Volunteering members of the steering committee Himanshu Jain, Managing Director and Vice President – South East Asia and Indian Sub-Continent, Diversey; Sandeep Sharma, SVP and Managing Director, RealPage India; Shardul Shroff, Managing Partner, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas and Co.; Prasad Chavare, Managing Director and CEO – India & South-East Asia, Foseco; Amit Paithankar, Managing Director – South Asia, Emerson.
“The aim is to make this committee a platform for business leaders to share ideas and challenges that the business community can tackle. It is also meant to be a think tank that creates awareness around new insights, research, and technology that can propel different businesses forward. There will be a specific focus on expanding the impact of Indian businesses and influencing policy,” says Prof Sameer Hasija, Dean of Executive Education, INSEAD
Disruption and Innovation
The founding principles of this committee will broadly be based on the ideas of the radical business strategy outlined in the book “The Phoenix Encounter Method” authored by Ian C. Woodward, V. Padmanabhan, Sameer Hasija, and Ram Charan.
Businesses need to avoid legacy traps, be vigilant of industry-wide changes that are happening across the board, be future-looking, constantly focus on value proposition, and make comprehensive assessments of all the forces that can destroy current operations.
“We’ve had companies who’ve worked with us for the last twenty years. And nobody is going to continue to work with you if you offer them the same solution you gave them two decades ago. You have to keep innovating. These new ideas can be implemented in business processes or solutions or any other aspect. Embedding innovation in your business is essential and the only way to keep it healthy over time,” says Himanshu Jain, President, Indian Subcontinent, Diversey
“For businesses that have been operating for the last twenty years and growing at 10-20% with healthy bottom lines, there has to be a change in mindset to adapt to what startups are doing today. Marketshare, growth, and VC investment today could be unrelated to unit economics. Older businesses need disruption in both perspective and business models,” says Anuj Bairathi, Founder and CEO, Cyfuture India
Vulnerability, Viability, and Volatility
As per a report by Accenture, disruption is inescapable and a challenge for all industries. And unfortunately, playing safe and making cautious moves does not always protect one’s business from potential disruption. The source could come from anywhere, not just from direct competition. The iPhone disrupted not only the phone industry but also the camera industry, the calendar industry, and the GPS industry. And one of the reasons they succeeded is because of the way they built their ecosystem. Nokia and Blackberry relied on internal resources to create applications, whereas Apple created a whole ecosystem by opening it up to absolutely everyone.
As per Accenture, US$41 trillion in enterprise value is already exposed to disruption. And this is not a short-term or one-time occurrence, it’s going to be a constant battle. The consulting firm has mapped a 2×2 matrix placing industries on a graph of durability and vulnerability vs viability and volatility. The sectors which are high in vulnerability and volatility are where the highest level of disruption is taking place- infrastructure and transportation, insurance, consumer goods, and retail.
“The way we at Emerson look at innovation is from a perspective of what we can offer to the customer in the context of sustainability, technology, and everything else that is happening now. And while R&D organizations are set up by most firms in India, many times they end up doing back–end work. For the Indian ecosystem, I think the challenge is to take all this experience and solve the big problems that these customers are facing now,” says Amit Paithankar, Managing Director – South Asia, Emerson Electric Company.
“Discussion on innovation must not be restricted to IT and IT platforms. The scope for business innovation is far broader than that and on this platform, we should be cognizant of that. If we do that we can inspire change in many more sectors, especially healthcare,” says Sanjiv Navangul, MD & CEO, Bharat Serums.
The Method of Disruption
Coming up with a new innovative idea to change the way a certain industry works, doesn’t always rely on technology. While AI, Web 3.0, and metaverse are all buzzwords, disruption in any form from any part of the business – supply chain, processes, or business model can prove to be impactful. For example, Zara, a part of Inditex, is one of the most profitable apparel brands, more than Louis Vuitton & Gucci. It’s a mass-market segment, but they make much more money than these big fashion houses. The biggest advantage Zara has is essentially its supply chain. The lead time in the industry, it’s anything from 1-1.5yrs. Zara on the other hand, their a lead time is anything between two to three weeks which means its speed and agility are significantly better than what the industry on average does.
“One of the great ways in which the ILC think tank can make a great contribution is by becoming a space where different leaders exchange ideas and challenges and talk about how they have tackled disruptive forces in their business. As cybersecurity experts, we’re constantly getting various such inputs from our clients, it would be good to hear from a wider network on what different sectors are facing,” says Pradeep Sekar, Director, Optiv Security India.
“One of the fundamental ways to encourage innovative thinking would be at the school or college level. The objective should be to excite students about learning, not about scaring them about the consequences of not. But apart from that, if this ILC sub-committee can become a community-centric platform for a free flow of ideas around innovation, that would be a great achievement,” says Sandeep Sharma, SVP and Managing Director, RealPage India
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