Managing Business: Learning from the Past and Strategies for the Future, Slides of Change Management

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Managing Business in Present

Scenario:

Learnings from Past,

Strategies for Future

Men make their own history,

but they do not make it as they

please;

they do not make it under self-selected

circumstances,

but under circumstances existing

already,

given and transmitted from the

past.

- KARL MARX

Past = Future

In my 35 years’ career, I saw 5 minor / major downturns… **1) Be cautious when pushing the envelope…

2. Have a rainy-day plan in place…Always**

1. Downturns are inevitable

Future

Sum of choices made today

Don’t undo years of painstaking effort trying to keep your feet from getting wet in the downturn…Sometimes the survival strategy demands wet feet… 1) People / Processes / Policies – Hold them very tight

2. Never loose sight of life post the

downturn

Behind every fear is an

OPPORTUNITY

Don’t weigh down anchor in choppy seas during an economic downturn… 1) Purge / Prune / Throw dead weight out / Be lean & competitive

4. Downturns can be very

positive…!!!

Black Gold ≠ Gold

Leverage is good, but cash is golden… **1) Build businesses that are sustainable – quarter agnostic

2. Have a fail-safe financial plan**

5. Hoard enough for a rainy day

Leadership > Management

Build an efficient management team, but never lose sight of leaders **1) Groom them and give them a free run

2. Follow the leader**

7. O’ captain, lead me home…

Think...

...Rethink

Most efficient boom-phase businesses are myopic **1) When in a downturn, don’t ignore to question your business model

2. Do a 180® somersault, if necessary…No holy cows**

8. When in a dark room with an elephant, switch on the light…

Downturns inevitably end, and when they do end, deploy all the firepower 1) A good start is a game won…

10. Downturns inevitably end

Downturns present unique challenges and opportunities…Find your own downturn-busting formula… 1) Don’t take anyone’s word as gospel truth…including this presentation!!!

11. I am no Prophet…!!!

Strategies for Future

Whatever goes up must come down

@ For today’s corporate leaders, the turbulence in everything - from GDP growth to commodity prices to the pace of product innovation is more extreme than anything they have known before The period between the mid-1980s and mid-2000’s was one of relative calm – unprecedented stability, growth and prosperity But since the financial crisis of 2007/2008, volatility has returned to historic highs and it’s clear that after a period of calm, the storms are back @ Sir Isaac Newton

Be Agile

In the past, companies developed strategies and created a step-by-step process to execute Today, leaders need a more iterative approach that lets them respond to the sheer pace of change and number of sources of disruption Today we don’t have the luxury to sit back in an ocean liner; it’s more about manoeuvring in a speed boat! It’s a process of experimentation and failure that gets successful innovators through challenges Being agile is good but not sufficient; you need other characteristics too, to steer a path through these uncharted waters

Build Resilience

The first of these is a kind of resilience and robustness, an ability to absorb shocks Large corporations are often written off as lumbering dinosaurs; they need to be more as saltwater crocodiles They might look like dinosaurs but once they move, they move They can go for a year without eating but when the opportunity is there, they’ll snap it up Charles Darwin’s theory of “survival of the fittest” is most apt for companies – when a downturn hits, not all companies are equally affected