Established in 1897, the Godrej Group is a family-controlled
conglomerate in Mumbai, with a broad range of business interests. In the
morning’s keynote dialogue, the company’s chairman Adi Godrej spoke with INSEAD
Dipak Jain. Below is a summary of his remarks.
During the second half of 2011, India was hit by a serious of setbacks that included high-profile political corruption scandals, soaring inflation and a depreciating rupee. Beginning in 2012, the situation has improved with some visible government action. The upcoming state elections will be critical to seeing much-needed political reforms go through. But India’s fundamentals are in place. The biggest growth driver for India is its demography. In order to leverage the demographic dividend, India has to pay a lot of attention on education and on training and skills development. This is critical.
On education, India produces far too few PhDs. There is no dearth of educational institutions in India but the quality of graduates is a concern. The emphasis should be on skills development coming from both companies (as part of their CSR) and government.
The Godrej group has been on an acquisition spree, making about ten international acquisitions in the last five years. The most important part when making acquisitions is due diligence in the human resources segment. The company intends to stick to what it knows best - manufacturing - and building on its established businesses.
From a management perspective, the critical success factors in India are keeping abreast of how the Indian consumer is evolving. Indian consumers are changing very rapidly and you need to be able to understand them. The other area is managing growth as companies are growing rapidly. There are implications for human capital and talent here.
During the second half of 2011, India was hit by a serious of setbacks that included high-profile political corruption scandals, soaring inflation and a depreciating rupee. Beginning in 2012, the situation has improved with some visible government action. The upcoming state elections will be critical to seeing much-needed political reforms go through. But India’s fundamentals are in place. The biggest growth driver for India is its demography. In order to leverage the demographic dividend, India has to pay a lot of attention on education and on training and skills development. This is critical.
On education, India produces far too few PhDs. There is no dearth of educational institutions in India but the quality of graduates is a concern. The emphasis should be on skills development coming from both companies (as part of their CSR) and government.
The Godrej group has been on an acquisition spree, making about ten international acquisitions in the last five years. The most important part when making acquisitions is due diligence in the human resources segment. The company intends to stick to what it knows best - manufacturing - and building on its established businesses.
From a management perspective, the critical success factors in India are keeping abreast of how the Indian consumer is evolving. Indian consumers are changing very rapidly and you need to be able to understand them. The other area is managing growth as companies are growing rapidly. There are implications for human capital and talent here.
No comments:
Post a Comment