Building A Quality Culture

A strong company culture defined by its values, beliefs, and behaviors, has a profound impact on its products and services. More so in today’s VUCA world, where to stay relevant and maintain a competitive edge, it is critical for organizations to build a culture that focuses on quality. Suresh Lulla, author of Quality Fables, elucidates through significant examples how creating a culture of quality is imperative to driving success and productivity.

Customers For Life

The history of General Motors in India can be traced back to the 1920s, when it became the first automotive company to set up an assembly plant in the country. The relationship since then has not been as fruitful as GM would have hoped. GM’s flagship brand, Chevrolet, was introduced in India to build upon the success of the popular Opel marque. However, success has been fleeting at best—an issue that GM India is determined to rectify. It aims to do so by adopting a two-pronged approach: using customer feedback to influence product development, and delivering a superior sales-to-service experience.

The Digital Shift

… technology will radically disrupt HR in the near future. Indeed, it is already changing the way HR works and the role it plays and opening the door to a new type of “digital HR” function.1 The rise of digital and social media is changing the dynamics of HR and creating new ways of hiring, engaging, and retaining employees.

The Story Of Telling

“The best brands are built on great stories,”* this remark by Ian Rowden best captures the strategy of diligent brand building. Much more than attractive logos or the products themselves, what builds a brand is how successfully a story is woven around it. Brand marketers have to be good storytellers indeed.

Complexity Is Simpler Than You Think

Kay Kendall and Glenn Bodinson, authors of Leading the Malcolm  Baldrige Way, shatter myths about excellence models such as Baldrige and EFQM.

Proponents of Isolation Never Become Victors

Multilateralism in the political and economic space has always led to frameworks that favor the mighty. WTO was no exception. With agriculture kept out of its purview, it could never become a truly fair and free trading system. China was the only large emerging economy that exploited relative openness in low-cost manufactured goods to take full advantage of the system. Other emerging economies could at best garner minor gains.

A History Lesson (From Year One) for Trump and the Brexit Crowd: Isolationism Has Never Worked!

Professor Stephane Garelli on growing isolationism.

A Win-Win Game

Business is not a sport where some stakeholder has to lose or fare badly for others to do well. Building an atmosphere of trust and transparency between all stakeholders will help companies retain them even during adverse times.

A Sustainable Model

With a total market value of $4.3 trillion and an employment base of at least 1.3 million direct employees and millions of others indirectly employed, platforms have become an important economic force.*Companies today are constantly looking for ways to build platforms—Infosys Ltd announced its plans of monetizing its platforms to make them a $2 billion business by March 2021. But are all platform businesses successful?

Custom Made

…three in four consumers said they receive too many emails from brands, and one-fifth said they could not handle the current volume…69 per cent have ‘unfollowed’ brands on social media, closed their accounts or cancelled subscriptions.*In these times, when the market is flooded with products and services, the most efficent way to engage customers is to offer them customized content. To achieve this, brands need to focus on observing the nuances of individual preferences.

A Fresh Start

Three experts reflect on their experience of pursuing a management development course and how it reshaped their journey.

Fighting The Trolls

The number of people who feel bad reviews have the power to make or break their business has risen from 17% (2014) to 21%. * However, most are struggling to find the right solution. Along with the benefits it provides, the internet also has a dark side. Today, it has become a cesspool of hatred where users openly abuse individuals or companies without any hint of shame or guilt. This culture of trolling has tarnished the brand image of several companies. It is time organizations anticipate such situations and design strategies to combat the menace.

Real Impact

As per the recent study, Reshaping Business with Artificial Intelligence, within the technology, media, and telecommunications industry, 72% of respondents expect large effects from AI in five years. It also reveals large gaps between today’s leaders — companies that already understand and have adopted AI — and laggards.* Adoption of AI is no longer an option for businesses.

Change Your Game

“When the environment changes dramatically, which it has and will continue to do as the fourth revolution unfolds, actions and thoughts need to adjust similarly. The leadership mind switch portrays a radical change to the way you think about your leadership behaviors and qualities. It is more than a shift to your mindset. It is a jolt to the way you think and act.” Debra Benton and Kylie Wright-Ford chalk out a game plan for becoming an effective future-proof leader.

What Are You Doing Wrong In Business?

