Books

Churchill on Leadership

Winston Churchill gave this world the "V" sign for victory. Prime Minister of United Kingdom during the World War II, Churchill was a self made man who made the history the way we read and repeat today. This book tries to point out leadership traits from this great political leader, as applicable to the business world. Although fighting a world war and competing in the business world are very different, both require brilliant leadership for success."

Churchill's leadership style was essentially about taking responsibility, facing bad news squarely, staying open to changing your mind in presence of new information and keeping fully informed. “Responsibility must be combined with authority” and “decisiveness depends on the person at the top” are two of his philosophies.

Though I found the book more useful for those who already have good insights into the war time history and British political system, it does describe some basics for the beginners like the difference between political and business leadership w.r.t risks. Also, we get to know and understand why Churchill's style of leadership worked at that time. And why it can still work in many forms. More information on the Book at [Rediff Books]

Books

Ten deadly marketing sins

Philip Kotler, Professor of International marketing at Northwester University's Kellogg School of management and author of 30 books is a God in marketing. In this comparatively new book, he describes the reason why 75% of new products, services and businesses fail. That is, he discusses the 10 deadly marketing sins:

1.               Your company is not sufficiently market focused and customer driven

2.               Your company doesn't fully understand its target customers

3.               Your company needs to better define and monitor its competitors

4.               Your company has not properly managed its relationships with its stakeholders

5.               Your company is not good at finding new opportunities

6.               Your company's marketing planning process is deficient

7.               Your company's product and service policies need tightening.

8.               Your company's brand building and communication skills are weak.

9.               Your company is not well organized to carry on effective and efficient marketing.

10.           Your company has not made maximum use of technology.

The language and approach by the author is very interesting and we get many good insights on the theme. A necessity for anyone in marketing…  More information on the Book at [Rediff Books]

Guest lectures

CK Prahalad on campus

On Saturday, 19^th of July, CK Prahalad was on our campus. The visionary professor of University of Michigan and author of ‘Fortune at the bottom of Pyramid’ was here in Mumbai to interact with the students of our university on the theme India@75.

I couldn’t attend this session due to some reasons (ok, my decisions) but I caught up with friends later on. They had found the session a bit boring as the speaker had not been able to connect with the audience on the core of the theme. When the best of the authors and speakers try to reach out to the audiences beyond a limit, there is always a risk of being self-infatuated and missing the ‘magic’. And today, when one of our professors gave an assignment to a group on the topic “CK Prahalad’s contribution to the management practices in India”, the junta laughed :) This was neither because Indians are over-critical of other successful Indians, nor because Prof. Prahalad had not contributed enough. It was just a sample of the interesting phenomenon when many a times, sound principles become reduced to management jargons…

Guest lectures

SCM Head, Cadbury

Today, Mr. Saurabh Tiwari, Supply Chain Head, Cadbury India was on campus to deliver a guest lecture on the topic “Exploring the beautiful world of business – from lens of Supply Chain”. He started from setting the context in the changing times in India, and then went ahead giving the snapshots of supply chain challenges in Cadbury, the framework approach, sales and operations planning (S&OP), and the skill sets and careers in the field.

Apart from all technical insights, Mr. Tiwari’s presentation skills and his connection with the young audience were commendable. The simplicity in delivery and the easiness with which he described the models were exceptional. The loads of chocolates that he brought for the students were just a sample of enthusiasm that he showed in delivering this lecture. The audience, which was dominated by freshly joined first year students, got really enlightened and were tremendously motivated by the speaker. After the lecture, the crowd waited to touch and feel him :), and I hoped he would have returned back with the feeling of a job well done…

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PS: I seriously believe, the Government should bribe the terrorists not to strike so frequently. To solve the problem, they should make use of their strengths and core competencies, unashamed.