A recent news related to Prof. C K Prahalad had prompted me to write this post. The news says, “Indian-born management guru C. K. Prahalad, has been named the top Management Guru of the world by ‘Thinkers 50’. C.K. Prahalad beat Bill Gates (ranked 2nd) and Allen Greenspan (ranked 3rd). Prof. Prahalad is currently the Paul and Ruth McCracken Distinguished Professor of Corporate Strategy at the University of Michigan”
The news goes on “ Not many management thinkers actually follow up important early ideas with genuinely groundbreaking future ideas. This is what C K Prahalad has managed to do. His work with Gary Hamel set the strategic agenda of the 1990s. Now, with ‘The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid’ he has established the social, entrepreneurial and economic agenda of our times
As the president of TiE:Kerala Chapter, I had the fortune of presiding over a major function attended by TiE:Global Trustees and Prof. C K Prahalad, at Cochin, India in the year end of 2003. Prof. Prahalad did the keynote address that day. I produce below some of my takeaways from his erudite keynote address.
He said “China and India have the potential to go to top of countries having global firms catering to a very large market. China will reach there in 5 years. China had already a large market with local firms in the 90s. India is in that position now. China is moving right with global firms. Will reach there in 2010. India can reach there by 2015. That is the potential of India.”
What can we aim for 2015 and beyond? He stated the following:
Largest pool of manpower of which majority will be college graduates and a very large pool skilled work force.
- World Leaders in Industry and Commerce with about 30 Fortune 100 firms from India
- India accounting for 10% of World Trade with broad scope for products and services
- A source of global innovation with new businesses and new forms of organizations such as the co-operatives like AMUL India, and lots of companies based on new technology
- Focus on the bottom of the pyramid as a source of innovation for the world. Be leaders in health, education, energy, transportation and sustainable Development
- A country of flowering of Art and Literature
- New Moral Voice for people all over the world. India as the most bench-marked country for capability to benefit from diversity
To reach there, Prof. Prahalad said that we have to demonstrate:
* Shared Commitment to Goals
* Creative and Innovative action Plan
* Focus on Entrepreneurship
* Focus on the Individual (of course not based on caste and creed); and
* Less Corruption and good governance.
On the last point, he re-iterated that human development is not about more resources, but of less corruption in the deployment of resources. Good governance and less corruption lead to high levels of GDP and not vice versa. In Human Development Index (HDI), India is 127 out of 175 countries, and in Corruption Perception Index (CPI), we are 2.7 on a scale of 10. (10 means no corruption), clubbed with Nigeria and Pakistan.
He predicted that if we reach 7.0 (moderately corrupt) on CPI, and 20/175 in HDI, our per capita income would go up from $2500 to $25,000.
It was such a wonderful occasion to learn from the world’s top Guru whose concern for people at the bottom of the pyramid is genuine and empathetic. If our planners, thinkers and politicians heed his voice and work out based the suggestions that he had given above, no doubt, India would reach the top, much before the predicted time frame.
What an occasion to rejoice would that be!
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