The havoc incompetent managers can wreak is immeasurable. And incompetence and failure have costs: financial, organizational, and human. When a business fails, or when it suffers a serious setback, its entire mission is compromised. It can no longer serve its customers; it can no longer perform the social function for which it was created. In an interview with The Smart Manager, Morgen Witzel offers a peep into the seven sins of management detailed in his latest book Managing for Success, and tells us how managers can shape cultures that minimize failure.

Keep It Slim

Researchers Raaj Sah and Joseph Stieglitz argue that hierarchic style organizations produce problems like the rejection of good projects without reason. The greater the number of organizational decision-making layers, the greater the probability that a good project will be rejected that would have otherwise had a positive impact on the company’s growth.1 Are flat organizations then the ideal solution for a faster go-to market strategy?

Transformation Journeys

IMD professors explain in detail the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of successful transformation journeys.

Delivering Delight

The online ‘grocery ordering’ business in India has not taken off like some others such as apparel, electronics, etc. It is riddled with many challenges, some of them unique—the need for cold storage—to maintain the quality of perishable products such as fish and vegetables. However, things are now looking bright for this sector which is projected to grow by around 38%.1 India was the fifth largest market in Asia Pacific for online grocery retailing standing at $135mn in 2016.2 Many players are now operational in this space and are working on different business models. Grofers, a mobile and web application is setting the benchmark for service delivery and customer satisfaction. We speak to Albinder Dhindsa, Co-founder and CEO, Grofers to know more about their zest to make a mark in this category.

Is Your Thinking Flawed?

Robin Speculand, founder and CEO of Bridges Business Consultancy Int, dispels myths surrounding strategy execution.

Thinking That Matters

The Gartner Group identified thought leadership marketing as a major business trend that has rapidly become an established field in marketing and a basis of competitive differentiation when well-informed buyers see little perceived differences between solution providers.*Today, individuals and businesses need to embrace thought leadership—which is about coming up with new ways of thinking and reinventing—as a strategy for growth.

Greed Is Good

“[Brand desire]…is the passionate feeling for acquisition and experience of a product or service which is driven by a set of connected factors that are intrinsic and also extrinsic.” Nicholas Ind, co-author of Brand Desire: How to Create Consumer Involvement and Inspiration, discusses how more than ‘want’ or ‘need’, ‘desire’ entices consumers to brands. And how brands should cultivate desire to build a stronger connect and engagement.

For A Smooth Transition

In the future working environment—for which ‘ecosystem’ is a more relevant term— each company’s and each individual’s position and path will be unique, interconnected, integrated, and dynamic, Sophie Wade explains in her book Embracing Progress. In this excusive with The Smart Manager, she explains why engagement, personalization, integration, and choice will be the core themes for any future-of-work transformation.

Machine Power

..what is machine learning, exactly? Stanford University computer science professor Andrew Ng defines it as “the science of getting computers to act without being explicitly programmed.” In fundamental terms, machine learning is a branch of artificial intelligence that is meant to replicate the way humans take in information from their environment to make better-informed choices for the future*. But realistically, will machine learning transform the way businesses are managed?

Sustainability Is A Marketing Problem

In their recent book, The Sustainability Edge, Suhas Apte and Dr Jagdish Sheth equate the sustainability journey to the game of golf—they say the intent is not to get the best score but rather pursue continuous improvement. They believe companies should embrace sustainability as it is the only way to build long-term competitive advantage. And for this, companies need to effectively engage with all key stakeholders and influence them too. In this exclusive to The Smart Manager, Dr Sheth, talks about why consumers form the biggest piece in this puzzle and why they will play a major role in how this discourse unfolds. Edited excerpts:

Two Sides Of The Same Coin?

Reacting to the Brexit vote, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne recently said, “Let’s make sure that we go on doing trade with our biggest export market, otherwise withdrawing from the single market would be the biggest single act of protectionism in the history of United Kingdom and no amount of trade deals with New Zealand are going to replace the amount of trade we do with our European neighbours”.*True, our economies are too intertwined to stay aloof for long. Globalization and protectionism come in cyclic patterns—it is within you to leverage the opportunities.

Stories At Work: Unlock The Secret To Business Storytelling

What’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind,’ said Neil Armstrong on 20 July 1969.

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.

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.

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.

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.