• Investment World
• eWorld
• Catalyst
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest

FROM an otherwise staid name such as All India Management Association comes something offbeat: A research study on how winning Indian companies develop and sustain competitive edge. Packaged as a handy book, the work is titled Passion to Win, authored by Abad Ahmad and O. P. Chopra, and published by Excel Books P Ltd and AIMA.

"Barriers to growth and development are mostly within the mindset of the leaders and managers, and not so much in the external environment," write the authors in the preface. "Many organisations that are showing profitability at present may disappear unless they gear up for global competition... The best time to change is when change appears to be least needed."

It may be shocking to know that from the list of top 100 Indian companies as per market capitalisation in 1991 almost three-fourths had to exit by 2002.

"The average age of new enterprises in the US is 11 months — akin to a very high rate of infant mortality of organisations," is a quote from Prof Keyn Wyn Smith to show that sustainability is a global problem. So, the authors go on to study how some companies could stay at the top.

Passion is `a powerful driving factor' for winning companies, notes the book. Undercurrents were "clarity of purpose with challenging goals, some distinctive principles and professional values, a high performance and learning culture and an identity of organisation that generated a sense of pride." Above all, "a passion for these key elements" was what set the high performers from other ordinary business organisations.

A framework developed by the authors is called 5-I, identifying five major clusters of organisational attributes. These are: Inspiring leadership, innovative strategy, implementation skills and process-driven execution, internal and external `win-win' relationships, and identity of purpose, values and culture.

On leadership, there are nine patterns that the book lists, and they include pro-active and positive mindset, clear vision, and so on. Most critical was their openness, willingness and ability to change. "Organisations whose leadership were not open to information, feedback and learning invariably stagnated, declined, withered away and died."

Internationalisation of organisation and its operations is crucial for sustaining competitiveness, state the authors.

This can be done in four ways, they add:

Completely transform the company into an international organisation as in the case of Ranbaxy; primarily operate in international markets and benchmark all the operations and quality with international standards, as Infosys does; own, develop, internalise and master the technology by obtaining access to international level technology and leverage it in domestic and international markets, as in Titan's case; or have a highly effective and synergistic collaboration with an outstanding international level company with considerable convergence of values and mutual interests, as in the case of Hero Honda.

Process-driven execution depends on many factors, one of which is emphasis on details. Successful organisations "do not just gloss over various alternatives." CEOs there "make it a point to know the technical details of various issues under discussion."

Another secret of these winner companies is that they benchmark with the best. Catchword is not `best practices' but `next practices' indicating that it is the very best in the future which is being aimed at and not the best in the present context.

Towards the end of the book is EMIC, short for emerging modern Indian corporation. That would be a unique combination of Indian culture, Western style and techniques of management and Japanese practices for productivity and quality improvement, explain the authors. Such organisations are purposeful values-driven enterprises (PVEs) and not just money-making commercial outfits (MCOs).

Passionate words. A bit too passionate?

ManageMentor@TheHindu.co.in

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Like tornadoes, inflation can suck in your savings real fast

Copyright © 2004, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line