“Youngsters, between 31-35 years of age, in metro cities in India, comprise our start-up ecosystem. Aggregators and e-Commerce have matured; education, healthcare and fintech are emerging, and AI is the next big thing. Almost 325 new start-ups are working at addressing India’s challenges in education, healthcare and energy,” Bali said at the Visionary Leadership Summit at the Indian Institute of Management (IIMB).

Students of the Post Graduate Program in Enterprise Management (PGPEM) hosted new economy leaders and entrepreneurs at ‘Drishti’ – a Visionary Leadership Summit and Alumni event, on February 11. The event also marked the 20^th year of the PGPEM.

Bali urged entrepreneurs as well as policymakers to address fundamental issues like providing the right education and skills. More should be done to deliver public services digitally, empowering rural areas and raising farm incomes, providing sustainable mobility and infrastructure.

“When people say India, they should think “value”. Indian Micro, Small & Medium Entreprises (MSMEs) should occupy the space between Germany – the brand that brings to mind hi-tech precision and China – the brand that most associate with “mass production,” he added.

“Identify what sets you apart, balance the culture-structure steering systems, empower, excite and galvanize teams, develop a mindset of trust, transparency and collaboration, nurture diversity and the habit of innovation and experimentation, and stay relevant to your customer and enhance value creation by co-creation,”

Bali also called for disruption in the education system. “Almost 40% of what our Class 12 students are studying will not be relevant 10 years from now when they begin working because they will be working at jobs that are yet to be imagined or created.”

The solution, he declared, was in disruption. “From asset-led businesses of the past, we have moved to idea-led businesses that are asset light like Uber and Air BnB.”

Technology, digitization and changing demographics have been creating a fundamental shift in the way businesses are run. “Organizational arrogance is passé; we have to take the way of collaboration and partnership. Iconic brands like Kodak and Nokia have learnt this, the hard way,” he added.

In India, the growth drivers include internet adoption, rapid urbanization, emerging markets and the rise of the start-up culture. Listing start-ups from across the world, from Africa to the UK, that Indian start-ups can draw inspiration from, Bali spent a few minutes on disruption in the automotive sector and shared the recipe for entrepreneurial leadership in a VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) world.

“Identify what sets you apart, balance the culture-structure steering systems, empower, excite and galvanize teams, develop a mindset of trust, transparency and collaboration, nurture diversity and the habit of innovation and experimentation, and stay relevant to your customer and enhance value creation by co-creation,” he added.

Moderating a panel on Big Data and AI, Professor U Dinesh Kumar, faculty and Chair, Data Analytics Lab at IIMB, offered a brief overview of the growing opportunities for application of AI in enhancing business revenues.

The first panelist, Sairam Krishnan, Director BAI and Insights, Microsoft, spoke on how Artificial Intelligence transforms business with data and AI, using case studies from Rolls-Royce, ThyssenKrupp and Deschutes Brewery.

“AI can add value – almost $ 1.2 trillion in revenue in the next three years – by augmenting businesses’ reasoning, understanding and interacting abilities,” he said. Start-ups should leverage digital transformation and AI to deliver rich customer experiences by optimizing operations, anticipating customer needs, enabling employees and transforming products,” he added.

The second panellist, Prakash Palanisamy, Country MD, Thorogood Associates, and IIMB alumnus (PGPEM 2016), spoke on Technology Disruptions and IT Services and the entrepreneurial opportunity that AI provides.“In a VUCA world, we are all in muddy waters – we do not know what will happen in our businesses in the long term.

“We need direction. IT service providers can give this direction by providing agility to businesses and helping them keep an eye on the future. Tech entrepreneurs can contribute to understanding business goals, defining technical possibilities and understanding the opportunities,” he said, urging them to build niche services organizations which would become profitable and sustainable. (Image Source:Wikipedia.org)

Drawing attention to the dangers of “blindly” comparing the two countries, at least in manufacturing, SS Naik, Senior Vice President, Reliance Industries, emphasized that China’s manufacturing sector was driven by global demand while India enjoyed a huge opportunity in the local market.

“We are a population of 1.2 billion. There’s huge opportunity here. Yet we import idols for Ganesha Chathurti and diyas for Deepavali from China,” he remarked, clarifying that there was no harm in ‘Make in India’ but manufacturers would certainly do well to first ‘Make for India’. “We keep talking of our demographic dividend. We must leverage this demographic dividend by understanding the wants of our aspirational youth and by making products for them,” he said.

Ruing the “shortcut” approach to prosperity that India’s traders often take, Naik gave the example of the Canton fair, which he said when he last visited in 2008 “startled” him for the large numbers of Indian traders who thronged it. “They purchased everything from toys to tablecloth which they would come back and sell at thrice the price in India, enjoy the profits and go back for the next Canton fair,” he exclaimed.

