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Executive Interviews: Interview with Harish Bijoor on Management Guru
October 2010
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By Dr. Nagendra V Chowdary
It is often noticed that several such
lists (Wall Street Journal's world's
most influential business thinkers,
Fortune's world's best gurus in
strategy, etc.,) are dominated by North
Americans, with abysmal
representations either from Europe or
Asia? What explains this
polarization?
The polarization on this count is
largely about the negative power of
ignorance. Also, a Management
Thinker with powerful ideas never
really got the representation and
recognition in North American
markets, because most of his work
was all about SE Asia or possibly
about a tiny country far away from the
madding crowd of the consumer
market of them all, the United States
of America!
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Things are, however, now just about
falling in place. You do not need to be
an Indian Management Thinker with
an NRI tag to get that recognition
anymore. If your ideas are powerful
enough, they will percolate
everywhere. It is also now politicallycorrect
and equally fashionablycorrect
to look at India, China, Brazil
and even Russia for the new age
Management Thinkers. These are the
markets with fast-paced growth. The
US is growing at 1.6% growth and is
very excited about its growth after
nine long years, India, on the other
hand, is growing at 8.95% in GDP
terms today. That is found to be an
exciting market. The numbers of
India and China are in terms of
population, their incomes, their yen
to spend and splurge, their latent
consumerism and everything else
about the robust consuming
environment just cannot be ignored
anymore. That helps.
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Who according to you has been
the best Indian management guru and
why?
Chanakya, as far as I am
concerned.Kautilya's Arthshastra is
the most enduring of them all. His
ideas and thoughts are still relevant,
original and innovative. Even in this
new day and age. Chanakya then, the
best Indian Management Guru to
date.
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In all fairness, although CK
Prahlad has been voted as World’s
No.1 Management Guru (in 2007 by
Thinkers 50), many critics point out
that when it came to managing the
ventures that he himself started, the
results were just disappointing.
Therefore, where do you draw a line
between a true global management
guru and an ardent advocate of a
business (successful, yet times!)
practice?
A Management Guru need not be a
good Corproate Manager at all. A
good Management Guru need not be a
good Operating Manager at all. These
are in many ways different
competencies.
I would stick by CK Prahlad's rating
as the World No.1 on this count.
Others who have used his ideas and
put them into action and have reaped
the rewards in terms of corporate
profits will testify to this.
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Who according to you are the
most promising global and Indian
management gurus?
I would pitch my vote on this count
for Muhammad Yunus of
Bangladesh. And Tarun Khanna.
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Are the newly designated
management gurus expected to carry
more responsibilities vis-Ã -vis their
earlier as well peers’ responsibilities?
Not really. Everyone across the
decades has had to carry the burden
of correcting a business order,
correcting an environment at large
and correcting corporate profit
norms. The struggle is a continuous
one. It has continued over the
decades and will continue in the
decades to come.
1.
The Multi-Branding Strategy Case Study
2. ICMR
Case Collection
3.
Case Study Volumes
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