The India Way

Four Professors of the Wharton Business School set out to explore what makes Indian firms unique. As they interview 150 top executives of Indian firms, they found that there is a distinctly different set of priorities the India CEOs chase. Their first priority is not about maximizing shareholder value. They view responsibility to employees, shareholders, community and the nation as their top priority. This was the finding of Peter Cappelli, Harbir Singh, Jitendra Singh and Michael Useem, professors from the Wharton School of Business and authors of The India Way: How India’s Top Business Leaders Are Revolutionizing Management.  

1. Looking beyond stockholders’ interests to public mission and national purpose. Drawing on improvisation, adaptation, and resilience to overcome endless hurdles.

The essence of the India Way is best expressed by those business leaders themselves. We "think in English and act in Indian," observed R. Gopalakrishnan, the executive director of Tata Sons, the holding company of the Tata Group. The Tata Group comprises some 98 enterprises that employ 290,000 and book annual revenue equal to 3.2% of the nation's GDP.The fourunderlying principles identified are:

1. Holistic engagement with employees - Viewing the employee not as a cost to be incurred. They are assets to be developed.
2. Improvisation and adaptability - In an environment that is usually strapped for cash and resources, there is an inherent tendency to find a workaround. This is often termed as jugaad which is a polite term for finding a creative solution.
3. Creative value propositions - The Indian consumer is extremely value conscious. That promotes the ability to create products that address the needs of this market segment. Marketing a top end shampoo in a sachet is a great example of this. In rural India, the daily wage earners buy everything from cooking oil to vegetables and rice that lasts for a day. This is driven not just by the cash in hand but also due to limited storage space and lack of refrigeration. The sachet size purchases address this gap. See my article called Sachet Success
4. Broad mission and purpose - Going beyond the success of the enterprise to enterprise success to addressing family prosperity, regional advancement and even national issues.

To some extent, these four principles complement the four Hindu aims of life: dharma (righteousness), artha (wealth), kama (desire) and moksha (salvation). While by no means unique to India, these principles, the authors argue, account for the success of Indian businesses in ways that reinforce entrepreneurism as well as social purpose, Says John Baldoni in a glowing review of the book in the Washington Post.The essence of the India Way is best expressed by those business leaders themselves. We "think in English and act in Indian," observed R. Gopalakrishnan, the executive director of Tata Sons, the holding company of the Tata Group. The Tata Group comprises almost a 100 enterprises that employ 300,000 employees.I caught up with Professor Harbir Singh, Professor of Management; Vice Dean for Global Initiatives; Co-Director, Mack Center for Technological Innovation a Wharton. His research interests are around Strategies for Corporate acquisitions; Corporate Governance; Joint Ventures etc.We got talking about his insights on Indian firms and whether there indeed was something common to the 100 leaders of Indian firms that he had interviewed. The questions were many. How did he define an "Indian" firm? If employee engagement is such a vital part of the Indian leaders' repertoire, why is attrition so high in the firms operating in India? Watch this video interview with Harbir Singh to find out what he thinks are the answers to my questions.------------Here is my interview with another Wharton Professor,  Peter Cappelli, on Human ResourcesRead my post on Sachet Success hereRead the HBR Blog Post on Jugaad here