Cover Image: (Left to right) Dr Sushil Vachani, Director, IIM Bangalore, Arun Chandavarkar, CEO & Joint Managing Director, Biocon, Ananth Agastya, Executive Director, HAL Management Academy, Chris Rao, Vice President, UTC Aerospace System, UTAS, and Shivaprasad Naik, Senior Vice President, PVC, Reliance Industries Ltd.

Addressing a packed auditorium at the panel on ‘Make in India’, hosted by IIMB’s Post Graduate Program in Enterprise Management (PGPEM) and moderated by Sushil Vachani, Director, IIM Bangalore, on Sunday (Jan 11), Shivaprasad Naik, along with Arun Chandavarkar, CEO & Joint Managing Director, Biocon, Chris Rao, Vice President, UTC Aerospace System, UTAS, and Ananth Agastya, Executive Director, HAL Management Academy, called for a mindset change among entrepreneurs, bureaucrats and government to address challenges unique to the country like poor infrastructure, power shortage, delayed IP processing, lack of talent and failure to deploy unproductive land for manufacturing.

“Government, industry and labor are the key stakeholders in the ‘Make in India’ mission,” said Ananth Agastya, Executive Director, HAL Management Academy. “The government should show that they mean business by ensuring harassment-free administration, industry must bring in investment in technology and productivity and must stop seeking a protective environment, and distinction between contract labor and organized labor should go,” he observed, calling for an Indian philosophy of manufacturing without “blindly aping the rest”.

Shivaprasad Naik, Senior Vice President, PVC, Reliance Industries, addresses the audience

Using the analogy of a ‘yagna’, Agastya said: “We have made the ‘sankalp’ which is ‘Make in India’. We must now offer ‘yantra’, ‘tantra’ and ‘mantra’ to complete the ‘yagna’. We must ask ourselves whether ‘Make in India’ is measurable, whether we have data on each sub sector, whether our policy makers can be advised on which of these sub sectors are likely to grow so that they can focus on them and whether policy change will attract entrepreneurs to these sub sectors. Academic institutions like IIM Bangalore can develop models for each of these sub sectors. Only then can we say that policy making is driven by analysis.”

Using the analogy of a ‘yagna’, Ananth Agastya of HAL said: “We have made the ‘sankalp’ which is ‘Make in India’. We must now offer ‘yantra’, ‘tantra’ and ‘mantra’ to complete the ‘yagna’

Listing the pivots to increase the thrust on manufacturing, Arun Chandavarkar, CEO & Joint Managing Director, Biocon, said India must take advantage of the demographic dividend by giving the youth skills and knowledge, ensure good governance and end bureaucratic delays, nurture entrepreneurial culture by taking it from services to manufacturing, bring in global alignment in corporate governance and leverage it to facilitate partnerships and investment. “It is only when we have enablers like talent, skill, infrastructure, guidelines and fiscal policies can we increase manufacturing’s contribution to the country’s GDP from 17 percent to 25-26 per cent,” he said, declaring that “notions which say it is more glamorous to be in services, not in manufacturing must be busted.”

Describing ‘Make in India’ as a relevant mission, Chris Rao, Vice President, UTC Aerospace System, UTAS, said the sector needed to develop a supply chain of vendors, down to tier 4 suppliers, so that the integrators could focus on technology and innovation. “India has huge engineering talent. We see huge opportunity here. What we also need is strong policy support and good government support. Else, Mexico, Brazil, China, Poland, Singapore and Taiwan could beat us in this game,” he said, calling for professionally-run industry-focused organizations to create ecosystems that support manufacturing.

Earlier in the day, IIMB Director Sushil Vachani welcomed the distinguished panel. Moderating the discussion, he also took a few questions on new initiatives taken by IIM Bangalore to support entrepreneurial culture and social responsibility among its students.

The panel discussion was followed by an Open House on IIMB’s Post Graduate Program in Enterprise Management, which caters to the needs of diverse industries, including manufacturing.

The event was organised by students of the Post Graduate Program in Enterprise Management (PGPEM) – a 22-month executive course with classes held on weekends. The program prepares students for careers in Enterprise Management. The programme was earlier called Post Graduate Program in Software Enterprise Management (PGSEM) and had a focus on the software and information technology industry 

Professor Abhoy Ojha, Chairperson, Post Graduate Program in Enterprise Management (PGPEM), said: “IIM Bangalore designs its programs to cater to management education needs of different domains in India. The Post Graduate Program in Software Enterprise Management was launched in 1998 to partner the software and IT industry in its growth to global prominence by providing world class management education to middle and senior managers. The program has now been re-positioned to cater to the needs of diverse industries, including manufacturing, in Bangalore and neighboring cities. The panel discussion, ‘Make in India’, provided IIMB an opportunity to engage with captains of the industry to understand the opportunities and challenges of the manufacturing sector and fine tune its offerings to partner with the industry to make Bangalore (and India) the global hub for manufacturing.”