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INTdirector | AUTUMN 2015

Praveen Gupta MAICD

Managing Director

Raheja QBE General Insurance

Company Ltd

Member since 2010

A slowing Chinese economy

makes it imminent for Australian

businesses to engage with India

more closely. Ravi Venkatesan’s

book (Win in India, Win

Everywhere – Conquering the

Chaos) is a first-hand guide

to successfully dealing with

India, winning here and thereby

succeeding in all emerging

markets. Here is a book full of

nuggets and insights into those

who made it big and those who

could not.

The challenges:

India is on the minds of business

leaders everywhere. Within a

few decades, India will be the

world’s most populous nation

and one of its largest economies.

But it is also a complex and

challenging market, with a

reputation for corruption,

uncertainty, and stultifying

bureaucracy.

The initial infatuation with

India is over and reality has set

in. But India is not a market that

can be ignored. So why take a

chance in this extraordinary and

complex region? What does it

take to win in India? How do

you deal with the chaos – and

even prosper from it?

Ravi Venkatesan, the former

Chairman of Microso$ India,

o%ers inside advice on how

your firm can overcome the

unique challenges of the Indian

market. He argues that chaotic

India is in fact an archetype

for most emerging markets,

many of which present similar

challenges but not the same

potential. Succeeding in India

therefore becomes a litmus test

for your ability to succeed in

other emerging markets. If you

can win in India, you can win

everywhere.

Hard as these markets are,

Venkatesan says, for most

multinational firms the bigger

challenge to success in emerging

markets may well be the

internal culture and mind-sets at

headquarters. The unwillingness

to make a long-term

commitment to the new market

or to adequately trust local

leadership, combined with the

propensity to rigidly replicate

the products, business models,

and operating systems that have

worked at home drives many

companies to a ‘midway trap’

that results in India remaining

an irrelevantly small contributor

to global growth and profits.

The prescriptions:

• CEO commitment is the

starting point. The single

most important determinant

of success over time is the

choice of country manager.

What is the role of the

country manager in India?

Why is it di%erent from that

of say in Germany? Requires

a di%erent organisational

structure or model, where

India is managed like a

geographic profit centre,

willingness to make long-term

investments in developing

capabilities on the ground

and the willingness to sustain

these through inevitable

vicissitudes. Therefore,

escaping the midway trap

requires commitment of

the entire leadership of the

company to pull multiple

levers before the whole

organization flips to a new

high-growth trajectory.

• What kind of an operating

model do you need to be

successful in India? How

do you achieve speed

without taking undue risks?

What is the new role of

headquarters? Are there any

principles for strategy that

are common across industries

and companies? How do you

get the whole organization

aligned behind a strategy for

India?

• How to build the leadership

and organisational capabilities

to succeed, and why that is

so hard for most companies?

Illustrates with some best

practices.

• India as a lab for innovation.

Why is that critical? How

hard is it? What is doing well?

What can we learn from these

companies?

• Questions about joint

ventures and acquisitions.

Why they have bad

reputation, what is it one can

learn from companies that are

good at JVs and acquisitions?

• Developing the resilience to

deal with corruption and cope

with chaos.

• Role of the global CEO. Why

do you need a globaliser and

how do you identify this

archetype? What do the most

successful globalisers do to

ensure leadership in India and

China?

• How companies that are

winning in India are learning

to use the capabilities they

have developed there to

break into several emerging

markets. For instance how

JCB created and dominates

the construction equipment

industry in India? What did

Microso$ do to escape the

midway trap? Where did

McDonald’s, Samsung, John

Deere, Unilever, Dell, Volvo,

Cummins, GE and IBM depart

from what they did before

coming to India?

Not a very long list but certainly

inspiring ways to making it

happen in India and other

emerging markets despite all their

pitfalls! Must go through this

very readable book which could

be your handbook for succeeding

in India, if you so wish.

If you can win in India, you can win everywhere:

Recipes for winning over diverse challenges!