based prosperity, for which companies needed to move into a web-shaped model. Drawing on examples of companies like Google and Microsoft, he explained how being it-driven had worked for them. At the same time, he stressed on the importance of the individual. "The key to success today lies in individuality and not mass production, but it is difficult to change because that was what had worked earlier."

The strategist: Kenichi Ohmae at the BT Knowledge Management Forum

Referring to today's world as a "borderless world", he redefined the fundamental forces as communication, capital, corporation and consumers. In this context, he noted that national borders have become semi-permeable, and information and capital can criss-cross borders almost seamlessly. Ohmae emphasised that being open to change was the only way CEOs could survive in such an environment.

Notes For The CEO

The forum was also conceptualised to offer a platform for Indian industry to share its views with Ohmae, and accordingly, his speech was followed by a panel discussion on "The role of the CEO in a shrinking world". Apart from Ohmae, the distinguished panellists included Santrupt Misra, Director (Corporate hr & it), Aditya Birla Group; Bharat Puri, Managing Director, Cadbury India; Arun Maira, Chairman, Boston Consulting Group; and Uday Kotak, Vice Chairman and Managing Director, Kotak Mahindra Bank.

The panel discussion (see Soundbites for excerpts) began with how Indian companies were dealing with globalisation, and the role played by the CEO in this set-up. Explaining the secret behind the overseas success of the Aditya Birla Group, Misra pointed out two aspects: understanding the local customer, and making sure that local management started playing a greater role in its ventures abroad.

SOUNDBITES Excerpts from what the panellists had to say on various issues regarding corporate strategy for the modern enterprise.

Today in most well-developed countries, the majority are affluent. Therefore, the distribution model of the wealth created by capitalism is very socialistic CEOs can no longer afford to say global or local. You have to go generation by generation and capture new segments Surfing on the internet is not good enough; you have to travel around the world and see for yourself what's happening Kenichi Ohmae Management Guru

Even for commodities, expectations are changing. Customers expect a whole lot of technical know-how, support, service and education Building entrepreneurship is no great MBA science or Harvard principle. It is pure human instinct You have to identify people whose capability you can bet on, trust them, and give them the freedom to build a corporation Santrupt Misra Director (Corp. HR & IT), Aditya Birla Group

We talk of a borderless world, but in India the borders between states itself are difficult to overcome Needs and aspirations across different classes are merging. Clearly there is an Indian consumer who is now almost mirroring the global consumer Earlier you had to communicate differently to Bharat and differently to India. Today, aspirations, lingos, etc. are getting very similar Bharat Puri Managing Director, Cadbury India

Indian CEOs are seeing an expansion of their marketplace. It's the organising ability that is going to make a big difference rather than where you want to go An individual by himself can't do much; a coalition of individuals with similar identities and aspirations can have more of an impact The commander-in-chief model of the CEO, who makes sure his instructions are carried out, will not work in a world in which there are differences Arun Maira, Chairman, Boston Consulting Group

The future is in the hands of how the consumer perceives and experiences the use of a service or a brand Globalisation is leading you to do what is right by the consumer, irrespective of the history of the nature of the service In the future, as long as there is a basic trust with the brand, consumers will be more concerned with the service the entity offers Uday Kotak, VC & MD, Kotak Mahindra Bank

Arun Maira drew a parallel between the CEO's role in the organisational structure and a flotilla of ships, where one person (the CEO) is the commander of the flotilla, and the others are in charge of their individual vessels, and all go forward together. He favoured the model where entrepreneurs are part of the system, and are also capable of producing and selling individually.

Globalisation also makes you do what the consumer wants, felt Uday Kotak, explaining how he had used the Domino's home delivery model (delivery within 30 minutes) to provide home-banking facilities to his customers. Historically, he said, banks considered only two categories of customers-the high net worth and the mass-when in fact a third and bigger segment, the mass affluent, was emerging today. This segment comprised predominantly salaried individuals who demanded services previously reserved for high net worth people. Interestingly though, these services are still not available to them.

Bharat Puri explained two aspects of this ever-changing profile of the Indian consumer: Not only was he merging with the world consumer, but different segments of consumers were becoming more homogeneous than ever before as well. To keep pace with these changes, Ohmae felt that it would be advisable for CEOs to travel widely to gauge "the extent of what is impacting what community, and if this will impact your own country or your company". That was the best education they could ever receive, because just by surfing the internet, one can never get the feel of what is happening in another place.

The post-lunch session saw Ohmae take up this issue with gusto as he went about outlining various survival strategies for CEOs in the present day environment. Using Guangdong in South China (electronic manufacturing) and Kista City in Sweden (mobile communications) as examples, he explained how clusters of a particular industry in a given area successfully attracted foreign direct investment. To be a good strategist, strategy and business plans came in much later, he felt. "The key to being a good strategist lies in global competitiveness and customer's franchise," he said.

The floor was then thrown open for a round of audience questions. To a query on the inequality in the distribution of information and internet connectivity in India, Ohmae felt that it was necessary for only a select few to have access initially. "Don't worry about a billion people on day one; we have to put some people ahead." In response to another concern voiced over the quality of products in countries where the prices were lower, Ohmae said that it was up to the company to take advantage of lower prices and improve the quality of their products.

With the master of strategy in full flow, and with four leading lights of Indian industry contributing their bit, the audience was spellbound. The lessons learnt will surely augur well for the future.