Amazing Grace: Insights on Barrack Obama from the Top PGDM College in Delhi NCR

Ishan Institute of Management & Technology is one of the top PGDM colleges in Delhi NCR in its own right. The first graduate business school in Greater Noida has earned respect that it commands today by building a legacy. It has taken 21 years to build this legacy and hopefully the academicians and the student community can extend this streak of academic genius over the coming 21 years and more. As a top PGDM college in Greater Noida, the academicians believe that it would be absolutely criminal to not indulge in an act of intellectual surgery by laying the ten year regime of the outgoing U.S. President Barrack Obama on the surgical table of case studies in leadership.

It has been fashionable for business schools in India and other countries in South Asia to chant hymns in praise of outgoing U.S. Presidents primarily because corporate India wants them to do so. At Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, the academicians of the business school have endeavoured to get a glimpse of the third world view of the outgoing U.S. President Barrack Obama. This perspective holds water in the contexts of South Asia, the aspirations of India and of course first generation business leaders. In this piece we select a few of those events that showcased Barrack Obama’s leadership qualities.

Obama Care in 2008: Engineering a Fiscal Stimulus for U.S.A and the World

Cometh thee hour, cometh thee hero! Many orthodox academicians of business schools may make the vitriolic allegation of idolizing Barrack Obama for the solutions that he proposed and implemented in the aftermath of the sub-prime crisis. Keynesian pump priming is old fashioned ventilation for a free market economy that is in coma. Cynics also lament the challenges of fiscal profligacy, risks of falling of the fiscal cliff and the withering away of the welfare state in the after years of the adoption of Keynesian fiscal policies. Yet at the core of the analysis or rather paralysis by analysis, lies the thread bare fact that the sub-prime crisis of 2008 just like the Wall Street crash of 1929 was an act of the invisible hand of the market and it required substantial action from the government. It is interesting to note that the viral mechanism of international trade and institutional investments that were responsible for the outburst of the financial crisis finally led to the spread of the antidote. President Obama showed the world that Keynesians pump priming is effective as a turnaround strategy and that he is a master craftsman of turnaround strategy.

Hurricane Katrina: Rise of the Working Class Hero

A natural disaster is not about chanting hymns in worship of God and shedding tears. When the going gets tough, President Obama gets going. Instead of paying a one stop formal visit or an aerial survey that most politicians across the world prefer to sidestep public wrath and fury, the U.S. President Obama rolled his sleeves and got to work with the crew for relief and rehabilitation. The message is loud and clear. First, do not deny a problem when there is one. Second, words of sympathy and assurances are fine. Work for relief and rehabilitation with a hands-on approach is far better. The hurricane proved a time tested truth that holds good for both the electorate and the governing boards of corporations: the best way to win elections is to work to win trust. Everything else will follow.

The War on Terror: Damage Control in Action for Better PR

During the Second World War the strength of the Axis powers collided against the colonial empires of the Allied Powers. Despite the fact that the victory of the Allied powers it was difficult to tell if the battle was between good and evil. The war on terrorism initiated by George W. Bush Jr. was similar. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks it was only rational for the United States of America to take punitive action. But as the war progressed from targeting terrorists to installing puppet regimes in Afghanistan, Iraq, other areas like Egypt and Syria it became increasingly clear that the United States had to change course. While the Syria crisis is work in progress, it must be accepted that Obama showed the world that the hand that can slay the demons can also be the hand that cares for the weak. Obama, the effective diplomat was amply on show during the Af-Pak years. Operation Geronimo was indeed a surgical strike of gold standards of clinical efficiency.

 Obama in India: The Melting Pot of Cultures

The oratory skills of Obama have been closely followed by the world over. There have been several top notch orators who have visited India. But one must accept that Obama’s speeches were not one way traffic flows but rather interactions. The Siri Fort auditorium address in New Delhi, the St.Xavier’s College Mumbai address to students, the address on the floor of the Parliament House in New Delhi where he called upon the inspiration of Swami Vivekananda, his partnership with Dr.Manmohan Singh that gave birth to the Singh Obama Scholarships and his famous handshake at tea with the Indian PM Shri Narendra Modi have been widely followed by people in India. For the first time the Indian Diaspora in the United States and the people of India realized that it is possible to combine the process discipline and efficiency of an American corporate enterprise with the family values of an Indian enterprise. It shall not be incorrect to state that the impact that U.S. President Barrack Obama has created in India is no less than the impact that Rabindranath Tagore had created on his first world tour across Great Britain, United States of America, Argentina, Germany, Italy and Japan or the visit of the Mahatma to Pietermaritzburg in South Africa. These were all game changers.

At Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, we have integrated excerpts from Obama’s autobiography “The Audacity of Hope” in our lectures on business communication, videos of his addresses on foreign tours in Leadership and the implementation of Obama care in the case studies of economic environment of business. Academicians at this top business school of Greater Noida refer to him in the words of John Lennon of Beatles as “working class hero.” The millennial generation of PGDM students refer to him in the words of DJ Bravo: “Don’t forget Michael Jordan ... Obama a champion.”  As we conclude this footnote in the glory of Obama let’s do it in his style of a C-suite corporate leader:

“Let’s get back to work.”

Globalization, Global Exposure and the Global Citizen: Insights from Top MBA Colleges in Delhi NCR

At one of the top MBA Colleges in Delhi NCR, Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, the academic, business and student communities have been engaging in acts of global exposure for the last twenty one years. One of the reasons that students opt for MBA courses in the top MBA Colleges in Delhi NCR is that the place offers a window into the world of opportunities. Probably it is fashionable for academicians of higher education to harp on the strings of well chosen homilies that are outright bookish and textual in their endeavours to define globalization. Given that globalization makes its presence felt in the literature review of more than one academic discipline, the biggest challenge for business school academicians is to optimize the definition that best reflects the aspirations of the community that they epitomize. To put things into a capsule form, there are economic, cultural, social, political, financial, technological, linguistics and historical dimensions of globalization. The reason behind taking up the title of globalization in an academic blog from a business school in Delhi NCR is to ask ourselves about that community of people and category of business interests that we aim to support through our rendition of a definition of globalization. As intellectual as the title gets, it makes enormous good sense to assert that the function of an academician, an intellectual and specifically even a business school faculty is to offer the best possible choice available from a range of options as referred to in his seminal work “The Responsibility of Intellectuals” by celebrated American cognitive scientist and logician Noam Chomsky.

Cherry Picking the Truth of Globalization Sans the Colours of Ideology

Most academicians have unfortunately got accustomed to the bad habit of painting an academic concept in colours of ideology and thereafter presenting a half baked truth on the floor of the classroom to young minds in their lecture sessions. The results are obvious and lackadaisical. As renowned business theoretician Peter Drucker had once written in his book The End of Ideology, the best thing about the 21^st century is that it marks the end of empires that were  built on ideologies that have all at some point of time crumbled to defeat and despair in the face of surmounting empirical evidence pointing to the contrary. Business school academicians for example did rightly celebrate the fall of a myth of the dictatorship of the proletariat when the Gulliver’s giant USSR collapsed and the Berlin Wall was brought down by people from both the sides of Germany. However they for obvious reasons best known only to them fail to acknowledge the fact that a school of thought in business management that fails to defend the lives of 25 million people annually on account of poverty is a failure and a big one at that. They remain conspicuously absent and deafeningly silent on the fact that 8% of the world’s population consumes 70% of the world’s resources and generates 30% of the global climate change. This is where there is a pressing need to obliterate the very narrow view of globalization that has been unfortunately propounded by Anglo-American schools of business thought based on “financialization.” To think of the world as a market, human lives as commodities, problems of local communities as opportunities to extract super normal profits and enlightened self interest or individualism as a sacrosanct philosophy implies that globalization to some MBA and PGDM Colleges is a ‘race to the bottom” to quote the iconic Columbia economist Prof. Jagdish Bhagwati.

Engineering Globalization to Expand Horizons and Enhance Choices

Contrary to the dogmas that exist on the right, left and centre, globalization is the process of connecting nations in the world by means of economic, technological, cultural, linguistic, political and social interfaces that are engineered to achieve desired objectives. At Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, one of the top PGDM Colleges in Delhi NCR and the first MBA College in Greater Noida, we assert that globalization is communication, the language of it best defined in content and form according to the objectives of the communication. We assert that globalization without human engineering turns into carnage of the worst kind where people and planet lose out the pole positions of priority to profit only. We assert the view that it is not in the best interests of investors, clients and employees of any business enterprise to lead sequestered lives in a small world where streamlining the flow of information with regard to the availability of alternatives can expand our choices. In a world that is connected and mobility is enhanced it is possible to make optimal choices for work, investments, education, health care, entertainment and more. In a world that is not connected and mobility is depleted it is possible to make sub optimal choices only.

Globalization is a process and it is for business executives, investors, employees and clients to drop anchor on objectives of economic welfare and not just financial gains. There are three statements that can be stated in defence of this assertion. First, is the quote of U.S President Barrack Obama “If you are only thinking of material gains and what is in it for me, it reflects a poverty of ambition?”  Second is the title of a watershed work in development economics by Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, “Development as Freedom.” Third is the quote of the renowned Cambridge economist Dr.Manmohan Singh, “There is no free market without freedom.”

