Conquering the Chaos Quotes

“Passion must emanate from a desire to create something bigger than oneself, one’s career, and short-term business results—what academics call higher ambition.2 The ambition can simply be to create a wonderful workplace that unleashes human spirit and the potential of employees, to become the best factory in India, or to solve tough societal problems through innovation. Such ambition connects the day-to-day activities of employees with a higher purpose that”
― Ravi Venkatesan, Conquering the Chaos: Win in India, Win Everywhere

“The Country Ambassador versus the Country Manager Some companies experiment with an interesting profile: a country chairperson who is a weak overlay over the business and largely plays an ambassadorial role. However, statesmanship and ambassadors are best left to the realm of diplomacy. These roles are a legacy of an era that no longer exists. GE tried the model over the past decade with limited success and finally abandoned it. A ceremonial role, with no accountability for the business and the responsibility only for engaging government, industry associations, and other CEOs, is usually not effective. Everyone—employees, customers, business partners, government officials—will quickly see this role for what it is and dismiss the person as lightweight. This does disservice to the incumbent and the role. The ambassadorial country manager who smells opportunity, but is powerless to act, can become intensely frustrated. Increasingly, the connections among strategy and execution, business, reputation, and regulation are tightening, so an artificial separation of these functions is suboptimal. Bringing accountability for these together in a single leader is vital for growing competent and well-rounded business leaders, who are capable of even being the CEO someday. If the business does require wise counsel, access, and influence and a senior public face, a strong advisory board headed by an iconic leader who serves as a nonexecutive chairperson may be a more prudent approach. We followed this model at Microsoft India with considerable success; the approach is gaining popularity at companies like Coca-Cola, Schneider Electric, and JCB.”
― Ravi Venkatesan, Conquering the Chaos: Win in India, Win Everywhere

“CEO commitment is the starting point. In India, winning requires a very different business leader—an entrepreneurial general manager rather than a salesperson and, ideally, a senior and trusted insider with credibility and influence. It requires a different organizational structure or model, where India is managed like a geographic profit center, with the ability to make important operating decisions without enormous negotiations and persuasion. It needs a willingness to make long-term investments in developing capabilities on the ground and the willingness to sustain these through the inevitable vicissitudes. Therefore, escaping the midway trap requires the commitment of the entire leadership of the company to pull multiple levers before the whole organization flips to a new high-growth trajectory.”
― Ravi Venkatesan, Conquering the Chaos: Win in India, Win Everywhere

“[Winning in] India is essential. For GE, winning with India requires a new business model, one in which we are “local” in every sense of the word. That means migrating P&L responsibility and major business functions [like R&D, manufacturing and marketing] from a centralized headquarters to an experienced in-country team that is closest to the action and uniquely in touch with local customers and capabilities. Shifting power to where the growth is, putting more resources, more people and more products in the country, and integrating all elements of the GE product and services pipeline makes good business sense. This new One GE in India approach will speed progress. With an integrated team, we can develop products and services designed specifically to meet local needs and, potentially, for export to other markets. Since we’ve changed the model in India to align with the market more directly, there’s great excitement. It gives us entirely new opportunities to develop more products at more price points. This will help open up access to large, underserved markets in India, China, Brazil, and Africa while also fueling innovation that opens a door into new markets in the more developed regions of the world. The establishment of a new business model in India is an important step and I am eager to see it take off.”
― Ravi Venkatesan, Conquering the Chaos: Win in India, Win Everywhere

“The shortage of talent is the single largest issue that can affect our growth in India. —JOHN FLANNERY, PRESIDENT, GE INDIA”
― Ravi Venkatesan, Conquering the Chaos: Win in India, Win Everywhere