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He is often referred to as the CEO coach and has been a strategy consultant to top corporate honchos across the world. He feels that India and Indians are poised to play a big role in the global economic order in the 21st century. After noticing Indian companies getting more aggressive in globalising operations, Charan advocated a more aggressive role by governments of India and China. Charan says the leadership at Indian business houses, and the global exposure of the top Indian management, is the strength behind the country’s rising status in the world. He said it is the right time for Indian businesses to go global and cited acquisitions like Jaguar and Land Rover (by Tata group), Novelis (by Aditya Birla group) and Zain by Bharti Airtel. However, he cautioned that the cross-border push should be accompanied only when there are adequate strategic synergies and “not simply for the sake of going global”. “Before expanding overseas, Indian companies should ask these questions as to why are they going there. Is it to get access to the market, or to gain in distribution, or to get know-how or simply to change the game?”
Charan said it was the global exposure of the top Indian management that was proving to be the country’s strength. On the global financial front, he said the governments of India and China should now prepare themselves to play a more active role as the IMF and the World Bank had not been very effective in tackling economic crisis. “We put in a lot of hard work in creating brands and new products, but when the global financial system goes out of control, it hurts us all.” Charan broadly divides the globe into two distinct zones — north and south. The northern part comprises US and Canada and Europe (on the West) and Russia, Korea and Japan (on the East). Countries like India, China, Turkey and the West Asian comprised the southern part. “The markets of the future are all in the sourthern part,” Charan said. He also spoke extensively on digitisation that he said was leading to faster commoditisation. “Digitisation is shortening the shelf life of companies, it shortens the lifecycle of a business model.”