At the top PGDM College of Delhi NCR, Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, we have conducted more than forty international seminars on tracks of global importance. These international seminars have been graced by the auspicious presence of avant grade ambassadors of governments of different nations. Students of PGDM and MBA have been enabled and empowered to expand horizons by engaging in research in peoples and problems of communities and offer solutions to solve problems and make a visible difference to their lives. In our journey towards global exposure in recent years we have received support from the ambassadors and governments of the following countries: Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Bosnia-Herzigovinia, Denmark, Darussalam Brunei, Zimbabwe, Iceland, Italy, South Korea and Mongolia.

Top Management Thinkers Picked by Top MBA Colleges in Delhi NCR

Top MBA colleges in Delhi NCR in addition to following a rigorous academic curriculum also empower and enable students to follow research works of top management thinkers across the world and India. It makes enormous good sense to assert that globalization and global exposure are mixed bags of opportunities and challenges. If the trickle down economic development is accepted as evidence then it makes further sense to assert that globalization offers more opportunities than challenges. Yet at the heart of the fire that stokes the debate on globalization is why and how economies and markets barbeque themselves in their attempts to radically integrate themselves with the global economy. As such at Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, the advice that we offer to aspiring managers is to follow the works of Joseph Stiglitz, of Columbia business school. Prof. Joseph Stiglitz on many of his books asserts that making globalization work calls for managing in a global economy and adapting best practices across the world to suit local economy and market requirements.  Moving ahead we take a look at the following thinkers bearing the factors of time, space and scale in adapting their thoughts in the global economy.

Peter Drucker: Management Challenges for the 21^st Century

Peter Drucker is known in B-school classrooms for many a theory. Yet the fact that stands apart is that management while having existed for more than three hundred years now has changed drastically in the 21^st century. Drucker ideated and reflected on how management challenges in the 21^st century are going to be very different from those that the world has already faced. There is a growing realization among business leaders and academics that the 21^st century has ushered in post modernism. Modernism was about capitalists. Post modern era is about knowledge workers. At Ishan, one of the best PGDM colleges in Delhi we refer to his books for general management papers.

C.K.Prahalad: Bottom of the Pyramid Market

The late C.K.Prahalad continues to be a string voice from the Third World in the field of business management. Of course there are those seminal works on core competence and VRIO framework, but for emerging economies like India nothing can be of greater significance than the theory and practice of bottom of the pyramid markets. The bottom of the pyramid markets assumes significance for multiple reasons, the biggest of them being the failure of corporate capitalism in ending poverty in the third world. Many years after the demise of Prof. Prahalad, his works continue to be effective in corporate boardrooms and offices today. At Ishan, the glory of Prof.C.K.Prahalad lives through the reference to his works in papers of strategic management, rural management, business environment and general management.

Sir Henry Ford

Sitting in a corporate board room today in the 21^st century, when you look back at the events that shaped modern corporate organizations, it is hard to ignore the contributions of Sir Henry Ford. In business a contribution is an achievement and vice versa. Best practices initiated by Sir Henry Ford in the pre war years in the United States were largely responsible for the expansion and growth of not just Ford Motors but of the entire generation of automobile industry that existed n the United Stated and Europe. Best practices of assembly line production system, bulk production for economies of scale, excess inventory holding of spares and tools, the black colour coding of the iconic Model-T and shop floor approach are still very much in use in large scale industries.

Pankaj Ghemawat: Why the World is not as flat as it appears?

The last twenty years have seen a flurry of Indian Americans striking it rich in business schools in United States. Many of them have gone on to serve various American boards and government institutions. Prof. Ghemawat of the IESE School, Barcelona stands out with his intellect and conviction to challenge the myth of a flat world. His works on the CAGE framework are substantial and perhaps a better substitute for the PEST analysis that has been going on in business schools and MBA colleges since pre-historic ages. Central to the idea of the CAGE framework is the existence of cultural factors in assessing business climate of an economy. In fact at Ishan, we believe that the CAGE is a better tool for assessing the business climate of most emerging economies except China. Competitive politics and a pro-market stature are common to most mainstream political parties in emerging economies. Culture is a sharper differentiator in these economies than politics.

Kaoru Ishikawa: Fishbone in the Board Room

Of the many miracles of economic growth that have taken the world by surprise, Japan remains the most under stated example. Perhaps most people expected Japan to come back strong in the aftermath of the Second World War and hence were not too surprises with the quality revolution. Before there was analytical, predictive and causal modelling using Bayesian networks and before big data had disrupted the way business decisions are linked to cause effect relationships, the fishbone diagram was probably the best exponent of the cause effect relationship in improving quality. In emerging economies like India and in countries of sub-Saharan Africa, quality remains a challenge and Ishikawa’s theories remain a source of guiding light.

The top MBA colleges in Delhi NCR expose students to a world of best practices that is handpicked from different countries and verticals. At Ishan Institute of management & Technology, one of the top PGDM colleges in Delhi NCR we reinvent the academic curriculum and teaching methodology regularly to incorporate the best practices. While the above list is definitely not exhaustive but serves as a sample of the references that we wish to use in learning.