Revival Formulae

In a deregulated economy, companies that don't change fast enough can die. And most Indian companies are. Dying slowly, imperceptibly, but steadily. Most family-run conglomerates have slipped into a coma, but they don't want to admit it. London Business School professor and management pundit Sumantra Ghoshal, business writer Gita Piramal and Harvard Business School professor Christopher Bartlett feel that these and other companies need to break out of the cocoon of "satisfactory underperformance" and explore "radical performance improvement". Is that possible? Ghoshal Inc shows you how.

This is not a management tome, but has a solid grounding of Indian case studies-those that usually pepper the Ivy League business school courses but are rarely accessible to the average readership-thanks mainly to Sudeep Budhiraja's three years of research. The examples are wide-ranging: caterpillars transforming into butterflies, like Zee and Bajaj Auto; managing acquisitive expansion, like the Ispat group and hll; aligning for growth like TI Cycles and Thermax; David taking on Goliaths like hdfc and Hero; diversification and integration, like Reliance and Wipro; global vision aspirants like Ranbaxy, Infosys and Reliance. And of course, GE, abb, Kao Corp, 3M, ibm, Intel, ici and a host of global bywords.

What ails Indian business managers and leaders? It's not that they are unaware of the problem, but they are not convinced about the need for radical change. It's not sufficient for an organisation to grow well, it must also show a sufficient improvement in resource productivity at the same time. Similarly, it must not only rationalise but also revitalise; not only expand or diversify but also consolidate and compete. Above all, it must have a vision. Because, in today's corporate India, it's not just enough to be good, you have to be one of the few best, and you have to continue bettering that position. Towards that end, he provides a roadmap for the journey towards excellence: put your organisation where you think it fits best, and plot the next arc.

Where is change most difficult to implement? In the atmosphere of the organisation, in motivating and energising people. "Think about the behavioural context as the smell of the place. You walk into a sales office, a factory, a head office and in the first 15 to 20 minutes, you will get a smell in the quality of the hum." That's the smell of the four Cs: constraint, control, contract and compliance. Whereas what you need for organisation renewal is stretch, support, trust and discipline.

In India, change is usually equated with rationalisation and so is too scary to even talk about. Ghoshal says that's not the only answer, renewal is equally important. Also, and this is where Ghoshal is dramatically and daringly different from most business strategy books-"it's simply not true that legal reasons are the primary reason for Indian managements' inability to improve labour productivity", he says. How did Indian Oxygen cut its workforce from 5,400 to 2,100 in four years, and Bajaj Auto shed 5,000 people despite a Shiv Sena union?

Read this book. Not only because it's good but also because it's timely. Because change is the only thing certain. Look at Zee. It successfully traversed the valley of death to plunge headlong into another battlefield. Will it re-emerge, battle-scarred yet resolute? How long before Bajaj Auto or hcl become yesterday's Arvind? Today's Corporate India could ensure at least a dozen sequels to this book.