In this issue

The cover theme of the July-Aug 18 issue is ‘economic moats’. Experts— Hap Klopp, The North Face; Ambi Parameswaran, Brand-Building.com; Morgen Witzel, University of Exeter Business School; and Rajesh Maurya, Fortinet—share their views on various aspects of this subject.
Mark Greeven, Zhejiang University, and Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez, author of The Focused Organization, give us insight into the Chinese way of building and sustaining organizations, a lesson to be learnt by Western leaders. On the same lines, John Colley, Warwick Business School, tells us how family-run businesses offer many valuable lessons to corporations. Sandra Jones, a business management consultant, shows us a positive side of procrastination, which could help reap benefits if done strategically, while Sharon Tal, author of Where to Play draws out a structured plan for organizations to find the right market opportunity.
Ralph Welborn, co-author of Topple offers us a different perspective on the business ecosystem, and Indranil Mitra, author of Winning Hearts and Minds breaks down Transactional Analysis and its significance in enriching organizational culture. Som Sekhar Bhattacharyya and Sumi Jha, NITIE, and Kartik Girish Vyas, InfoCepts talk about talent retention for IT firms during a lean period whereas Harkirat Singh, Woodland, tells leaders to continually adapt their style to motivate employees.
In our regular section, we have Pam Didner, author of Effective Sales Enablement, who distorts our view of sales and marketing and gives us a fresh perspective on the effective relation one can create between the two functions.

Bridging The Gap

Pam Didner, author of Effective Sales Enablement, shares her perspective on how sales needs to treat marketing as a hidden sales force, while marketing can leverage sales as another marketing channel.

5 mins

What 's The​​​​​​​ Best Cover?

innovation is not everything: Hap Klopp building invincible brands: Ambi Parameswaran customers as a moat: Morgen Witzel beyond the blame game: Rajesh Maurya.

10+ mins

A Mandarin Narrative

“Understanding the China effect on global innovation will be essential for companies that wish to compete in China, take advantage of China’s innovation capacity, and adopt Chinese approaches to innovation to improve their own performance. The overall effect is that more innovation will originate in China—from both Chinese and global companies—and more companies would adopt the Chinese style of innovation.”*What has helped many Chinese firms make remarkable strides—not just in the realm of innovation—is their swiftness in reformulating themselves, eschewing hierarchical structures, and adopting a customer-centric approach

10 mins

The Best Course

In a 2014 article in The Smart Manager, Professor John A Davis, Harvard Business School, observed: family businesses are long term-oriented organizations that promise better stability in terms of ownership and leadership. There is a lot of passion to excel and also persistence, which invariably lead to better performance.1True, family businesses serve as a repository of management lessons even while fighting vulnerabilities such as family feuds, generational divide, and diverse business goals.

6 mins

Discovering Value

“Commercialising innovative ideas is a constant run. It requires immense efforts, as you attempt to move forward and make progress on your way while facing one hurdle after the other…entrepreneurs and innovators are trained to run fast…running fast may be useless if you are not running in the right direction.” Entrepreneurs have to focus on valuable market opportunities but encounter failure when wrong choices are made due to flawed evaluation. Sharon Tal, co-author with Marc Gruber of Where to Play, tells us how one can choose and prepare to act on an opportunity, using a tool such as the ‘market opportunity navigator’, staying focused and agile.

10 mins

A Positive Delay

According to Professor Adam Grant, Wharton School of Business, “We shouldn’t be afraid to start early, but equally we shouldn’t be afraid to be slow to finish… procrastination might just improve the end result.”* When used sensibly by leaders, procrastination is a powerful management strategy.

5 mins

From Firms To Ecosystems

In a VUCA world, where value is created and destroyed in surprising ways in every industry, many organizations respond by investing in new technologies only to keep up with the competition. Ralph Welborn, co-author of Topple—The End of the Firm-Based Strategy and Rise of New Models for Explosive Growth argues that what has made businesses effective today will not work tomorrow. He proposes that individuals (or organizations) need to answer the ‘new strategic question’ and understand its implications on what they do, how they do it, and with whom they do it so they can identify and capture new sources of value.

5 mins

What Is Your Script?

While Freud and most other psychotherapists took the rather simplistic approach of asking the patient about themselves, Berne took an alternate approach to therapy. Berne felt that a therapist could learn what the problem was by simply observing what was communicated (words, body language, facial expressions) in a transaction. So instead of directly asking the patient questions, Berne would frequently observe the patient in a group setting, noting all of the transactions that occurred between the patient and other individuals.Although rooted in psycho therapy, Transactional Analysis has a profound role to play wherever interactions constitute the core. In an organizational setting, it can help build strong cultures.

7 mins

Be A Change Leader

In an interview with The Smart Manager, John Knights, author of Leading Beyond The Ego said that adopting a style beyond the traditional is more suitable in a world of continuous transformation.* The hierarchical, managerial, male-dominated, and authoritarian leadership style of the 20th century has to undergo a drastic change as organizations are becoming more democratic, inclusive, employee-centric, and open to feedback from all ‘rungs of the ladder’.

4 mins

A Measured Step

Employee turnover is expensive. Replacing an employee who quits costs, on average, 21% of their annual pay. While it’s tempting to dismiss turnover as a fact of life in today’s fast-moving job market, new research shows otherwise.* Compensation could be a strategic tool for talent retention, especially when the going is tough.

6 mins

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The Smart Manager Magazine Description:

The Smart Manager, India's first world-class management magazine, was founded in 2002 by eminent business historian Dr Gita Piramal with Harvard Business School Dean, Prof. Nitin Nohria with the mission of updating managers and business practitioners in India with the latest thought-provoking strategic ideas from experienced, world-class managers, academics and consultants from across the globe. Over the years, the magazine has carried articles authored by illustrious management gurus such as the late CK Prahalad and Sumantra Ghoshal, Jack Trout, Ram Charan, Gary Hamel, Gay Haskins, Jagdish Seth and Lynda Gratton. We believe that "managers are the best teachers of managers" and most of our articles are written in the first person by top-tier CEOs such as Kumaramangalam Birla, Sunil Mittal, Aditya Birla, KV Kamath, Santrupt Mitra, Rajeev Dubey and S Ramadorai. We also have relationships with a number of B-schools around the world, apart from most top-level schools in India.

The Smart Manager hosts the Tata Consultancy Services Smart Manager Case Contest, the most prestigious competition of its kind in the Indian print media. The contest, with a cash prize of INR50,000 per issue, sees wide participation from national and international business managers and students. 
The 'Smart" in The Smart Manager is an acronym for Strategy, Marketing, Analysis, Resources and Technology. Truly useful knowledge when you need it 24 x 365, year after year.