India's Thinker

India's Thinker

Globally renowned management guru C.K. Prahalad passed away on 17 April after a brief illness at a San Diego hospital, family sources said. Prahalad, 69, is survived by his wife, a son and a daughter.

He was a Professor of Corporate Strategy at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, and was well known for writing best sellers on management subjects, including The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profit.

Hailing from the textile city of Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, Prahalad did his graduation in Science from the Loyola College in Madras (now Chennai) and did his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

After his doctorate from Harvard Business School, the well-known corporate thinker had been associated with the University of Michigan.

He was also on the board of several top Indian and global companies and institutions like Hindustan Unilever, Indus Entrepreneurs and Washington-based World Resources Institute.

With the demise of C.K. Prahalad, the No. 1 spot in the management world and in rankings like the 'Thinkers 50' is vacant. In 2009, for the second time running, C.K. Prahalad, the Paul and Ruth McCracken Distinguished University Professor of Strategy, topped CrainerDearlove's 'Thinkers 50' list of the Most Influential Business Thinkers. Even compatriots like Gary Hamel, a long-time collaborator of Prahalad's was at No. 10, while Michael Porter followed at no. 11.

In the 1990s, Prahalad and Hamel had the universe of management and business in active discussion with their concept of 'core competence' that urged companies to focus on their core strengths. Competing For The Future, a book, they co-authored in the mid-1990s was a bestseller and a conversation starter of sorts at boardrooms around the world.

In the first half of the 21st century, Prahalad again set the world thinking with his advocacy of co-creation, that suggested companies must work together with consumers to create products rather than the usual model of thrusting products down the throat of consumers.

To be sure, Prahalad was not a guru with lofty ideals. He preached austerity to business leaders and also advised them to not just spend time chasing the high spenders. His seminal work in 2004, The Fortune At The Bottom of the Pyramid, gave a new meaning to growing businesses in a socially responsible manner. The inspiration for Prahalad's thinking was India's 300 million who lived on less than Rs 50 per day, who could be an audience for everything from consumer goods to healthcare. It was this persistence that probably led companies like Hindustan Unilever to invest in projects like Shakti to reach the interiors of the country. In India, Prahalad was the poster-boy in the management fraternity, someone businesses could give an arm and a leg to have on their advisory board.

Prahalad, too, believed in the potential of developing countries, as could be seen from his interactions with Indian delegates at the various seminars that he addressed in the country. In one such gathering some years back, Prahalad pointed out that developing countries could experiment more freely because they were often starting on a fresh slate and had little baggage to forget. He said, “It is more difficult to forget than to learn.” Even the impact he left on the world of management education, and business in general, is not going to be forgotten anytime soon.

Source Link: http://www.businessworld.in/bw/2010_04_19_Indias_Thinker.html